The Salad Spinner I Almost Returned and Now Use Weekly

For years I told myself a salad spinner was exactly the kind of gadget that promises to change your weeknight dinners and then sits in a cabinet until you finally donate it. I ran a line at a restaurant for the better part of a decade, so I learned to rinse and spin greens by hand with a towel and a good shake, fast enough to keep service moving. When my wife Denise brought home the OXO Good Grips salad spinner last spring, I rolled my eyes and told her we would be returning it within the month. She just smiled, set it on the counter, and went back to chopping.

I have a rule about counter space, and it is not a gentle rule. We live in a 1990s ranch house in Hammond, Louisiana, with a mid-size kitchen and one stretch of usable counter about three feet long. Every gadget has to earn that real estate or it goes. I cook dinner for three most weeknights and for a bigger family crowd on Sundays, and I have watched a parade of single-use tools come through this house and leave again. A pineapple corer lasted two weeks. A garlic press made it a month. I assumed the OXO spinner would be next in line, and I told Denise so.

The first few times I used it, I was ready to call it. I hate the spinners where you hold the lid with one hand and crank with the other, and this one felt like it was going to be that. The pump handle seemed stiff, the bowl was bigger than I expected, and I had already decided it was taking up space I did not have. I nearly put it in the donation box twice before I ever gave it a fair shot. Then a Thursday happened that changed my mind, and I have used it almost every week since.

That Thursday I was making dinner for the three of us plus a salad for the next day's lunches, which meant a full head of romaine, a bunch of herbs from the garden, and a pint of berries. In the old routine, that was ten minutes of towel-spinning, a soaked counter, and a pile of limp leaves. I grabbed the spinner out of spite more than hope. I filled the basket about two-thirds, gave the pump a dozen presses, and popped the brake. When I lifted the basket, the greens were dry enough to dress on the spot. No wilting. No puddle. No soggy bottom of the bowl. That is the moment the OXO earned its place.

A dozen presses of the pump and a pop of the brake, and a full head of romaine was dry enough to dress on the spot.

The pump mechanism is the part I almost missed because I was too busy being annoyed. It is a plunger style, so you push down and it pulls water up and over the basket, which means you are not fighting a flimsy crank that strips gears after a few months. The brake button on top stops the basket instantly, which sounds like a small thing until you have chased a spinning bowl across the counter. And the bowl is not just a bowl. It has a pour spout, so I drain pasta water with it, and I rinse berries and cherry tomatoes in the basket before I spin them dry.

Now it lives on the counter, which is the highest compliment I give a tool in this house. It earns the space because I reach for it for more than salad. I wash herbs and spin them dry so they keep for an extra few days. I rinse quinoa and lentils. I spin shredded cabbage for slaw. On Sundays when the whole family comes over, I use it to wash and dry a big batch of greens for a crowd without standing over the sink for twenty minutes. The basket is big enough for a full head of lettuce, and the whole thing comes apart into pieces that rinse clean in about a minute.

I will be straight with you about the downsides, because I do not write about gadgets I would hand you without warning. It is not small. On a tight counter it will be the biggest thing you own, and if you refuse to keep it out, you will stop using it. The pump takes a little getting used to, and if you fill the basket past the line, the greens do not dry as well because they do not have room to tumble. None of that stopped me, but you should know it before you buy one.

One Sunday I used the OXO to wash and spin three heads of lettuce for a family dinner of ten, and it handled the whole batch in two loads. That was the moment I stopped thinking of it as a one-trick gadget and started thinking of it as the fastest way I own to get water off anything. The brake, the pour spout, the basket that doubles as a strainer, it all adds up to a tool I reach for several times a week. That is a lot more than I expected from a gadget I was ready to donate.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you were sitting across from me at my kitchen table, I would tell you this: do not buy a salad spinner hoping it will make you eat more salad. It will not. Buy it because you are tired of wet lettuce, tired of a soaked counter, tired of greens that go slimy in the fridge three days after you wash them. The OXO version earns its place because it does the job fast, it does not fight you, and it cleans up in under a minute. I almost returned mine, and now I use it every single week. That is the whole review, and it is the truth.