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See why.The Best Julienne Peelers
What’s a julienne peeler and do you need one in your kitchen to prep vegetables?
By Published May 19, 2023
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What You Need To Know
Julienne peelers are simple tools that can be used to cut rectangular strips called matchsticks from any firm vegetable or fruit, such as carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, squash, potatoes, daikon, papaya, beets, apples, and more. After we tested several models, our winner was the OXO Julienne Prep Y-Peeler, which met all our criteria: It quickly and smoothly cut crisp, neat, uniform matchsticks from a variety of produce with maximal ease and minimal waste. We also highly recommend the Kiwi Pro Slice Peeler—made in a style that’s common in Thailand—for its sharp, wavy blades, as well as its sturdiness and comfortable grip. It readily produced elegant, extra-long julienne that didn’t quite have edges that were as crisply squared as the OXO’s matchsticks, but this wasn't ultimately a detractor. It also made waffle- and wavy-style decorative cuts. The only downside is that its julienne pieces sometimes remained lightly attached lengthwise and had to be gently pulled apart.
What You Need to Know
The julienne (aka matchstick) cut is a classic knife technique that chefs learn in culinary school. Vegetables and fruits cut this way—in long, slim, uniform, squared-off strips that resemble wooden matches—are perfect for slaws and salads, garnishes, and stir-fries; as vegetable noodles; or for making shoestring potatoes and hash browns. In the test kitchen, we also use julienne cuts in recipes when steaming or baking vegetables with fish en papillote, in Japchae and Javaher Polo, and in the classic Thai green papaya salad called som tam.
There are a few ways to produce julienne, and a specialty peeler is just one of them. Even if you lack expert knife skills, we have an easy, modified julienne technique for carrots using a chef’s knife. You can also use our winning mandoline, which works beautifully and quickly but is more expensive and somewhat more dangerous and takes more time to set up and clean up. Julienne peelers promise distinct advantages: They’re very inexpensive and compact, work fast, and require no skill. They also take just seconds to clean.
How It Works
You’ll typically need to peel produce first with a regular vegetable peeler. Then you use the julienne peeler, drawing it along the length of the vegetable to cut long, narrow strips.
Julienne peelers come in two styles; we tested both. Most models are Y-shaped, with dual blades like a typical vegetable peeler—the first blade travels over food and determines the depth of the peeling cut made by the second blade. There’s a key difference with a julienne peeler: In the United States, typical models have a second blade composed of a complicated series of folded metal po...
Everything We Tested
Highly Recommended
- Performance: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease Of Use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
In task after task, from carrots to zucchini and papaya to potatoes, this compact peeler worked neatly, easily, and efficiently to produce piles of crisp, uniform, long matchsticks. It almost never jammed and never dragged while peeling; it cleaned up quickly under the tap. The slightly grippy, rounded handle felt comfortable and its short length kept our hands close to the produce for excellent control and leverage. Its stainless-steel blade remained sharp.
- Performance: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Ease Of Use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
We loved using this Thai-style wavy julienne peeler, which felt comfortable and sharp and quickly helped us produce exceptionally long, elegant julienne shapes in every test. (The blade’s open wave shape encouraged long strands, where the squared-off teeth of most of the other peelers cut strands shorter.) Its nicely rounded, smooth handle and sturdy construction felt secure and gave us good leverage. Its only minor disadvantage was that some julienned pieces tended to remain slightly stuck together, but a few gentle tugs afterward separated them easily. Using it in a crisscross pattern created lattice and waffle cuts, and its wavy blade left a lovely surface pattern on produce, making it useful for decorative garnishes.
- Performance: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Ease Of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
This Thai-style model’s sharp, wavy steel blade produced heaps of elegant, long julienne with ease. It wasn’t the most comfortable or secure to handle, however. The hollow plastic handle felt slightly too long and a bit flimsy to hold; it flexed while traveling over firm produce. Its head turns 90 degrees to set the blade perpendicular to the handle, like Y peelers. But it was stiff and snappy to rotate, and the process felt risky since you had to grab it near sharp blades and a pointed, serrated protrusion. That said, now we have to write, “But wait—there’s more!” Like the other Thai peeler, you can use it to make waffle and lattice cuts. But its hollow handle also doubles as a corer; a tiny, sharp plastic tab on the head neatly scores oranges for easy peeling; and that spearlike protrusion can cut zigzags around soft fruit to separate it into decorative halves.
Recommended with reservations
- Performance: 2 stars out of 3.
- Ease Of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 2 stars out of 3.
This heavy stainless-steel peeler felt solid in hand, but its long handle with a skinny neck gave us less leverage than models that we could grip closer to the head, and its blade felt a bit less sharp than desired. It performed best on soft zucchini, but firmer carrots, potatoes, and green papaya took noticeably more effort than our favorites. We also disliked that its blade had small serrations that left grooves on food; potato matchsticks looked thin, limp, and ribbonlike and were wet with juices. The dual blades were set closer together than on top performers; they nearly touched. Shreds of food got stuck in its teeth.
Not Recommended
- Performance: 2 stars out of 3.
- Ease Of Use: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
This peeler started out well, but its performance began to flag halfway through testing as blades apparently dulled. It julienned soft zucchini easily, making nice, long matchsticks; with carrots, it started out fine, but halfway through started to jam and drag. It continued struggling in our next tests with potatoes and papaya. The close-set, nearly touching blades stuck and jammed up frequently, and using it felt herky-jerky. By the end of testing, one threadlike steel blade tip appeared to have broken off, leaving a gap in its “teeth.” We liked the idea of this model’s handle, which slides up to cover the blade for safe storage, but we never actually used it because it was awkward to close and open.
- Performance: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Ease Of Use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1.5 stars out of 3.
The close-set and fairly dull blades on this peeler never really performed except on soft zucchini, where it did an excellent job. Otherwise, we had to force it along as it dragged through carrots, creating oddly irregular strips; on potatoes, it got stuck and made thin, floppy julienne. Papaya strips were flat, thin, and hard to generate. Food stuck in its teeth and made it hard to clean.
- Performance: 1 stars out of 3.
- Ease Of Use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
The narrow, cramped head and short blade of this heavy steel Y-shaped peeler meant that it had trouble cutting a swath through vegetables, slowing us down as we worked. Worse, its blade felt dull and frequently became jammed with food. The delicate, wispy threads it cut could hardly be called matchsticks. We usually had to pick pieces of stuck food out of the blades as we washed it. There are better choices.
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing.
Lisa McManus
Lisa is an executive editor for ATK Reviews, cohost of Gear Heads on YouTube, and gadget expert on TV's America's Test Kitchen.
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