The Best Rasp-Style Graters

This Microplane grabbed the top spot thanks to its great performance and its soft, grippy rubber handle that was slightly more comfortable and secure than that of our old winner. Otherwise, their grating surfaces are identical, so they both shredded cheese, zested lemons, and grated nutmeg, garlic, and ginger with ease. The Premium Classic came sharp, stayed sharp, and looked as good as new after testing. We do wish it had a wider surface so it didn’t form a trench in our cheese while grating, but it’s still the best option out there.

Our previous winner turned in an admirable performance. Its medium-size teeth bit into cheese, lemons, and whatever else we used it on with speed and ease. It was as sharp at the end of testing as it was at the beginning, and it looked just as good, too. Its rounded plastic handle was comfortable, though harder and not as grippy as that of our winner, so we docked a few points; it also has the same cheese trenching problem. It remains a great option.

This grater had the widest teeth, at 4.36 square millimeters. They dug into Parmesan with gusto but were too wide for lemons, sinking deeply into the skin and getting stuck, often digging out too much bitter pith along with the zest. And while its handle was soft and grippy, this grater was too small and its rectangular shape felt awkward to some. Its wide 2-inch grating surface wore down the cheese more evenly than narrow-surfaced models (no gouged trenches).

Testers liked this 3-inch-wide paddle grater because it didn’t carve trenches in the cheese like the narrower models did. Overall it grated fairly well, though its slightly smaller teeth didn’t dig into the food quite as well as other models, and its Parmesan shreds were more broken up (not an issue for most recipes but slightly less attractive for sprinkling). This grater worked just as well at the end of testing but had some cosmetic wear.

This “elite” Microplane had smaller teeth, about 2 square millimeters, that were raised enough to grip the food initially but too small to hold onto it, so cheese shreds and lemon zest went flying down its face. And its teeth were arranged in rows that ran from left to right downward, so every food we slid across its surface followed the flow of the holes and skidded off to the right. Some testers also thought its handle dug into their palms, and it looked a little beat-up at the end of testing.

This grater had open teeth that bit into lemon rind too deeply, got stuck, and then removed too much white pith along with the zest. Its handle, which was small and rectangular, dug into our hands uncomfortably. It had a small plastic slider designed to clear food off the blade; it worked fairly well but wasn’t attached to the grating surface, and we lost it almost immediately down the drain.

This grater had the most teeth (329), but they were the tiniest of all the models we tested (0.9 square millimeters—ranging from one-quarter to one-third the size of the other graters’ teeth). Because its teeth were so small, it grated very finely and took forever: two minutes to grate an ounce of Parmesan compared with around 40 seconds for top models. It had a comfortable handle, but it was far too slow to be a real contender.

The teeth on this sturdy, attractive model started out very sharp, but they were wide and dug a little too deeply into the lemon rind. This model tied with another for the fastest time to grate an ounce of Parmesan: 42 seconds. But by the end of testing, its teeth had dulled considerably, and it took 1 minute and 22 seconds (twice as long) to grate a same-size chunk of cheese. We compared a new model with our testing model and could see that the used grater’s teeth were worn and flattened.