To Find the 3 Best Box Graters, We Shredded Cheese, Potatoes, Tomatoes, and More

What’s the first thing you reach for when you’ve got a block of cheese to shred? A grater, of course! Box graters are essential kitchen tools that can do a whole lot more than just shred cheese; they can turn all kinds of food into ribbons, strands, or tiny particles.

While a food processor performs similar tasks, I often end up reaching for the box grater instead since it's way easier to clean. A box grater is there for me if I need tomato pulp for a quick pan con tomate; it’s handy for garnishing a salad with a confetti of carrots; and it's ideal for turning potatoes into latkes or hash browns.

Box graters typically have four sides, each devoted to one function. Two sides usually feature large- and medium-size holes for grating; one side includes a wannabe mandoline; and the final side has a zester. And while you might think that a box grater is a box grater is a box grater, you'd be wrong.

I tested 11 different graters, using various ingredients of varied textures to assess how each grater performed on each side. All of the graters reviewed were made of stainless steel, which seems to be the norm these days as it's rust-resistant and dishwasher-safe (a quick search of “vintage graters” turned up old aluminum models). Here's what I found.

The Tests

• Usability Tests: A good box grater should work well, no matter which side or function of the grater you're using. I used large hole side of the graters to grate carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, baking chooclate, cheddar cheese, and low moisture mozzarella. I used the medium holes to grate carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and cheddar. I used teh slicer to grate radishes and cucumbers. Finally, I used the zester to fingely grate lime, ginger, nutmeg, and Parmesan cheese.
• Efficiency and Yield Tests: I grated, zested, or sliced for 30 seconds, noting how easily I could get into a smooth rhythm. That signaled well-designed graters that had could produce a lot of food in a short period. The best-performing graters turned out lots of grated ingredients and kept them contained in their box.
• Cleanup Test: I hand-washed the graters, noting how easy they were to get clean with a soapy dishwashing sponge. I used the dishwasher for all dishwasher-safe graters, noting if one cycle was enough to dislodge bits of food. I also observed how well they stood up to multiple cycles, and if any were worse for the wear.

What We Learned

Etched vs. Stamped Graters

While photochemically etched graters tend to be sharper than classic stamped graters, I found there wasn't a sufficiently noticeable difference between the results to make any kind of general recommendation of one kind over the other. The main point of difference became evident while I was grating hard cheeses on the zesters. Etched models like Oxo, Cuisipro, and Microplane worked best in terms of clean shredding, producing fine, fluffy shreds with no clogging, while the star-shaped grating rasps on the stamped models made a more powdery grated cheese. This won't have much of an effect on most dishes, though our editorial director Daniel Gritzer previously found that more powdery grated cheese melts into creamy emulsified cheese sauces like cacio e pepe more successfully than those fluffy flakes. If you make a lot of pasta at home, that might be worth taking into account

When to Use a Box Grater or a Microplane

Box graters feature a few sides with different hole sizes, while microplanes have tiny, super sharp perforations. Both have their use cases. Box graters are great (heh) for shredding larger pieces of food—think cheddar cheese, carrots, or beets. Try to shed a beet on a microplane and it won't end well. Microplanes are better for zesting or flaking tiny pieces for a garnish, like grating chocolate over a cocktail or perhaps a smidge of nutmeg. Some folks also use them to grate fine pieces of parmesan, though editorial director Daniel Gritzer finds the smallest side of a box grater does a better job if you want the cheese to melt smoothly into your pasta dish.

All Sides of the Box Grater Mattered

Most of the box graters we tested did a decent job at grating the biggies: Potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and cheese were all quickly turned into a pile of grated ingredients. But the deciding factor was the less commonly-used sides. Fine holes and slicing discs weren't reliable performers. If only one side of the grater works, it's not a good purchase. (You could use the grating attachment on a food processor and a sharp chef's knife, instead.)

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Box Grater

A good box grater should be comfortable to hold and easy to get into a rhythm with. Look for a box grater that is usable on all four sides—not a single ornamental zester. The holes should create consistently-sized and shaped food, and they should not cling to the food after grating. Stable, sturdy bases are important for grating big batches of ingredients. Rubber bottoms keep food contained until you're ready to use it.

Our Favorite Box Graters

The Best All-Around Box Grater

Cuisipro 4-Sided Box Grater

$25 at Amazon $30 at Walmart $37 at Target

What we liked: While "surface glide technology" sounds an awful lot like marketing speak, it made all the difference in the world for this box grater, putting it ahead of the rest. What it means: a subtly grooved grating surface that allows for smooth, easy grating and maximum efficiency. The holes are sharp and angled which allows for uniformity of shreds. The combination of etched and angled teeth made this the best performer of all the graters, on all four sides, and also helped to keep the grated material efficiently contained.

Large and medium holes produced delicate even shreds and the largest yield of all eight (3.5 cups in 30 seconds) when time-tested. The zester did not clog—no scraping necessary to release zest—and even the mandoline was serviceable, which is saying a lot. The nonslip handle was comfortable to use, and while there isn't a catchbin there is a removable non-slip base that has a finely pointed grating surface (seemingly modeled after a Japanese ceramic yakumi grater), which did an admirable job of collecting ginger pulp without the fiber snagging, the way it does on most zesters. If you leave the base on while grating, the entire grater acts as a catchbin, and there are volume measurement markings along the side. And even if the base is removed, the grater does not slip.

I liked that it was slim, lightweight yet sturdy, and easy to store. This isn't just the best all-around box grater; it's also the best for big jobs that need to be done quickly. While it wasn't the easiest to hand wash (sponges may catch; do NOT use precious towels on this one), it weathered the dishwasher well, despite the fact that the packaging does not claim it's dishwasher-safe and the manufacturer doesn't recommend putting it in the dishwasher. My internet research suggested it could be done, and my testing experience backed that up. The grater also comes with a 25-year warranty, which is a testament to its durability and really makes it worth the price.

What we liked: Not much—this is a great all-around box grater.

Key Specs

• Dimensions: 4.5 x 3.75 x 10.5 inches
• Materials: Stainess steel, silicone
• Sides: Coarse, fine, ultra, slicer
• Cleaning: Dishwasher-safe
  

The Best Mid-Priced Box Grater

KitchenAid Gourmet 4-Sided Stainless Steel Box Grater With Detachable Storage Container

$25 $19 at Amazon $24 at Wayfair View on Bed Bath & Beyond

What we liked: KitchenAid's grater had sufficiently sharp grating holes on all sides, and its sides also had the largest surface area, which allowed for long, fluid strokes. I found it durable, comfortable to use because of the grip and non-skid base, and easy to clean. Food tended not to clog any of the holes, and in the timed test this grater yielded 2.5 cups. Despite the fact that this grater was the largest and clunkiest of the bunch, I found its higher price justified by the fact that it has an easily attachable 2-cup catch container with a separate lid for storage that's dishwasher-, microwave-, and freezer-safe.

What we didn't like: I wasn’t impressed with the zester or the mandoline (which was a bit of a struggle to use), even if the placement of the mandoline did not require you to tilt the grater in order to use it (an issue I had with other graters).

Key Specs

• Dimensions: 5.25 x 6.5 x 10.3 inches
• Materials: Stainless steel, silicone
• Sides: Coarse, medium, fine, slicer
• Cleaning: Dishwasher-safe

The Best Budget Box Grater

Spring Chef Professional Box Grater

$16 $14 at Amazon $15 at Walmart View on Springchef.com

What we liked: Spring Chef’s mandoline had a slight edge over other graters and it was placed high enough on the grater for easy use; the grater yielded an efficient 2.5 cups in the 30-second timed test; and it was easy to clean.

What we didn't like: While very similar to the KitchenAid, especially in design, the thicker bottom on the non-skid foot of the Spring Chef brings a more abrupt end to strokes. The zester did not work well—parmesan and citrus clogged the holes and scraping was required to clear the clogs. Like the KitchenAid, it's clunky, and perhaps not the easiest to store.

Key Specs

• Dimensions: 9.88 x 5.59 x 5 inches
• Materials: Stainless steel, silicone
• Sides: Corse, medium, fine/zester, slicer
• Cleaning: Dishwasher-safe

The Competition

• Microplane 4-sided Stainless Steel Professional Box Grater: I found the Microplane 4-sided Stainless Steel Professional Box Grater bulky, especially with its plastic safety shield. I also found it stumpy, with a limited surface area that made it inefficient and somewhat awkward to use. The shreds, however, were flat, delicate, and downright beautiful. There’s a reason that the brand has made its name on zesters—this was the best zester of the bunch, producing small particles that weren’t quite as stringy and wispy as the other etched zesters, but also not as powdery as the stamped ones.
• NorPro Stainless Steel Grater: This is cheap, but you get what you pay for ($9.97 or two for $16 on Amazon). It feels flimsy and is—when I tapped it against the sink to release shreds, it dented. A lot of elbow grease was required for shredding, too. None of the functions were outstanding.
• OXO Etched Box Grater with Removable Zester: Please excuse any typos as the OXO Etched Box Grater with Removable Zester is responsible for slicing off a wee bit of my thumb. This is another way of saying that this model is extremely sharp and very good at grating. It's so sharp that it was the only one tested that included a sharpness warning on the packaging. Something to the effect of "Extremely sharp, keep away from children, and Kathleen." So this is not the grater you want the kids to use when they want to help in the kitchen. Also, the zester, while doing a decent job with citrus, failed with nutmeg and ginger.
• OXO Box Grater: The slicer on the OXO stamped box grater is awkward to use and essentially useless, as the slices produced end up in potluck shapes. Food tended to stick in large holes, scraping was required for the zesting. For the same price, the KitchenAid performed much better.
• RSVP International Endurance Box Grater: While the RSVP International Endurance Box Grater fancies itself "commercial quality," that description could only really apply to the side with large grating holes as food tended to clump in the medium holes and the slicer and zester made me very, very sad. It was not easy to clean. There’s an additional mini zester/ginger grater on the slicer side that's purely ornamental.
• Utopia Cheese Grater and Shredder 6-sided Box Grater: This box grater made quick work of hard and soft cheeses, but was unable to zest citrus.
• Cuisinart Boxed Grater: Finicky to clean and with a poor-performing star-shaped zester side, the Cuisinart boxed grater just didn’t measure up to our top picks. 
• OXO Good Grips Multi Grater: Not technically a box grater, this foldable multi-grater felt flimsy when grating hard cheese and zesting citrus. It would be better replaced by either a rasp grater or a standard box grater.

FAQs

Are box graters dishwasher-safe?

Depending on your box grater, it may be dishwasher-safe. We recommend checking the manufacturer's care instructions. Some materials, like rubber and silicone, can wear down under the intense heat of a dishwasher, so it's best to handwash those.

What is a box grater good for?

Box graters are designed to help you grate food, and are most commonly used to shred cheeses. With a coarse side for medium-firm cheeses and a finer side for harder cheeses, box graters are useful no matter what style of cheese the dish calls for. They can also be used for other types of processing, like grating tomatoes for pan con tomate, zesting citrus, and shredding cabbage and carrots for coleslaw.

Can you use a box grater for potatoes?

Yes—box graters can be used with potatoes. The two sides that are most pertinent are the coarse shredding side and the slicer side. The slicer can be used like a mandoline for uniformly sized potato slices, while the coarse shredding side can be used to grate potatoes for hashbrowns. Not ever grater is sharp enough, or sturdy enough to grate potatoes, which is why we used potatoes in our testing.

What is the spiky side of a box grater for?

The star-shaped, spiky side of a box grater is for hard cheeses, like Parmesan, or for zesting lemons. Hard cheeses, when grated against the zester, become fluffy piles of grated cheese dust. They can also be used for zesting citrus, though we usually recommend a Microplane for that task. Finally, this side can be used to grate spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, which can't be processed easily in an electric spice grinder.

Can box graters dull over time?

The teeth on a box grater aren't sharpened the same way that a knife is, but over time, they can wear down and become duller. The best way to test this is by attempting to shred a medium-soft cheese, like mozzarella. If the block of cheese you're holding starts to break and crumble instead of shredding, it might be time for a new box grater.

Why We're the Experts

• For this review we tested 11 box graters, using them to shred, zest, and slice a variety of foods (including cheese, tomatoes, potatoes, and citrus).
• Recently, we tested more models (including the OXO Good Grips Multi Grater and Cuisinart Boxed Grater), comparing them to our favorite box graters. Our top picks still came out on top, which means that they've stood up to more than two years of consistent evaluation.
• Kathleen Squires is a Serious Eats contributor and award-winning food writer.