OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner Review After Two Years of Weekly Use

For about two years I threw away half the salad greens I bought. I would wash a bunch of arugula or romaine, shake the colander over the sink until my arm got tired, and still end up with watery greens that soaked through my dressing and turned limp within an hour. Paper towels helped a little and wasted a lot. Pre-washed bags were convenient until they turned to slime on day three. I kept telling myself it was fine. It was not fine. Then I bought the OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner, and two years later it still sits on my counter every single week.

This is not a gadget I bought and forgot about. It is one of the few kitchen tools I actually reach for more now than I did when I first unboxed it. That alone tells you something. I have run kale, spinach, butter lettuce, fresh herbs, and even small strawberries through it. I have washed it hundreds of times. I know exactly where it shines and exactly where it will frustrate you, so let me give you the full picture.

How I Have Used It for Two Years

My routine is straightforward. Every Sunday I wash a large batch of greens, spin them dry, and store them in the spinner bowl (without the lid) in the fridge. That batch lasts me through Wednesday or Thursday, staying crisp the whole time because the greens go in truly dry. Before I had this spinner I was doing that same routine with a colander and paper towels, and my greens lasted two days at most before going soft and sad.

I also use it mid-week for fresh herb bundles: parsley, cilantro, basil. A colander makes a mess with small herb leaves. The OXO basket catches everything and the pump dries herbs in about fifteen seconds. I have used it for washed cherry tomatoes when I want them dry before roasting, and once for rinsing and draining small blueberries before baking. It handles all of those tasks without complaint.

The spinner lives on my counter rather than a cabinet. The bowl and colander basket nest together with the lid on top, so the footprint is manageable. It takes up about as much space as a large mixing bowl. For a tool I use four or five times a week, counter space is justified. If you only make salads occasionally, you might disagree. Just know that the bowl is large enough (5-quart capacity) to double as a serving bowl, which helps justify the real estate.

The Pump Mechanism: Why It Beats Every Pull-Cord Spinner I Have Tried

The defining feature of the OXO spinner is the pump button on top. You press it repeatedly with your palm rather than pulling a cord or turning a crank, which means one hand stabilizes the bowl while the other pumps. That sounds minor until you have used a pull-cord spinner and sent the whole thing skidding across the counter. The OXO stays put. The non-slip base grips the counter surface even when the bowl is spinning hard.

After two years of heavy use, the pump mechanism feels exactly the same as it did on day one. There is no looseness, no sticking, no grinding. I pump about eight to ten times for a full bowl of romaine, and the basket reaches a spin speed that throws water visibly outward into the outer bowl. After ten pumps, I press the brake button to stop the basket, dump the collected water, and the greens are genuinely dry. Not damp-ish. Dry.

For comparison, I owned two pull-cord spinners before this one. Both developed loose, floppy cords within six months. One stopped spinning at useful speed entirely. The OXO mechanism has outlasted both of those and shows no sign of degrading. That durability is what puts it in a different category from the cheap alternatives you will find at the dollar store or on clearance at a big-box kitchen shop.

How Well It Actually Dries Greens

This is the question that matters most, and the honest answer is: very well, better than anything else I have tried at this price. I weigh my greens before and after spinning (old habit from tracking macros), and a 150-gram batch of romaine lettuce loses about 18 to 22 grams of water weight after a full spin cycle. That is meaningful. Dressing clings to dry leaves instead of sliding off into a puddle at the bottom of your bowl.

Dense greens like kale take two spin cycles to get fully dry. Delicate ones like baby spinach or arugula are done in one. Fresh herbs land somewhere in between depending on how wet the stems are. The takeaway: for everyday salad greens, one spin is enough. For kale or thick chard, repeat the process and you will get good results. The spinner does not fail on tough greens; it just requires a little more patience.

My greens used to last two days in the fridge. After I started spinning them completely dry and storing them in the bowl, they started lasting five days. That change alone paid for this spinner in wasted-salad savings within a month.

The Brake Button Problem: The One Real Flaw

I want to be straight with you because I have seen reviews that gloss over this: the brake button on the OXO spinner has a design weakness. It sits inside the lid at the center of the pump mechanism, and over time the small plastic button can crack or become stiff. Mine developed a hairline crack at the sixteen-month mark. It still functions, but I can feel that it is not the same solid click it used to be. I have seen dozens of reviews describing the same issue, some as early as six months in.

OXO's customer service is genuinely good, and they will often replace the lid if you contact them about this specific defect. But the fact that it is a recurring complaint across multiple product generations suggests it is a known design limitation rather than a fluke. If you spin with heavy pressure or press the brake button hard and fast, you are likely to see this crack sooner. Press it firmly but not aggressively and it lasts longer. It is an annoying limitation on an otherwise excellent product.

The bowl itself shows no discoloration or degradation after two years of weekly washing. The clear plastic (BPA-free) is still clear. The colander basket has not warped. The non-slip base is still grippy. The issues, when they appear, are almost entirely limited to that brake button and, occasionally, the lid lock that holds the top on for storage. Both are fixable by OXO directly if you reach out.

Cleanup and Day-to-Day Maintenance

The bowl and colander basket are top-rack dishwasher safe and have held up perfectly through hundreds of cycles. The lid is hand-wash only because of the pump mechanism, and it cleans easily with warm soapy water and a rinse. The inside of the lid collects water around the pump shaft, so I tip it upside down and let it drain dry before reassembling. That step takes ten seconds and keeps everything clean. I have never had an odor problem or staining issue with any component.

Reassembly is straightforward: the basket drops into the bowl, the lid locks on with a quarter-turn. No pieces have ever stuck, stripped, or misaligned. Compared to some competing spinners where the lid locks require finicky alignment of multiple tabs, the OXO mechanism is genuinely intuitive. I have let guests help clean up and nobody has ever asked me how to put it back together.

Alternatives I Considered (and Why I Kept the OXO)

The most common comparison is the Cuisinart salad spinner, which costs less and uses a crank handle rather than a pump. I borrowed one from a neighbor for a week to test it directly against the OXO. The Cuisinart spins adequately but the crank design requires two hands, and the outer bowl tends to spin with the basket rather than staying stationary. That means you need to hold the outer bowl steady while cranking, which is awkward. For lighter use, maybe once a week, it is a reasonable buy. For daily prep, the OXO is worth the price difference. If you want a deeper side-by-side breakdown of the two, I wrote a full comparison of the OXO versus the Cuisinart over in my OXO vs Cuisinart salad spinner comparison.

There are also cheaper pull-cord spinners in the $12 to $18 range. I have bought two of them over the years. Both developed cord slack within six months and neither dried greens as completely as the OXO in a single cycle. If budget is the priority, they work. If you cook fresh greens regularly, the cord mechanism will frustrate you faster than you expect. And if you want to know all the ways a spinner improves your kitchen routine beyond salads, read through my piece on 10 reasons a salad spinner earns its drawer space.

Who This Is For

You will get the most out of this spinner if you eat fresh greens at least three times a week and you do any batch prep on the weekend. The combination of excellent drying performance and a storage-friendly bowl means you wash once and eat well all week. It is also a strong pick if you cook a lot of fresh herbs, since the basket size handles full herb bundles without losing small leaves the way a colander does. Health-focused cooks who are building better prep habits will find that having dry, ready-to-eat greens in the fridge makes a bigger behavioral difference than you would expect. When clean greens are already washed and waiting, you actually eat them.

Who Should Skip It

If you make salads once every couple of weeks, a colander and a clean dish towel will serve you just fine and cost you nothing extra. The OXO earns its space through frequency of use. A household of one person who eats greens occasionally is probably better served by a basic spinner in the $12 range, accepting that the cord will eventually loosen. Also, if counter space is genuinely at a premium and you have nowhere to store a bowl this size, consider whether you will actually use it before committing. The bowl is large. A cramped kitchen with limited cabinet depth will struggle to store it conveniently.