All hail the salad spinner. It’s true, the salad spinner is one of mankind’s greatest creations. While it may or may not have been discovered on accident, there is no denying that washing lettuce isn’t fun but super fast spinning pieces of plastic are. 

As a kid I used to wash and dry the lettuce for my mom. Peel each leaf off individually. Stick it under the faucet. Put it onto a paper towel. Repeat. Take more paper towels. Dry of every freaking leaf individually wasting a ton of paper towels… AIN’T NO ONE GOT TIME FOR THAT!

So, in reverence to one of the all time classic kitchen gadgets, here are 6 reasons why the salad spinner will always have a place (albeit a big one) in my cabinet.

  1. Time Saving – The salad spinner is one of those rare kitchen tools that doesn’t involve extra cleanup. There are only 3 pieces to whole shebang and there’s nothing other than leafy greens and water going in there (unless you’re getting weird). Which means no gunk buildup on the inside, all it needs is a rinse and you’re good to go. 
  2. Save the environment – Washing and drying lettuce in an average home kitchen involves using up a TON of paper towels. With a salad spinner you skip all of the throwing away of tree carcases with the added bonus of not having to deal with gross wet paper towels.
  3. Eat more Salad – There’s a whole bunch of psychology out there backing the idea that if you spend money on it, you’re more likely to do it. Get yourself a salad spinner and there’s now an incentive to be a little healthier, and who doesn’t want that?
  4. Salads keep for longer – I HATE soggy salad, and I know I’m not alone. One of our favorite weeknight hacks is to make a massive salad and alternate out proteins to pair it with. Salmon one night, rotisserie chicken another night, shrimps a different night, portobello mushroom, the options are nearly endless. Unless you go into the fridge and find that the salad you made on Monday, has turned into lettuce soup on Tuesday. The salad spinner gives you crunchy freshness for days, weeks, months! Well maybe not months. 
  5. Kids love it – Looking for an easy way to get the kids involved in the kitchen? The salad spinner gives them something to do while you take care of the harder tasks like chopping onions and scooping out cucumbers. 
  6. Use it for other things – The salad spinner despite it’s name is great for rinsing and drying all sorts of other items. Berries, beans, canned veggies the salad spinner is mich more versatile than the name would lead you to believe.