The Best Fruit and Vegetable Peelers

Inexpensive, effective, agile, and easy to use, this longtime favorite Y peeler has held up well in our test kitchen; we have used this model for more than a decade. Light as a feather, it did not fatigue our hands. The dual blade is carbon steel, like high-end chef’s knives, and it stayed sharp. Slim and flexible, the blades glided smoothly whether we were peeling carrots or rock-hard butternut squash, while their angle peeled just deeply enough to avoid wasting food. Nearly an inch of space between the blade and peeler body prevented peels from jamming and gave us excellent visibility as we worked. Note: Carbon steel may rust if left wet, so wash and dry the blade promptly; an occasional wipe with mineral oil will keep it in top shape.

Testers liked that this straight peeler was light and comfortable. “It felt safe and effective, easy and smooth,” one noted. Peels were nicely thin; it picked up almost no traces of pith from a lemon. Its stainless-steel blade resists rust, and its design works well for righties and lefties, including the potato-eye remover, which safely scooped downward from the tip of the peeler. One quibble: The portion of the head holding the blade curves down past the blade, so we couldn’t get the blade itself flush with a chocolate bar’s surface to produce wide curls (you could still make skinny curls using the thin edge of a chocolate bar). The head is also a bit thick, slightly blocking our view, but for those who love a straight peeler, it’s a good choice.

This substantial peeler felt heavy, but its smooth, rounded steel handle and silicone trim were pleasant to hold, if bulky for testers with smaller hands. It peeled very well and thinly; we were able to achieve picture-perfect lemon peels with zero pith, and it easily conquered tough squash and gnarly celery root. Testers felt it lacked some agility, and it had no potato-eye remover.

Testers liked the grippy silicone ridges at the top of the handle and found it comfortable; our lefty tester loved the potato-eye tool, which is scooped out on both sides, making it ambidextrous. However, compared to top-rated peelers it peeled a bit too thickly and felt slightly less agile, especially in tighter nooks and crannies. Peels sometimes jammed and had to be plucked out before it could continue. The stainless-steel blade resists rusting.

The fat, squishy silicone handle of this straight peeler struck one tester as “like holding a Superball shaped like a bar of soap.” Its peels varied in thickness, but on average were a bit thicker than we preferred. The potato-eye tool on the tip points upward and skidded off a potato to slash a tester’s finger, drawing blood. But overall, this peeler worked easily and smoothly, and we felt like we had good control. Just skip the eye tool.

Though it was described as a universal peeler, this model has a serrated blade, which left ridges on food that most testers disliked. It peeled fairly well but thickly. It handled dense celery root with ease, but the low bridge between the blade and body of the peeler encouraged jamming. Squash peels and ginger skin got stuck, making the tool skip over the surface rather than biting in, and chocolate curls broke. The handle felt too skinny for some testers (“feels dainty,” one said), and it was hard to control when we tried to slice a nice long peel of lemon skin, so we got short pieces instead.

This lightweight and fairly grippy tool started out doing a decent job, smoothly tackling most tasks and being fairly agile around curves, though in the end we judged that it was a “middle-of-the-road” performer. Our left-handed tester liked the indents at the top of the handle. Its potato-eye tool points up, not the safest direction, and its head points down, so you can’t get the blade flush with the surface of chocolate to make curls. But its biggest flaw is that it definitely lost sharpness over the course of testing.

The weightiest peeler in the lineup was “comfortable” but “unnecessarily heavy” and its steel handle felt “slippery.” Its blade was sharp and usually peeled easily, but because it peeled fairly thickly, it sometimes got stuck—as it did in butternut squash and celery root—feeling “herky jerky.” Peels sometimes jammed under its low bridge. Its potato-eye removing tool was blunt and some testers complained that its wide head blocked our view.

Every tester’s first impression? “This is heavy!” One of the weightiest peelers in the lineup, this solid chrome-plated metal peeler had a thin, contoured handle that struck some as awkward to use, including our left-handed tester. While sharp, it wasn’t terribly agile and peeled quite thickly. One tester noted they had to use more pressure to get it going. It did well with butternut squash’s tough skin and made good chocolate curls, but it got stuck in lemon peel, jamming and skipping over the flesh. We liked the visibility the Y shape provided.

Very lightweight and sharp, this model led us to expect good performance, but it was not very comfortable to hold. Based on the popular European REX peeler designed in 1947, this version was launched in 2021 after Victorinox acquired the firm that made the REX. Our biggest issues? It peeled fairly thickly, so it got stuck in squash and couldn’t make chocolate curls; plus, the open loop that served as a handle and deep indentations at the neck forced us to take a specific grip that gave it less affordance and created more hand strain than we prefer.

This peeler was big and long, taking away leverage and control and intimidating testers (“I feel like I’m using a sword,” one said). It came with a blade cover, which was useful for storage; the blade felt very sharp to the touch, slicing up our sponge and dish towel (one tester also got a small cut peeling potatoes). It peeled very thickly—one of the thickest in the lineup—almost creating slices. The metal handle’s rounded edges didn’t dig into our palms as much as expected, but it wasn’t comfortable, either. While it effectively tackled celery root, it got stuck in butternut squash and was too powerful to finesse more delicate jobs. “When you’re peeling, you’re looking for precision,” one tester observed. “Anyone who uses this is not going to get that.”

This near-clone of the Kuhn Rikon Original Swiss Peeler shared many of the same design characteristics as our winner—but didn’t perform nearly as well. It dug in and peeled much more thickly than the rest of the lineup, and, as a result, felt more draggy to work with and frequently stuck in food. The first of its dual blades is taller and perceptibly less flexible than our winning peeler, which might have contributed to its sticking in food. Chocolate shavings came out like slabs and could not curl.

This classic “old-school” peeler wasn’t terrible; of course you could peel with it. But as one tester put it, “there are better choices.” The unpadded stainless-steel handle dug into our hands, and its blade felt only “moderately” sharp. Peeling was tiring and “a bit of a struggle.” One tester said it felt “flimsy and cheap . . . honestly, this is the kind of peeler I grew up hating.”

This all-steel model was a clone of the “old-school” Linden Sweden Jonas peeler, and while it technically worked, and peeled thinly, its sharp metal handle was uncomfortable to use; our fingers were dented after peeling one potato. “I think there’s a reason peelers have evolved to have a thicker, rounder handle,” one tester pointed out. Over the course of testing it became duller, making the blade drag and taking more effort from us. “You know how many potato-peeling races I would lose if I had to use this thing?” asked a test cook who was a former restaurant chef.

With a chunky, square shape and slightly slippery handle that felt awkward to testers with larger hands, this peeler also suffered from a blade that dulled by the end of testing. “I’m getting some bruising damage [on the potato] from pressing down on the peeler,” a tester noted. The potato juices made our hands wet and slippery. The peeler also struggled to follow curves and skidded off food. Its low bridge and deep blade angle frequently jammed with peels and broke chocolate curls. Its wide head blocked our view of the action.

An updated version of a peeler we previously tested, this model is worn like a ring. The big plastic shield protects your palm as you swipe across vegetables to peel them. While the blade felt reasonably sharp, the peeler itself was frustrating—we simply could not see what we were doing. One tester said that it felt like “an accident waiting to happen.” Peels jammed and clogged at times, and it was hard to clean, since the shield edges snagged them. “This is a peeler fail,” another commented. “What a mess.”

This innovative model looks like a rubber stamp and sometimes peeled vegetables about as well. Clunky and awkward, it blocked our view of the peeling activity. Its blade was dull by the end of testing. “What is happening? I can’t get any peel to come off,” one tester wailed. It was herky-jerky, tiring work to peel a squash and we struggled with potatoes. “You’re both too close and too far from the potato,” one tester said. “It feels like [I’m] holding a doorknob.”

An interesting concept, this model came with a cartridge of serrated and julienne blades that you could switch with the straight blade for three tools in one. Too bad it was so poorly executed. The bulky trim on the head around the blades snagged food and was impossible to clean, despite repeated attempts—making it unsanitary. We had to use a good deal of pressure to remove carrot peels, bruising the vegetable. It stuck and ripped chunks out of squash and celery root. Peels jammed. Its big head blocked our view, and the body felt oversized and ungainly. By the end of testing it had dulled.