Experts' Experts: World's Best Garlic Press

In a wonderful demonstration of its relentless approach to evaluating things, the Cook's Illustrated test kitchen krew drilled down deep — really deep — into the subject of garlic presses, reporting on its findings in the new (July/August 2007) issue of the magazine.

Here's the story.

In Search of the Perfect Garlic Press — Update

Can your choice of garlic press affect the flavor of your dishes? You'd be surprised.

We have a crush on garlic in the test kitchen. It appears in more than one-quarter of our recipes, and in most of those we suggest using a garlic press. This is heresy to some professional chefs. Why not just mince? Over the years, we’ve learned that for the average home cook, a garlic press is faster, easier, and more effective than trying to get a fine, even mince with a chef’s knife. More important, garlic’s flavor and aroma emerge only as its cell walls are ruptured and release an enzyme called alliinase, so a finely processed clove gives you a better distribution of garlic and fuller garlic flavor throughout the dish. Even our test cooks, trained to mince with a knife, generally grab a garlic press when cooking. And here’s the best part: With a good garlic press, you don’t even have to stop and peel the cloves.

Americans are using more garlic than ever, and it seems that every kitchen-tool manufacturer is trying to build a better garlic press. Many offer two or three models, traditional and innovative, hoping to catch the eye or the budget of every cook. Prices can range from less than $5 to more than $60. While you might imagine that the garlic press, which has been in America since the 1950s, has a pretty well-established design with all the kinks worked out, our tests quickly revealed that this is not the case. We rounded up nearly two dozen models and bushels of fresh garlic to find the best press for your kitchen.

Flavor Find

But then it occurred to us: Beyond how easy it is to squeeze, does your garlic press really matter in your cooking? Will the right garlic press make your food taste better? We were skeptical, but a quick test revealed a surprising answer. We chose seven representative presses and used them to make seven batches of our Pasta with Garlic and Olive Oil . It was remarkable to note the wide range of garlic flavor, from mild to robust, when the only difference was the press used to prepare the garlic. Larger chunks of garlic tended to drop to the bottom of the bowl, making most of the dish too bland. And when the pieces were uneven, tiny fragments overcooked to bitterness. Tasters overwhelmingly preferred the samples with the finest and most uniform garlic pieces, which produced a well-developed garlic flavor and consistent texture throughout the dish.

We decided that a garlic press’s most important attribute was the ability to produce a fine and uniform garlic consistency. We also wanted a press that was simple and comfortable to operate and did not require the hand strength of Hercules. It should be solidly built, with no contest between the press and the garlic about which is going to break first. It should be able to hold more than one clove and should crush the garlic completely through the sieve, leaving little behind in the hopper. It should handle unpeeled cloves with ease. Finally, it should be simple to clean, by hand or dishwasher, and not require a toothpick to get the last pieces of garlic out.

A Pressing Problem

The more creative garlic gadgets were not successes. The Garlic Twist by NexTrend, a plastic pillbox-shaped device that you twist to chop the garlic inside, could only cut through a peeled, roughly chopped clove. The Genius Garlic Cutter (and a similar model by Moulinex) and the Chef’N Garlic Machine work like a peppermill. We found them slow to use and hard to clean. Such gimmicks sent us back to traditional lever-handled garlic presses. As we squeezed piles of pungent cloves, we began a process of elimination to decide on the 12 presses in our final lineup, (see related chart).

We had been satisfied with our previous favorite presses, the Zyliss Susi 2 and Zyliss Jumbo, until we noticed that the nonstick coating had peeled off each one in the test kitchen, particularly around the hopper; a tiny amount of black liquid was sometimes extruded along with the garlic. We sent a damaged press to an independent laboratory to determine what was happening and whether it could be unsafe (See “The Case of the Peeling Press,” below). As we waited for the lab report, we tested the 12 finalists, including brand-new Zyliss presses. Since all were labeled dishwasher-safe, we ran them through a home dishwasher for 10 cycles. One model, by Amco, fell apart after just six cycles, leaving two halves and a missing hinge pin. And the nonstick coating on the brand-new Zyliss presses peeled—yet again.

We downgraded models with removable parts. The Cuisinart’s hopper was too easy to put back in the wrong way or lose. We rejected designs such as the potato ricer-style Giant Garlic Press, which offered good leverage with its long handles but was cheaply executed, and the ridiculously expensive Eva Solo Garlic Press with Glass Container ($64.95), which was difficult to squeeze and quickly jammed up.

So which press is the best? Kuhn Rikon’s Epicurean Garlic Press ($34.95) was the top performer, producing fine, uniform garlic with minimal effort. Made of solidly constructed stainless steel, it has a luxurious feel, with curved handles that are comfortable to squeeze and a hopper that smoothly and automatically lifts out for cleaning as you open the handles. However, at nearly $35, it’s costly. At one-third the price, we found the chrome-plated Trudeau Garlic Press produced uniform pieces of garlic, had a generous hopper, and was easy to clean. It’s our Best Buy.


The Case of the Peeling Press

When we first noticed that the coating had peeled off in patches on all of the Zyliss garlic presses in the test kitchen, we didn’t worry. Recently, however, we noted that a tiny amount of black substance sometimes oozes onto our garlic as we press it. After some digging, we discovered that when the nonstick coating peels off, copper and iron in the aluminum base metal react with the air and sulfur compounds in the garlic to create oxides and sulfides, which we sometimes see as a black substance on our extruded garlic. It’s similar to the discoloration from an old-fashioned carbon steel knife, and it’s not toxic, according to science experts we spoke to. Patrice Gerber, director of product development international at Zyliss USA, concedes, “It doesn’t look nice, for sure, but it’s not dangerous.” He said some peeling is normal inside the hopper, where the plunger “scratches against the basket.” It might be normal, but it’s not very appealing.

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Nothing but the best for my readers: the only garlic press recommended without reservations, the Kuhn-Rikon 2315 (below),

is $29.99.