The Safest & Best Mandoline Slicer in 2024
By Bobby B. | June 3, 2020 | Kitchen Accessories
The age-old issue on how to slice vegetables in the kitchen quickly, but also safely. Those with great knife skills will swear by slicing them with a kitchen knife, probably a chef’s knife or if you’re lucky enough to have one, a nakiri. But, for the rest of the world, there are mandolines. The best mandoline slicers allow for the quick, consistent veggie slices. It’s that consistency that’s the key here. It’s creates a slice after slice at just the right thickness…the thickness you set on the mandoline.
Like all kitchen knives though, they use ultra-sharp fixed blades for slicing the veggies, thus leaving potential for cutting yourself if you’re not careful. For this reason, part of our reviews below will focus not only on finding the best, but also the safest mandoline slicer.
Our Top 5 Favorite Mandoline Slicers
There are tons of different mandolines and other veggie slicers available today. They come in all different shapes and sizes, and even differ wildly in price point. Our favorite models are shown below with a detailed review on each mandoline describing what we liked or disliked about it. The main factors we feel are important for a mandoline to make this list are reliability, consistency, speed, customer feedback, and of course safety.
With the Dash Safe Slice mandoline, there’s never a need to get your fingers or hand anywhere near the blade. It’s also not exposed like it is on so many less-safe, traditional slicers. Not only is it the safest mandoline available, but it makes quick, consistent cuts also. With over 30 different slicing options in thicknesses from 1 to 8 millimeters, it should do just about any job you could ever throw at it. And how do customers like the Dash safe slice? Well, quite frankly, they love it! Check out the great reviews at Amazon by clicking on the link below.
This mandoline slicer uses a very similar motion as our top pick, making it equally safe to operate because the blades stay hidden. It’s available in 3 different colors to match your kitchen and can do all sorts of different cuts. There’s a know for controlling thickness with 8 settings from 0.5mm up to 8mm. Last but not least, probably our favorite feature… it collapses for storage in your drawers or cabinets, making it a cinch to hide in your kitchen.
This is the most fully-functional vegetable mandoline slicer we could find. It is a chopper, slicer, dicer, egg separater & slicer, peeler, and juicer all in one. On top of that, there are 11 different blades that can be used with it for all types of additonal cuts. While this model from Fullstar does have an exposed blade, they do ship this slicer with a pair of protective, cut-resistant gloves to make it safer to use.
This is the original Bron mandoline slicer that’s made in France. This high-end slicer is built to last. Most often used in professional kitchens due to the shear volume of slicing needed, this stainless steel mandoline is quite durable. This awesome tool is perfect for slicing vegetables, hard fruits, meats, and cheeses. It can slice, chip, waffle, julienne, and ripple cut. Its thickness is also adjustable so there is no need to swap blades in and out all the time, making this mandoline safer than most.
This is one of the most popular mandolines available for sale. It’s partly due to the shear number of functions this cool little device can do. It’s so much more than just a mandoline slicer. It will also spiralize and julienne veggies, grate cheese, and do ribbon cuts. It’s also easy to adjust the thickness with a small switch and even easier to catch all the slices with the included container that attaches directly to the mandoline. The other reason it’s very popular… the price-point. This is a very budget-friendly option and worth a look. It also comes with gloves and a food holder for safety.
Mandoline Slicer Buying Guide
It’s almost humorous how many different types of mandolines exist on the market today. Like I said above, all different shapes and sizes. But, our major concern at BladeAdvisor is trying to help you identify the best mandoline slicer that’s also safe to use in your kitchen. Mandoline mishaps aren’t fun, and they can be quite dangerous if you’re not sure what you’re doing… or more likely, you’re just not paying enough attention to what you’re doing. Yes, even we’ve had these mishaps, and thus the reason for this guide.
These are the critical few items that will assist you in finding the best, and safest mandoline that you can without breaking your budget. Not surprisingly, they are also how we chose mandolines for our list above. They include blade exposure, safety tools, thickness adjustment, storage, catching the slices, and speed.
Blade Exposure
Many traditional mandoline slicers have an exposed blade like shown in the picture here. This can be very dangerous if your hand slips as you’re stroking a vegetable back and forth over the blade. There have been several new-fangled designs that have come out in recent years that cover the blade and allow you to slice veggies much more safely.
Safety Tools
One way to get around the dangerous exposed blade is to provide the user with some sort of safety tool to hold the food with while swiping back and forth over the blade. This usually comes in one of two forms. 1. Something similar to what’s pictured here or 2. a pair of cut-resistant gloves that will protect your hands in the event of a slip.
Thickness Adjustment
Some mandolines require pre-set, fixed blades to be swapped out in order to change the slice thickness. This is a poor design in our opinion for multiple reasons. Needing to handle additional blades is an unnecessary saftey risk, but it also means you’ll need somewhere to store all the extra blades. An adjustment knob or switch is much better!
Storage
When buying a mandoline slicer, don’t forget to consider where you’ll be storing it. Some slicers are big and bulky. The best mandolines fold up and become very compact for storage in a drawer or cabinet. Most people don’t have kitchen storage space, and therefore need to conserve whenever possible.
Slice Catcher
They’re probably not really called slice catchers, but I think you get the point. Some designs don’t allow for any way to catch the slices as they come off the mandoline. In the past, I’ve resorted to trying to wedge a plate underneath, but that doesn’t work well. The design shown here is nice, but there are several different ways to do it.
Slicing Speed
It’s not a race, and we certainly don’t want you to rush and get hurt. But, if you think about it, the real reason you’d use a mandoline slicer over a knife is to make more consistent slices faster. If you only need 2-3 slices of something, you’re not going to pull out the mandoline for that task. The stand-up push rod-style like the ones at the top of our best mandoline list allows for a quick and easy motion for slicing over and over.
Conclusion
Okay so it’s not rocket science to buy a mandoline, but there are several different designs, some with dangerous safety flaws in our opinion. The guide above should help you identify the best (and safest) slicer for your kitchen. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about mandolines and hope you’ll stay to check out our kitchen knives reviews.
As a quick reminder, we chose the Dash Safe Slicer as our top mandoline. We encourage you to check one out today!