If you are great with a knife in your hand, a good mandoline will still probably speed things up. And if you’re less than great with a knife in your hand, a good mandoline can help you make perfect slices — even paper-thin ones! There are a lot of mandolines on the market, though. For example, there are handheld ones, which can be used over a cutting board or right over a bowl. There are sturdy tabletop ones that take up almost as much room as your toaster (some will even make waffle cuts!). And there are a few options in between (like the handheld one above with a little kickstand of sorts). So how do you know which one is best? You just read this story!
We’ve rounded up the top picks from some of the best websites out there. And then we added our own two cents at the bottom. Luckily, you can’t go wrong with any of these options.
5 of the Best Mandolines for Home Cooks
The Best Mandoline, According to Wirecutter
Super Benriner, $47
If you’ve never heard of this brand before, all you really need to know is that its slicers often appear in restaurant kitchens. Translation: If this mandoline is good enough for professionals who use it day in and day out, it’s good enough for a home cook, too. Wirecutter liked this recently updated model for a few reasons: It’s sturdy (but not bulky), has a double-bevel blade (for soft tomatoes and hard sweet potatoes), and the hand guard has been reworked to grip the produce nice and tight.
The Best Mandoline, According to Cook’s Illustrated
Swissmar Börner Original V-Slicer Plus Mandoline, $50
This slightly-more-expensive mandoline got a perfect score from Cook’s Illustrated for safety, ease of use, cleanup, and performance. To the editors at Cook’s Illustrated, how well a mandoline stores is just as important as how it works. This model overthrew the previous winner because it performs multiple cuts (with multiple blades) and yet stores nicely in a vertical caddy.
The Best Mandoline, According to Epicurious
Kyocera Advanced Ceramic Double-Edged Mandoline, $14
We love that Epicurious picked an inexpensive handheld option! It’s entirely frills-free (the editors say that the “transformer-like parts” of other mandolines just get in the way) and just makes straight cuts in four thicknesses (.5mm, 1.3mm, 3mm, and 2mm). It’s totally uncomplicated, works well (over a bowl or a cutting board), and won’t take up a ton of space in your kitchen. And despite what the price tag would lead you to think, the stainless steel blade stays sharp for years.
The Best Mandoline, According to Good Housekeeping
KitchenAid Hand-Held V-Blade, $20
The Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances and Technology Lab sliced up hundreds of pounds of produce to come up with this list, which named the KitchenAid Hand-Held the best overall. For what it’s worth, it’s also the “Budget Pick” from Wirecutter. Unlike the other handheld mandoline above, this one has blades in a V-shape, which many say helps to guide the produce and can better tackle softer foods. The Institute testers found this outperformed full-sized models that cost way more money.
The Bestselling Mandoline on Amazon
Mueller Austria V-Pro Multi Blade Adjustable Mandoline, $30
Wanna know what most people are buying on Amazon? This mega setup, which comes with five blades that can help you slice, grate, shred, and more. The slice thicknesses can be adjusted from 1 millimeter up to 9 millimeters. And it has a 4.6-star rating and more than 2,780 reviews.
Kitchn’s Thoughts on the Best Mandolines
Honestly, we were shocked that OXO didn’t steal the top spot on anyone’s list. A few Kitchn editors have this guy and have no complaints. Best of all, it’s super easy to change out the blades and adjust the thickness of the cuts.
That said, the Benriner is basically the Vitamix of mandolines — and yet not nearly as expensive as you’d expect after reading a statement like that. (It’s less easy to change the blades on this one, compared to the OXO and others in this story — but we’ll chalk that up to the chefy-ness of the product.) If you’re going to buy a mandoline, you want one with a sharp blade that will stay sharp and that’s exactly what you get with a Benriner. Just one word of caution: Be careful. Mandoline accidents are far too common in the kitchen and, again, the Benriner blades are sharp, sharp, sharp.
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