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They're too big and bulky for most apartment kitchens, so we reluctantly avoided them for a long time. But washing and drying salad is such a chore, and if there's one thing that ruins a salad it's limp, soggy leaves.

Then one of these new Zyliss salad spinners showed up in the mail, and we didn't lose any time checking it out.

The new Zyliss salad spinner (the "Smart Touch" version) was designed by RKS Design (you can see more of their work for Zyliss here - very nice), and it was just awarded a Red Dot design award. It's clean and simple, but it also has spinning mechanism that makes using it almost effortless - not to mention really, really fun. It was featured in Real Simple’s Top 20 Kitchen Tools too!

There's a 2-part lid, and a basket inside the larger bowl. You put the greens in the basket, wash and drain them, then place inside the bowl. Now the fun begins. You put on the two lids, and press down on the one-handed lever. It spins the basket like a top! Here's a (tiny grainy) video of us doing this gleefully...

The final verdict on this salad spinner? Here it is...

Pros:
• Fun to use, plus one-handed operation.

• Gets all the moisture off salad, berries, and other fresh produce - which helps keep it fresher longer.

• Doesn't look too bulk-ugly, for a salad spinner.

Cons:
• Yeah, it's big. Really big. Of course, the lids come off and can be stored separately, so you could stack this in the cupboard with other bowls.

The final upshot for us is that we love it. Salads are one of our favorite meals and having a quick and easy way to wash and dry the greens is worth the extra cupboard space. Before now we would practically soak all our kitchen towels getting our greens clean - especially our new greens from the garden, with real dirt still sticking to them. Highly recommended - we're enjoying this thing a lot.

• Buy the Zyliss Smart Touch Salad Spinner, $29.99 at Amazon

Related: Good Product: Spin N' Stor
PLUS...

(Images: Amazon; Faith Hopler)