The Unusual $20 Find That Will Make You Want to Ditch Your Bulky Salad Spinner (It Takes Up Zero Space!)

If you’ve ever eaten a salad that tastes watery and underdressed, you’ve probably been a victim of Improperly Dried Greens. (Trademark pending.) That’s because when you try to add dressing to lettuce leaves that are still wet, the oils in the dressing won’t stick. So, all your wonderful homemade vinaigrette will just kind of slide off the Improperly Dried Greens and pools in the bottom of the salad bowl. Of course, there’s a whole class of gadgets meant to fix the issue of wet lettuce: salad spinners. The only problem is that most of them kind of stink.

Aside from having a bunch of parts that you need to rinse off and let dry every time you use them, salad spinners take up a lot of room in your kitchen cabinets — especially when you consider how infrequently you use them. Thankfully, there is a better tool that dries off your greens just as quickly, and this implement takes up basically zero storage space. Meet the Salad Sling.

The Salad Sling tells you what it does at first glance. To start, place your washed greens in the middle of the Sling and bring its four corners together over them. Then, grab the corners and start twirling your bundled vegetation in a circle. As you’re slinging, the microfiber cloth lining absorbs water to keep it off leaves while a waterproof layer underneath prevents liquid from passing right through the towel and spritzing your kitchen. After a few seconds your greens will be ready to be dressed, and if you have another batch to dry off, you can flip the towel over and use the other side.

This isn’t the most conventional approach to salad prep, but it gets the job done without leaving you with a bunch of plastic pieces that take up space on your counter to dry off. Since it’s so easy to use, it also encourages you to skip the pre-rinsed bags of salad mix and buy whole lettuce, which costs less and tends to last longer in the fridge. (The reason I rarely buy whole heads of lettuce is precisely because I don’t have any salad-drying tools.) The Salad Sling is also much more fun to use than a traditional salad spinner, which comes in handy when you want to involve your kids at dinnertime and need to give them a task they might actually enjoy.

If you’re a new customer to Uncommon Goods, you’re in for a real treat — the site is overflowing with unique products, thoughtful gifts, and many (you guessed it) uncommon goods. And, because they have a “forever” return policy that lets you send an item back for a refund no matter how long you’ve owned it, there’s no risk in trying this tool. You may find that you not only prefer it to clunky salad spinners, but that it helps you eat more (properly dried and dressed) salads, too.

Buy: Salad Sling, $20