There’s a good chance you’ve come across the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper on your social media feed before. The 4-in-1 kitchen tool is a TikTok-viral product that quickly turns out diced, chopped, sliced and spiralized fruits and vegetables. It’s also one of Underscored readers’ favorite Amazon products, so we had to put it to the test.
Read on to see why we think the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper deserves a spot in your meal prep arsenal, whether you’re a beginner in the kitchen or a home chef looking to level up your gadgets beyond the basic knife sets and cookware.
This viral 4-in-1 tool streamlines meal prep, thanks to its dicing, chopping, slicing and spiralizing blades. I think it's excellent for both experienced home cooks and those who are new to cooking. There are also 8-in-1 and 9-in-1 versions that come with additional attachments, such as a juicer and an egg slicer.
What I liked about it
It’s the tool for chopping onions
The Fullstar Vegetable Chopper has two blades for dicing: a small dice and a large dice blade. The strong metal blades can slice through hard and soft vegetables, including potatoes, celery, cucumbers, carrots and more, but where they really shine is chopping onions.
If you’re a person who frequently chops onions, you may find that it’s worth buying just for that one job alone. It is the tool for chopping onions and, as a person who chops a lot of onions, I don’t say that lightly! I was blown away by how good this gadget is at quickly and easily turning out perfectly chopped and diced onions. You’ll still need to use a knife to cut onions (and other big fruits and veggies) into smaller pieces, but you won’t need any fancy knife skills.
You will be a master of salads and bowls
If you love salads (or aspire to love salads), the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper is a great addition to your salad-making arsenal. During a month of testing, I used the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper to prep cucumbers, celery, lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers and other veggies for composed salads, chopped salads, protein bowls and grain bowls. I loved how quick and easy it was to use the chopper to prep raw vegetables, salsas and sauces, and I especially loved how it helped me to elevate my WFH lunches.
It is also excellent for prepping components for grain bowls, and for creating what meal prep expert Kristen Hong calls an “in-fridge salad bar.” Hong recommends storing homemade dips and sauces, fresh herbs and chopped produce in clear meal prep containers — specifically glass Mason jars. “The clear glass helps you easily see what you have available in the fridge, and the jars are stackable so you maximize vertical space,” she says.
The Fullstar veggie chopper makes quick work of assembling fresh produce, sauces and dips that can be easily assembled into delicious salads and bowls at mealtime.
It’s a fantastic kitchen gadget for meal prep
The Fullstar is a great tool for people who regularly prepare vegetable-heavy meals, either for daily consumption or to refrigerate or freeze as part of their meal prep routine. It made prepping vegetables for large-batch soups, stews, soups, chilis, curries and stir-fries a breeze.
Having found myself in a bit of a cooking rut, I appreciated that the veggie chopper made prep —?often a barrier to making certain dishes —?so easy. I found that my meals had more variety, and I started bringing out old recipes that had fallen out of my regular cooking rotation.
It’s a lot of fun to use, and it encourages creativity in the kitchen
If you’re a person who loves to cook but will avoid making certain dishes because of the extensive prep time involved, the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper might jumpstart your excitement and creativity in the kitchen. It is a very fun tool to use!
I found myself seeking out new ingredients and recipes that would allow me to take advantage of my new veggie chopper, and the excitement and creativity it fostered made my meals —?especially lunches, which can be a challenge to keep interesting when you work from home —?better, more varied and healthier.
While testing, I found myself pushing the limits of what the Fullstar can do, using it not just for beautifully chopped fresh produce, but also salsas, vegetable-forward dips and sauces (like tzatziki, raita and buttermilk ranch) and small-batch pickled veggies to make salads more interesting.
Cleanup is pretty easy
Many reviewers have noted that they find cleaning the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper to be frustrating and needlessly difficult, so during testing I made a point to wash the unit in the dishwasher (it is top-rack safe) as well as by hand. I disagree with those reviewers saying the veggie chopper is difficult to clean, though it does require special handling and tools, which are included.
To wash it by hand, use the cleaning tools —?two brushes and two scrapers —?that come with the set. The scraping tools can dislodge food from the pusher insert, the large brush removes food from the large and small dice blades and the small brush cleans the spiralizer and slicer blades.
It’s easy to store
A mistake many people make in the kitchen is overbuying tools and gadgets that take up a lot of storage space and often go unused. While the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper definitely has the potential to end up as clutter, one thing I deeply appreciate about it is that, when it comes to storage, it is a self-contained unit.
All four blades, as well as the insert and finger guard for the spiralizer and slicer, fit perfectly in the collection container when not in use. Simply stack them in the container, pop the lid on and put the whole thing away. However, if you have a very small kitchen and/or limited storage space, you should consider how often you’ll use it and whether it’s worth the space it will take up.
What I didn’t like about it
The spiralizer and ribboning tools were useless
Buoyed by the success of the large and small dicing blades, I excitedly bought a bag of multi-colored carrots with visions of making a beautiful ribbon salad. The spiralizer and ribbon blades, however, had other plans. They absolutely massacred a carrot, leaving me with pathetic shreds instead of beautiful spirals, a truly ugly-looking “ribbon” and a large, useless carrot stump.
Food waste is a particular nit of mine, and I was so distressed not only by how much of a failure the spiralizer and ribbon blades were, but also by how much vegetable they wasted.
If you’re looking for a tool to spiralize and ribbon vegetables, the Fullstar is not it.
The dice blades can pulverize softer vegetables, cured meats and cheeses
Fullstar says that the small dice blade is designated for use on onions, zucchinis, chilies, shallots, garlic, mushrooms, soft cheeses, bell peppers and more. But during testing, it pulverized my bell peppers, leaving a huge mushy mess behind rather than the container of perfectly diced pepper I’d expected. (It’s worth noting that another Underscored editor has successfully used the Fullstar to chop bell peppers, so your results may vary.)
The large dicing blade also made a mess of things it claimed to be designed to chop, including cheeses and cured meats, leaving them more mashed than cut. And even though the instructions say the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper is not intended for tomatoes, I found both the small and large dicing blades made perfectly chopped tomatoes.
With some experimenting, you’ll quickly learn which foods work well in the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper and which foods are best prepared using a knife.
It’s a disaster at chopping herbs
Please learn from my mistakes and do not use a veggie chopper to chop fresh herbs! It is a mess, my friends. A real big mess.
I love a fresh herb moment, especially in salads, but I hate —?hate! — prepping them. So I was very excited to use the chopper to quickly prep not only my greens but also things like basil, cilantro, dill and chives to add flavor.
Unfortunately, the herbs ended up sort of mashed and stuck in both the blades and the teeth of the chopper. Using the included scraping tools helped dislodge the mess, but overall, the experience of trying to prepare fresh herbs with the veggie chopper was such a disaster that I won’t be reattempting it soon.
It requires some serious muscle to use
To use the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper, insert the blade into the chopper base, lock it, place the fruit or vegetable on top of the blade and close the pusher, pressing down to push the vegetables through the slicing blade and into the collection container.
For the best results, you need to push down swiftly and firmly — and it can require some serious muscle. Pre-cutting large fruits and veggies into smaller, more manageable pieces helps, as does working on a lower surface (such as a dining table or countertop rather than a bar-height island) for more leverage. But for a manual kitchen tool, the Fullstar still takes a surprising amount of physical strength to get the job done.
Bottom line
The Fullstar Vegetable Chopper has quickly become one of my most beloved kitchen gadgets, despite some serious downsides. While the spiralizer and ribbon blades were useless to me, the large and small dice blades were excellent, and the easy cleanup and creativity the veggie chopper inspires make it a win.
Experienced home cooks looking to step up their meal prep game should seriously consider investing in the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper; it makes prepping ingredients for use in vegetable-forward dishes (from salads and bowls to soups, stews, curries and chilis) a breeze. It also inspired some serious creativity in my own kitchen.
Those who are new to cooking and meal prep will also find this tool invaluable. One of the barriers to meal prep and cooking for many people is the tedious chopping involved, and this tool solves that problem by making it easy to prepare vegetables.
After my extensive testing, it’s easy to see why the Fullstar Vegetable Chopper is such a viral meal prep tool. It won’t replace knives and peelers, but it is an excellent addition to any busy kitchen.
