I’ve used a lot of mandoline-style slicers over the years. And while they all work with varying degrees of success, I have had a recurring issue with all of them, which is that even with the plastic guard they provide, I often feel – especially with wet hands – as if I am going to take the top layer of my thumb off one of these days. I don’t shy away from a knife for most applications so I don’t break this out for a lot of the uses pictured in the product descriptions. But there are times where I want absolutely perfectly uniform slices of potatoes, carrots, or some other food and just don’t trust myself enough to eyeball it, and that’s when I reach for a mandoline. One year, I even shaped my sugar cookie dough into a log and cut it with this slicer, not out of necessity, but just to see if it would work, and it did! Perfectly uniform cookies, all the exact same thickness, all baked to perfection.
There are two advantages to this style. First and foremost, standing up as it does, it allows gravity to feed the food down towards the path of the blade, so you don’t have to do it yourself. And secondly, if you use the included piece that fits in the chute to push items down towards the blade with one hand, and you are operating the blade mechanism with the other hand, then there’s no way you could possibly have a finger in the path of the blade while you’re cutting.
Switching to strips for french fries is easy and done at the turn of a dial on the back, as is adjusting the thickness. This thing gets my ringing endorsement.
There are two sizes, a small one and a large one. The large one is only $12 more ($7 more if you get it during a sale) and I would absolutely recommend you get the large one. The wider footprint makes it a little more stable and the smaller chute on the smaller model struggles to fit larger potatoes inside.
