Salad Spinners

The newly updated model of our former favorite now has a much-improved brake and a rounder bowl shape. It worked easily—with just one hand—and was the most effective of our lineup at removing water from a variety of greens, with good clearance under the basket to collect runoff. Its lid is simple to pull apart (and click back together) for easy cleaning and drying, and it's dishwasher-safe. Our only quibble: A central stem protrudes from the lid into the middle of the basket by 2 inches, which slightly bruised baby spinach we'd heaped in, although the greens pressed against the outer walls as soon as we started spinning.

We're not sure why this oversize spinner is called a “space saver,” but we loved its supersmooth crank mechanism; its easy, effective brake; and its generous, unobstructed capacity. It was a little less effective at removing water than our top choice but was still well ahead of the rest of the pack. The lid mechanism trapped a little water unless we carefully shook it out.

While its pull cord is smooth, this model's black plastic top and stainless-steel bowl mean you can't see what is happening inside, and the spinning is virtually silent, making it hard to know how well it's working. But it spun cherry tomatoes so effectively that the extracted juices were whipped to a froth, and it did a fair job of drying greens. It had very good clearance under the basket for runoff water, and its basket held a lot since it was unobstructed. Some testers voiced concern over keeping the woven-fabric pull cord clean, though the rest of the device was simple to disassemble for washing.

Rippled interior ribs all around the perimeter of the basket and a deep lid cut this spinner's capacity down to about 84 percent of those of our top-rated models. The rippled shape was touted as making the spinner more efficient, but we did not notice a significant difference. The lever mechanism snapped up like a catapult when it was unlocked from the flat top and was hard to push for the first few pumps. The sluggish brake was ineffective. The lid had a liner plate that constantly fell off unless perfectly oriented and firmly pressed.

This tube pan–shaped spinner's central stem ate up a lot of space; this model held about 63 percent of the capacity of our top-rated spinners. Some testers were stumped by the mechanism that unlocked the bowl and raised it on its stem. While it was easy to spin empty, once loaded with heavy wet leeks or greens, it took a full-body press with both arms to pump the entire bowl down to dry the greens. Thirty seconds of this felt like 30 minutes. It is not dishwasher-safe and it had multiple parts that were hard to dry.

These two models were identical, though the two companies said that they were unaware of this when we contacted them. Their small, narrow baskets held about 77 percent as many greens as our top-rated models and were thin and flimsy, buckling under the weight of three chopped leeks. The baskets were positioned low in the bowls, so spun greens sometimes sat in runoff water. After cleaning, water got trapped under the cranks and oozed out when we turned them days later. Difficult and wobbly to turn, with offset cranks on top, these models were a pain to use. The pair of large, clumsy lid latches wouldn't clip properly if either was aligned over any of 10 plastic nubs protruding around the perimeters of the bowls.