Are You Making This Dangerous Mistake With Your Mandoline?

It’s the perfect time of year for this shaved fennel salad, featuring the melody of bright anise-flavored fennel, backed by the season-crossing harmony of sweet, crunchy honeycrisp apples, refreshing cucumbers and radishes. The ingredients are all sliced paper-thin.

The perfect tool to use is a mandoline like this one—it has super-sharp blades to make quick work of your salad prep. However, even the most graceful of mandoline “players” runs the risk of a nicked finger. We know. We’ve been there! Ouch.

Every chef needs these kitchen essentials.

The mistake we’re all making

Mandolines come with a slicing guard or food holder that’s supposed to hold food in place and protect your fingers. It’s usually bulky, doesn’t grip food well and leaves you with a pretty sizable chunk of unsliced produce. The guard also ends up mashing tomatoes (and other more delicate things) into a watery mess. It seems like the only option is to leave the guard behind and slice bare-handed.

But we have a better solution. We have got you covered with our list of the best mandoline slicers, tested by our pros.

How to keep your fingers safe

We suggest investing in a pair of cut-resistant gloves. Amazon’s Choice for cut-resistant gloves is the delightfully named “NoCry” brand. (You can purchase ’em here.)

As powerful as your mandoline is, it’s no match for these gloves, which have a cut resistance four times stronger than leather. Yet they’re lightweight and, because they come in four sizes (S, M, L, XL), they provide a snug grip no matter how small or large your hands are. Having a good grip is essential when you’re trying to tackle a precise slicing job. Oh—the gloves are also machine washable.

Bottom line: Go forth and “play” that mandoline, but please keep your fingers safe! These kitchen safety products should be your cooking go-tos.