Chefs reveal the most feared common kitchen tool that even scares the pros

Working in the kitchen always requires a sense of caution. You have to be mindful of burners, possible contamination, spills, and so on. Chefs, home cooks, and regular people who just want to make a grilled cheese sandwich know this. We’re told to be careful with knives, wash our hands, and use potholders, etc. However, there is one common kitchen tool that even the most seasoned veterans of the kitchen still fear. They're sure to white-knuckle whenever they see a person use it for the first time or the fiftieth, and that tool is the mandoline slicer.

For those who don’t know, a mandoline slicer is a tool used to slice fruits and vegetables into incredibly thin slices or julienne slices (long matchstick-like cuts). The purpose is to create thin, even slices, either so they cook well according to the recipe or to elevate a slice for aesthetic purposes. How it works is the food is slid along an adjustable plane surface until it reaches a sharp mounted blade at a fixed point, slicing the food and letting it fall.

Seems simple, right? Well, that’s the thing. It can be used so well and so quickly that many people, including top chefs, have violently sliced open their hands or fingers with it. If not using it to prepare produce, many still cut themselves trying to clean it. It’s so easy to injure yourself on one that several chefs and home cooks alike have shared their nightmare stories online.

Some professional chefs reached out to GOOD to share their horror tales of the mandoline:

“About 10 years ago, I was using a mandoline slicer while testing out my Hasselback Potato Recipe, my hand slipped, and the base of my palm sliced wide open on the mandolin slicer,” Jessica Randhawa, head chef at The Forked Spoon. “It required 6 stitches and a few hours in the ER.”

“I sliced off the tip of my right thumb in culinary school working with a mandoline,” said Vahista Ussery, chef and cofounder of To Taste. “At the hospital, they had to shoot numbing medicine directly into the cut, and then simply covered it up. The shot was not fun! Since I was in my early 20s, I actually grew back the tip of my thumb like a lizard.”

Many argue that unless you need to consistently slice vegetables quickly, you probably don’t need a mandoline slicer. If you’re a person who mostly cooks for themselves or their families at home, a mandoline might be yet another kitchen tool that mostly lives in the back of the cupboard, just waiting for an errant hand to cut as someone is reaching for something.

“To this day, I'm scared to use a mandoline,” said Ussery. “I'll just rely on my good old fashioned knife and a food processor for slicing.”

There are other professional chefs that agree that a mandoline slicer is mostly unnecessary unless you work in a commercial kitchen reliant on speed, namely chef Masaharu Morimoto who stresses the importance of developing knife skills.

"While it brings good slices, mastering proper knife skills gives you more control, precision and safety in the long run,” Morimoto told CNET. “Mandolines can be bulky, hard to clean, and risky if you're not extremely careful. Taking the time to learn how to handle a sharp chef's knife or Japanese blade will help you in almost every recipe."

If you still want a mandoline slicer anyway, the pros and everyone that has had to get a finger or two stitched cannot stress enough to use the safety guard when slicing and to spray wash the mandoline immediately and carefully after use with a thick sponge so you don’t have to scrub out hardened food stains. Professionals like Chef Randhawa also recommend wearing cut-resistant gloves while using a mandoline like she does.

When it comes to using a mandoline, even the highest ranking chefs use it with caution and respect. The hope is that, over time, there will be less fingertips and blood sacrificed in the name of cuisine, with amateurs and professionals alike honoring the mandoline’s power…or that people are more careful and pay attention to what they’re doing. Whichever comes first.