Is a spiralizer a useful kitchen tool, or just a gimmick? Do you use yours often?
Zedeff
Posts: 651 Member
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)?
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
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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!0
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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).0 -
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?!0 -
I got one for Christmas a few months back and i havent used it yet lol. I wanna try it though!0
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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.0
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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.0 -
lol I can only laugh.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.
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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!
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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
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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).0 -
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.0
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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.0
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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.0
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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.0
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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.0
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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.0 -
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!0
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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 cheap0
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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 ~$10.0
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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!0
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I like mine, and bought one for my daughter. I like the small "zoodles" of zucchini, for salads and soups.0
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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.
Eating whole foods only might be a " fad " for the average American, but it is not for millions of people on the rest of the planet.
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I still enjoy my pasta but mixing half zoodles with regular spaghetti noodles bulks it up and gives it flavor also. I enjoy it.0
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I have a Vegetti and love it. I pretty much mainly use mine to make zucchini noodles. I use those (I saute them) to bulk out a serving of the regular pasta I eat, particularly when I'm feeling really hungry. I end up with a HUGE bowl of pasta for very few calories.0
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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)?
I was given one maybe 10-12 years back and have never used it. For me zucchini cut in spirals are still just zucchini and even if I would cut them in spirals, I know that they won't magically turn into spaghetti. I think the gadget is to enhance food visually and if you like that kind of thing and especially if it gets you to eat more vegetables, by all means buy one and use it often.
But at the same time I personally think there ought to be other ways to self-motivate to eat healthier.
And also, I have to disagree; pasta is neither good, nor bad. It's food that you can chose to enjoy ( if you can eat pasta ) in moderation , or chose to overdo it. As always, it's all up to you/us.
Good Luck !
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I was given a vegetti by a friend, used it once and thought it was definitely not worth the time and effort. The only reason I haven't thrown it out was because I didn't want to offend the friend but it definitely doesn't get used.
I also don't try to recreate pasta with vegetables, I personally don't mind just putting pasta sauce on a bowl of veggies and meatballs.0 -
I was fortunate enough to have a friend that let me borrow hers before I committed to buying one. I do love mine and use it regularly but it's one of those "your mileage may very" things. I eat A LOT of vegetables and love zucchini noodles with an unholy passion so mine's been worth the purchase. If I die, my husband should just give it to one of our kids because he will never, ever use the thing. 0
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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)?
I was given one maybe 10-12 years back and have never used it. For me zucchini cut in spirals are still just zucchini and even if I would cut them in spirals, I know that they won't magically turn into spaghetti. I think the gadget is to enhance food visually and if you like that kind of thing and especially if it gets you to eat more vegetables, by all means buy one and use it often.
But at the same time I personally think there ought to be other ways to self-motivate to eat healthier.
And also, I have to disagree; pasta is neither good, nor bad. It's food that you can chose to enjoy ( if you can eat pasta ) in moderation , or chose to overdo it. As always, it's all up to you/us.
Good Luck !
Who said pasta was good or bad?-1 -
We got our spiralizer on sale on Amazon for $29 and love it! Our favorites are the "zoodles" zucchini noodles (former pastaholics here) and my son loves having "curly fries" -- sweet potatoes we sprialize and then bake. In fact, he'd rather have them than McD's fries, which says a lot for an 11-year old! ;-)0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »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)?
I was given one maybe 10-12 years back and have never used it. For me zucchini cut in spirals are still just zucchini and even if I would cut them in spirals, I know that they won't magically turn into spaghetti. I think the gadget is to enhance food visually and if you like that kind of thing and especially if it gets you to eat more vegetables, by all means buy one and use it often.
But at the same time I personally think there ought to be other ways to self-motivate to eat healthier.
And also, I have to disagree; pasta is neither good, nor bad. It's food that you can chose to enjoy ( if you can eat pasta ) in moderation , or chose to overdo it. As always, it's all up to you/us.
Good Luck !
Who said pasta was good or bad?
The OP, sorta:And three, pasta is just not that good for you!0
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