Salad Sling Review: This Shark Tank Gadget Beats a Salad Spinner!
/We all know we should eat more salads and that leafy greens are the healthiest foods on the planet. While you can purchase prewashed salad mix or ready-to-eat kale in bags or plastic tubs at the supermarket, what do you do when you grow your own lettuce or herbs, or buy a head of purple cabbage at a farmer's market or, gasp, when salad greens don't come prewashed?
In the past the only option to wash and dry greens was buying a big ol' salad spinner. I have an OXO 6-quart salad spinner that I have a love-hate relationship with. It takes up tons of space in my cupboard, and I have to wash three pieces every time I use it (the bowl, the basket insert, and the lid).
And it never gets my greens perfectly dry! That’s the really frustrating part.
Watching a Shark Tank episode that aired April 16, 2021 I saw a cool and MINIMALIST kitchen gadget that can totally replace a big bulky salad spinner and it performs better.
It's called the Salad Sling and it's a greens game-changer.
RELATED: If you read my Souper Cubes review you know I am a huge fan of Shark Tank! Souper Cubes have totally changed how I freezer prep for my keto diet.
What is the Salad Sling?
The Salad Sling is a 30-inch square bright green triple-layer microfiber towel with handles and a waterproof core. It's designed to dry herbs, lettuce, spinach, or other salad greens in just 15 seconds.
Just place rinsed greens in the center of the towel, grab all four handles, and swing the Salad Sling for 10 to 15 seconds. (Or more if you're having fun!)
Centrifugal force pulls the moisture off the greens and into the absorbent towel. The waterproof lining in the center of the towel makes sure water won’t fly all over your kitchen. (So don't try slinging with a regular kitchen towel!)
The waterproof lining also allows you to flip over the towel and use the other side to dry even more greens.
Check out the Salad Sling on Amazon.
RELATED: I started drinking keto-friendly green smoothies when I did Dr. Kellyann's Cleanse and Reset. Recently I've started drinking green smoothies with flaxseed every day so I need lots of fresh, CLEAN, greens.
Is the Salad Sling really as effective as a salad spinner for drying greens?
Can the Salad Sling really replace a salad spinner? Or, can I sell my salad spinner on eBay and reclaim a kitchen cabinet?
I decided to do a fun test to compare the Salad Sling with a traditional salad spinner.
First I measured two 2-cup portions of spinach, which is the amount I use in my daily keto green smoothie.
(The Salad Sling will dry a typical bag of salad mix, or a head of lettuce.)
This is how much spinach I washed and then dried in both the Salad Sling and in my traditional salad spinner.
I rinsed the spinach and placed wet leaves in the salad spinner and in the Salad Sling.
The healthy greens are rinsed and ready to dry!
First I used my OXO Salad Spinner to dry the greens. I pumped the handle approximately 20 times and let it spin until it stopped. It spun for maybe a minute.
It’s hard to tell from the photo but even though quite a bit of water was removed from the spinach, the leaves still had droplets of water. That’s fine for a smoothie, but not so good for a spinach salad when you want dressing to adhere to the leaves.
Next, I tried the Salad Sling. I grabbed all four handles and swung the towel wildly, lol. I did a cowboy impression with a lasso move and a figure-8 swinging pattern reminiscent of my days twirling baton as a child.
I swung the Salad Swing for approximately 20 seconds total.
Swinging the bright green towel was a lot of fun, but my little dog definitely gave me a puppy side-eye. He’s a tough audience, lol.
Below is a photo of the spinach after drying.
Here is a comparison of the salad spinner and the Salad Sling spinach. See all the water in the spinner bowl? Yet the salad spinner leaves were still too wet to be used in a salad.
“Dried” spinach side by side.
What is more fun that looking at spinach up close? These are the salad spinner leaves with quite a bit of moisture.
The spinach dried in the salad spinner still had water droplets.
And here are the spinach leaves from the Salad Spinner. They are perfectly dry.
The Salad Sling greens have almost no moisture. They are salad-ready!
If any moisture remains on the leaves you can use the Salad Spinner towel to pat it dry. That’s not an option for a salad spinner so I did what I normally do with my salad spinner - I used paper towels to finish drying the leaves. I felt like this made for a fairer comparison.
Because you can pat the greens dry with the Salad Sling, I used a paper towel to pat dry the salad spinner greens on the left.
The Salad Sling really does beat a salad spinner in performance, convenience, and price.
The Salad Sling dries greens better than a traditional salad spinner.
There was less moisture on the spinach leaves with the Salad Sling, and you can easily remove any remaining water droplets by gently patting the leaves with the towel.
The Salad Sling also dried the greens faster than the salad spinner.
The Salad Sling takes up significantly less space than a salad spinner.
The Salad Sling can be folded to about a 9x4x4-inch rectangle. Or it can be hung on a hook inside a kitchen cabinet, which is perfect for a minimalist kitchen!
A salad spinner is big and bulky and takes up significant cabinet space. Mine measures about 11 inches by 11 inches wide, and 7 inches tall.
The Salad Sling is easier to clean than a salad spinner.
You can wash the Salad Sling after every use or hang it to dry using the attached hook. It is machine washable and dryable.
The salad spinner doesn't take long to wash, but it does have three separate pieces, it’s big and awkward, and takes a long time to dry in a drying rack. (I do not dry dishes, lol.)
The Salad Sling may be cheaper than a traditional salad spinner.
I bought my OXO salad spinner for $25.99 back in 2008. Most salad spinners are in the $25-$35 range, though there are some cheaper and some significantly more expensive.
The Salad Sling currently sells for $19.99 on Amazon. It is also the same price on the Salad Sling website.
RELATED: As a minimalist, I don’t like owning any unnecessary kitchen gadgets. These are the 6 basics and a few other pieces of kitchen equipment I can’t live without!
Did Salad Sling get a deal on Shark Tank?
Salad Sling inventor, Jill Visit, presented her greens-drying gadget on Shark Tank airing April 16, 2021, and asked for $100,000 for a 20% stake in her company. Though all the Sharks tried the Salad Swing (and a few had pretty good swinging technique), sadly no one caught the vision and made her an offer, so she left without a deal.
Kevin O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, even said "this product will be brutal to sell." I disagree.
If you have limited storage space in your kitchen, the Salad Sling is a better alternative than a traditional salad spinner. It's also more fun AND it dries the greens better.
Check out the Salad Sling on Amazon.
RELATED: Including more leafy greens and other low-carb veggies are important for good health on your keto diet. Learn about eating the low-carb rainbow and download a printable tracker.
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