Zulay Garlic Press vs OXO Garlic Press

I will give you the short version first, because that is how I like to read these things. If you want a garlic press that does the job, cleans up fast, and does not make you mutter every time you reach for it, the Zulay is the one that has lived on my counter for a year. The OXO is a good press too, and in two specific ways it is genuinely better. But for the way I actually cook on a Tuesday night, with the clock running and the counter crowded, the Zulay wins, and I will tell you exactly why.

Garlic is not optional in my kitchen. I cooked on the line in New Orleans for years, and I still cannot make a red gravy, a roast, or a simple pan of greens without three or four cloves. My wife Denise teases me about it, and my teenage son has learned to just hand me the head of garlic before I ask. For a long time I used the jarred stuff out of habit, then I got tired of that taste and started mincing by hand with a knife. That worked fine until I needed a whole bulb for Sunday dinner. A press is faster, and it keeps the mess off the cutting board, which matters in a 1990s ranch kitchen where the counter disappears the second the grocery bags come in.

How I Tested Both

I have used the Zulay press for about a year now, three or four nights a week, and it has long since earned its place in my utensil drawer. To write this comparison honestly I bought the OXO about six weeks ago and ran the two side by side for a full month. Same recipes, same garlic from the same stand at the Saturday market, same nights of the week. I timed how long it took to peel, press, and clean each one. I used each press for a whole week at a time so I would not be swayed by a first impression. I cleaned them by hand, because that is what I actually do most nights, and I also ran each one through the dishwasher a few times to see whether either came out worse for it.

The test recipes were ordinary weeknight stuff, nothing fancy. Chicken thighs braised with a dozen cloves of garlic. A quick pasta with garlic and olive oil that my son asks for by name. A big pot of white beans on Sunday that uses a whole bulb. That Sunday pot is the honest stress test, because a press that only handles two cloves neatly is not the press for my house. I also paid attention to the small things that matter over a month of use: whether the press wobbled on the counter, whether the handle pinched my palm, and whether the leftover pulp stuck in the holes like cement.

One Sunday in early spring I pressed a full bulb for the beans, first with the OXO and then with the Zulay, back to back. With the OXO I peeled twelve cloves by hand, which took me about four minutes, then pressed them in batches of three. Cleanup was genuinely easy: the chamber swung open and the pins pushed everything out in one motion. Then I did the same bulb with the Zulay. The difference that day was not the press, it was the peeler tube. I rolled each clove in the tube for a few seconds and the skin came off in one piece, so the peeling took about ninety seconds total. The pressing was just as fast, and cleanup with the little tool took maybe a minute. Same garlic, same night, and the Zulay got dinner on the table about three minutes sooner, almost all of it saved on peeling.

Before I got serious about a press, my baseline was a chef's knife. I still mince garlic by hand when I only need one clove for a salad dressing, because getting out a press for a single clove feels like overkill. But the moment a recipe calls for more than two, the knife loses. I timed it: four cloves by hand took me about two minutes and left the cutting board sticky, while the same four cloves through either press took under thirty seconds and left almost nothing behind. That is the whole argument for owning a press at all, and both of these do that part of the job well.

	Zulay	OXO
Price	Usually a few dollars less for the same job	Costs a bit more for the name
Material	Stainless steel, has not bent or stained in a year	Aluminum with a soft-touch coating
Cleaning	Comes with a small tool you poke through the holes; works, but it is one more step	Chamber swings fully open and built-in pins push the pulp out
Comfort	Metal handle, perfectly fine for a few cloves	Soft grip handle, noticeably easier on the hands for a whole bulb
What is in the box	Includes a silicone tube to peel garlic and a cleaning tool	Just the press itself
Capacity	Holds about three large cloves at once	Holds about three large cloves at once
Warranty	Lifetime guarantee from the brand	Lifetime guarantee, famous for being honored without a fight

Where Zulay Wins

The material is the first thing I noticed, and a year later it is still the thing I notice. The Zulay is stainless steel, and it looks the same today as the day it arrived. No bending, no staining, no coating peeling off at the edges. The OXO is aluminum with a soft-touch finish, and while it has held up fine over six weeks, I have owned enough coated kitchen tools over the years to know that finish does not always age gracefully. Garlic is acidic, which can be hard on bare metal, and this press has not shown a single mark where the cloves sit. That matters to me because I do not want to rebuy a gadget every eighteen months.

Then there is what comes in the box, and this is where the Zulay quietly wins the weeknight argument. The Zulay arrives with a silicone tube for peeling garlic and a small tool for cleaning out the holes. The tube is not a gimmick, I have seen tubes like it for years and assumed they were, and I was wrong. You drop a clove in, roll it on the counter for about ten seconds, and the skin comes off in one piece. I timed it one evening: eleven seconds from drawer to clean clove on the first try. For someone who cooks with garlic every night, that tube is worth a good portion of the price of the press on its own.

The cleaning tool earns its keep too. It is a small thing, not much bigger than a toothpick, but it clears every hole in about fifteen seconds and it lives in my utensil drawer right next to the press. Some folks say you can just rinse the press and let the holes clear themselves, but I found the tool is faster and it means the next clove does not come out carrying yesterday's dried pulp. Fifteen seconds at the sink is a small price for a clean press every single time, and on a crowded counter it is the difference between a tool I reach for and a tool I hide in the back of the drawer.

Where OXO Wins

I am not going to pretend the OXO is a bad press, because it is not, and if you only read the rave reviews you would think it walks on water. The one thing it does clearly better is cleaning. The chamber swings fully open, which means you can see every single hole, and the built-in pins push the pulp out in one motion. With the Zulay I have to use the little tool, and while it works fine, it is still an extra step at the sink. On a night when I have pressed a whole bulb for the Sunday beans, that open chamber is genuinely nicer, and I would be lying if I said otherwise.

The OXO also has a softer grip, and I can feel the difference on a night when my hands are tired after a long day at the warehouse. The Zulay handle is plain metal, which is perfectly fine for a few cloves, but the OXO padded handle is easier on the palm when I am pressing a whole bulb at once. If you have arthritis or weak hands, that grip difference alone might settle the question for you. I do not have that problem yet, but I know plenty of people in my family who do, and I would not blame them for choosing the OXO on that basis.

And OXO has a reputation for honoring its lifetime guarantee without a receipt fight. I have not needed to test either guarantee, so I am going on reputation here, but that reputation is a real part of why so many people buy OXO and never look back. Those are the honest reasons someone might pick the OXO over the Zulay: easier cleaning, a softer grip, and a warranty history that people trust. I would not argue with any of them, and I do not think the Zulay crowd should either.

Who Should Buy Which

Buy the OXO if you press garlic in serious volume, if you have arthritis or weak hands and need the softer grip, or if you want the easiest cleanup on the market and are willing to pay a little more for it. It is a great press and I understand why it has so many loyal fans. But buy the Zulay if you are like me: a home cook who uses garlic most nights, wants a press that will not bend or stain, likes getting a peeler tube and a cleaning tool in the box, and does not want to spend extra just for the name on the handle.

Think about your own week for a minute. If you press three cloves three nights a week, the extra cleaning step on the Zulay costs you about a minute total per week. If you press a whole bulb on Sunday, that minute turns into three. The math is simple, and for most home cooks the Zulay is the better trade. Keep the OXO in mind for the heavy days, but buy the press you will actually reach for on a Tuesday, and for me that is the Zulay every time.

The Bottom Line

Both of these presses do the one job they are supposed to do: turn a clove of garlic into fine mince in a few seconds with far less mess than a knife. The Zulay wins on price, on material, and on what it gives you in the box. The OXO wins on cleaning and on grip comfort. For a weeknight cook with a crowded counter and a small drawer, the Zulay is the better value, and it is the one I keep out. The OXO has gone back in the drawer, and I do not miss it.

If you have been going back and forth between the two the way I did, my advice is to stop overthinking it. Buy the Zulay, use the peeler tube the first night, and see how fast the garlic goes from head to pan. If you find yourself pressing whole bulbs every single day, then go ahead and trade up to the OXO for the cleaning. But for the rest of us, the Zulay is the press that earns its counter space, and that is the highest compliment I can give a kitchen tool.