Is a spiralizer a useful kitchen tool, or just a gimmick? Do you use yours often?

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Zedeff
Zedeff Posts: 651 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm not on any vegan, paleo, vegetarian, whole food, or other fad diet. But I recognize a few things. For one, like most Western diets, mine does not include enough vegetables and I need to eat more fibre. Two, on my calories restricted diet, I am eating smaller volumes/masses of food, which can be less satisfying - vegetables add bulk. And three, pasta is just not that good for you!

For anyone with a spiralizer, do you use it regularly, what do you make with it, and what models do you recommend (pros/cons)?
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Replies

  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
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    Sorry, OP, I don't have a spiralizer but it's a sorry state of affairs when you have to justify eating "fad" whole foods. lol Crazy times!
  • martyqueen52
    martyqueen52 Posts: 1,120 Member
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    I have a julienne peeler that does pretty much the same thing, to an extent.

    If you eat veggies a lot it's worth it. I only got mine because I love to eat zucchini noodles (pasta bloats me out bad).
  • amandarunning
    amandarunning Posts: 306 Member
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    I thought about one but could see it being another kitchen "gadget" that gets lost in the "seldom used kitchen gadget draw"! I could really only see Courgette Noodles as a way for me to get more veg in.

    Interested to hear from long term owners as to whether they continue to use it. I wonder if I can just make short fat noodles with a knife?!
  • UnicornAmanda
    UnicornAmanda Posts: 294 Member
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    I got one for Christmas a few months back and i havent used it yet lol. I wanna try it though!
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
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    I have a vegetti and I use it once in a while, mostly for zucchini... but it's really just a presentation thing. Taste-wise, if I just cut my zucchini in thin slices, it would be pretty much the same.
  • Zedeff
    Zedeff Posts: 651 Member
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    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    Sorry, OP, I don't have a spiralizer but it's a sorry state of affairs when you have to justify eating "fad" whole foods. lol Crazy times!

    Eating whole foods is not a fad. Eating ONLY whole foods, to the explicit exclusion of everything else, is.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
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    Zedeff wrote: »
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    Sorry, OP, I don't have a spiralizer but it's a sorry state of affairs when you have to justify eating "fad" whole foods. lol Crazy times!

    Eating whole foods is not a fad. Eating ONLY whole foods, to the explicit exclusion of everything else, is.
    lol I can only laugh.
  • bodyzen
    bodyzen Posts: 122 Member
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    I use mine all the time, like 4-5 times a week. Zucchini noodles are awesome and works great to make rainbow salads with beets, carrots etc. Very fun for kids too - they love eating sprialized veggies! :)
  • likehlikeo
    likehlikeo Posts: 185 Member
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    I love our "Lurch"! Zucchini Spaghetti and also Carrot Spaghetti are damn delicious! It is way quicker to pace them through the Lurch than cutting them with a knive (and I am super bad with knives...I'd probably lose one finger after another :( )
  • AmazonMayan
    AmazonMayan Posts: 1,168 Member
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    I seriously considered getting one, until I remembered I have a mandolin that can cut vegetables the same way.

    I prefer not to have many kitchen gadgets that are item specific. Quality and "am I actually going to use this" is what is important to me.

    The mandolin slices and juliennes the veggies wonderfully. I don't really use them as a replacement for pasta, although once I add pasta back into my diet I am thinking of including zoodles or the like to bulk it up. It's nice to make little "haystacks" of different vegetables and roast them. I put some julienned veggies in my soups and the shape is easy to pick up with chopsticks (using them has slowed me way down on shoveling the food in).
  • wiebelnancy
    wiebelnancy Posts: 31 Member
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    I have a Vegetti and I use a lot of zucchini Zoodles instead of pasta. It was inexpensive and I got mine at Walmart. I think it was worth the money for what I use it for.
  • NewMeSM75
    NewMeSM75 Posts: 971 Member
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    I have the hand held type. Very inexpensive. But personally I like mine. I make the zucchini spirals and enjoy them.
  • leggup
    leggup Posts: 2,942 Member
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    I have a mandolin slicer and a food processer with a mandolin attachment. I don't see why I would need them to be long thing slices instead of thin disk like slices? They taste the same no matter how you cut them.
  • pjcfrancis
    pjcfrancis Posts: 121 Member
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    We have a spiralizer and use it to create spaghetti noodles out of zucchini, so we avoid the big wheat carbs from pasta. Also it can create nice light additions to salads. My partner uses it a lot to make nutritious additions to our diet.
  • jlaw_1992
    jlaw_1992 Posts: 40 Member
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    I just bought one on Amazon the other day. I was getting tired of cutting my zucchini by hand and for $5 I figured it was worth trying.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    Like most of my kitchen gadgets, mine is more of a novelty gadget. I mostly use it in the summer when the spaghetti squash from last year is gone and this years crop is not ready, but the house is over-flowing with zucchini and yellow squash.

    Going to the trouble of making squash noodles isn't worth the effort and mess to me when Mother Nature has already provided them.

    It's good for making sweet potato curly fries, but honestly I just forget about the spiralizer most of the time.
  • 1948sixty
    1948sixty Posts: 24 Member
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    Absolutely one of the best kitchen tools I have. Turkey meatballs over zucchini noodles...yum! Butternut squash is to die for... Beets.... Yes, I use it and love it!
  • shaynepoole
    shaynepoole Posts: 493 Member
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    depends on how handy you are with a knife and if you care about presentation. otherwise you can just cut the veggies into thin strips - the handheld ones are pretty cheap
  • AlisonH729
    AlisonH729 Posts: 558 Member
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    I have a handheld version too. (Though there are tabletop versions out there I've heard good things about.) We also use ours mostly for zucchini noodles. But it has put pasta back on the menu for us. Because lets face it, the recommended serving size of pasta (typically 2 oz) just doesn't cut it, not for me at least. I mix a whole zucchini in with a serving of spaghetti and actually get a satisfying meal that hits that pasta 'spot' without blowing my calories out of the water. So for that alone it's worth the ~$10.
  • jamie_lee80
    jamie_lee80 Posts: 176 Member
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    I am a type 1 diabetic and I use my Vegetti a lot! I love it, I use it frequently. Its a way to get some more veggies in my day and I can't eat a lot of pasta so it helps me get creative with my meals. I am currently eating my lunch which I made a shrimp "lo mein" using spaghetti squash and zucchini that I spiraled in my vegetti. Last week I had zucchini noodles and turkey meatballs with marinara sauce and i also made a shrimp scampi and put it over the zucchini noodles. I need to try out some other veggies with it as well, but I found zucchini on sale last week!

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