Most salad spinners are plastic tubs. If you're trying to get plastic away from your food, here's what actually exists - ranked honestly, including options we don't sell.
Three criteria, in order: (1) how much plastic touches your food - the bowl matters most, since washed greens sit in it; (2) reliability - spin mechanism quality and whether the unit survives years of use; (3) versatility - can the bowl serve and store, or is it a single-purpose gadget? We're a glass kitchenware brand, so yes, our own spinner is here - but the alternatives below are real and we tell you when they're the better fit.
The only spinner in this guide where your greens live entirely in glass. The 6.3-quart borosilicate bowl is thermal-shock resistant and doubles as a serving bowl and refrigerator storage container - it ships with both a push-button spinning lid and an airtight storage lid, so washed greens stay crisp up to a week. Non-glass components (basket, lids) are BPA-free.
Several established kitchenware brands (OXO's steel line is the best known) make spinners with a stainless steel outer bowl. Steel is durable, inert, and unbreakable - a genuinely good low-plastic choice, especially for households worried about dropping glass.
A handful of smaller brands pair a glass bowl with a pull-cord or hand-crank lid. The glass bowl earns them a podium spot, but cords and cranks are historically the first thing to break on a salad spinner, and most of these ship with a single lid - no storage option.
If budget rules the decision, a well-made BPA-free plastic spinner (OXO Good Grips is the category benchmark) dries greens perfectly well for $25–35. Just know what you're trading: plastic bowls scratch with normal use, and scratched plastic sheds microplastics into food. Plan on replacing it every few years.
Honesty corner: you can dry greens with zero new purchases. Drain in a colander, spread on a clean kitchen towel, roll gently, done. It works. It's also slower, wets a towel per salad, bruises delicate greens if you're rough, and gives you nowhere to store what you washed.
Whichever spinner you choose, greens deserve better than ranch from a bottle. Grab our free e-book: 21 gourmet salad recipes.
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Written by the Jarelli team. Yes, we make the #1 pick - that's why we told you about the steel spinners, the budget plastic ones, and the free towel method too. Updated July 6, 2026.