A Pizza Cutter Is The Secret To A Perfectly Chopped Salad

A sharp set of knives is essential in the kitchen; there's no way around that. However, some dishes can be challenging to prepare perfectly, no matter how nice your knife set. Take, for example, the chopped salad. When you visit one of your favorite salad spots, and the kitchen crew expertly chops all the veggies and ingredients into perfect little bites, it just tastes better. But when you attempt to chop all the ingredients together on a cutting board, it often turns into a huge mess. Fortunately, there's a quick fix for this predicament. You can add the salad to a large bowl and use a simple pizza cutter to make quick work of the chopping with minimal mess.

You might already use a pizza cutter to chop up delicate herbs, cut quesadillas, and perform other kitchen tasks, but it works great for chopping salad too. This hack is simple, all you need is a large bowl and your favorite salad ingredients.

Read more: You've Been Cutting These Vegetables The Wrong Way

How To Chop A Salad With A Pizza Cutter Like A Pro

To perfectly chop a salad with a pizza wheel, you need to do some prep work first. Begin by gently tearing the lettuce and chopping up some of the harder-to-slice items, so you don't have trouble rolling through them in the bowl. The pizza cutter isn't meant to replace a knife; it simply brings everything together. A nutritionist on YouTube demonstrates their method of wheeling and turning the bowl as they go, ensuring that every piece gets chopped. Save the dressing for last, as adding it before chopping could wilt the salad ingredients and weigh everything down.

When using this method, it's best to opt for a wooden or plastic bowl, as a ceramic, glass, or metal bowl could dull the blade. In any case, you'll need to sharpen your pizza cutter blade more frequently if you enjoy chopped salads regularly. To do this, your best option is to buy a pizza cutter sharpener if you aren't already familiar with other sharpening methods like using a whetstone or puck sharpener.

Choosing The Best Pizza Cutter For The Job

While any pizza cutter will work for general kitchen tasks like salad chopping, Alton Brown swears by one that does not have a handle. The pizza wheel happens to be one of his essential cooking gadgets for various kitchen uses. "A rolling blade doesn't squish things the way a knife does," he said in an interview with Fast Company. His wheel of choice is one that doesn't have a large handle but fits the hand, giving the cook more control.

While this tool might work for a single serving of salad, it might not be suitable for a large salad meant to feed several people. If you have a bowl filled with bulky veggies and proteins, you'll need a pizza cutter with a longer handle like the OXO Salad Chopper, the one that the YouTuber demos in their video. The double blade and long handle make quick work of a large salad, and it comes with a bowl that won't dull the blade. However, any pizza wheel with a longer handle and a sharp, steady blade will work. Just skip the cheap and flimsy cutters.

Read the original article on Daily Meal.