Last Updated on March 15, 2023
I’m 34 years old and the one surprising thing I’ve bought a ton of since becoming an adult that I never thought would be an issue is can openers! I thought all can openers were about the same and that they must be decent as long as they didn’t look like the crappy little metal can opener with a built-in bottle opener on the handle that my mother had when I was a kid.
Crap was I wrong – I’ve had manual can openers by Farberware, KitchenAid, T-Fal, Mainstays (walmart), Oneida, and countless other no-name brands bought at grocery stores. They almost all broke in the same manner – the plastic handle strips and no longer spins the gear that turns the can. The Oneida is the only one that broke in a different manner – even though it was all metal, the handle hinge broke after having to squeeze the handles harder and harder to make the cutting wheel sink into the can lid.
Here’s a slideshow of all the manual can openers you do NOT want in your kitchen.
If you have any of these can openers, get ready to go shopping soon! (It’s coming)
How to Spot a Good or Bad Can Opener
So now that you know what kind of can openers to avoid, here’s a break down of why they should be avoided and what you should look for instead!
Features to Look for
- Solid Metal Handles
- Heavy-Duty Hinge
- Solid Construction
Things to Avoid:
- Plastic Rotating Handle
- Weak/Small Hinges
- Cheaply Made
My Choices for the Best Manual Can Openers of 2023!
Surprise! It turns out my mom knew best!
After trying at least a dozen manual can openers that ranged in price from $10 to $20, just to have them keep breaking, I was finally pissed off and thought to myself – “Just get something cheap if they are always going to break any way.” So I bought the cheapest can opener I could find on Amazon, a Chef Craft, it was much less than ten bucks.
Where every other can opener lasted from a month to six months max, this thing has been going for a whole year and it works just as well now as it did the first day I used it! I also ended up with another similar can opener from my grandmother that’s definitely from the 1990s, and even though the plastic bushing is long gone, it works just as well as my newer Chef Craft.
Will it last forever? Probably not, and some of the reviews show that some people got duds… But can openers are tools, and any mechanic or carpenter will tell you that no tool lasts forever. For the price of a gallon of milk I’d rather have a can opener for a year than one double the price that only lasts half the amount of time – plus the Chef Craft can opener is small and takes up less room in my kitchen drawer, it’s a win-win.
The only other real options are Swing-A-Way crank style can openers that seem to have gone downhill in quality in recent years, or an expensive counter/table mounted commercial style can opener. I’d rather go with the cheap and easy option.
2023 UPDATE: I’m 36 now, so the Chef Craft Select Can Opener has been going strong for around 3 years now!
Popular Can Opener Recommendations, on other Websites, that actually Suck:
There are other articles on the web that recommend a whole slew of can openers as “the best can openers”, but if you check out the reviews you will see that they are just as crappy as the can openers in my slideshow at the beginning of this article. Some of them are outright dangerous! Here’s some of the recommendations along with a reason why you should avoid these manual can openers.
OXO Good Grips Smooth Edge Can Opener
Recommended here as the “Best Overall” Manual Can Opener. It’s supposed to be a great manual can opener because it’s got an oversized turning handle for ease of use and it cuts the can lid in such a way that it has smooth edges instead of the sharp edges most can openers leave.
However, many Amazon reviews complain of it leaving long, string-like, metal shavings on both the inside and outside of the cans it opens. Yikes! No thanks..
Rosle Stainless Steel Can Opener with Pliers Grip
Recommended here as the “Best Splurge” Manual Can Opener, which I guess means it’s the most overpriced manual can opener. It supposedly has a self contained blade that holds the lid and doesn’t let either touch the can contents and never needs to be cleaned! Right? Plus it has lateral cutting, LATERAL CUTTING!
But.. According to reviews the cutting blade positioning is weird and hard to use, and it stops cutting correctly or just breaks. The “lateral cutting” just means it cuts horizontally instead of vertically to leave a smooth edge on the lid, and it apparently leaves metal shavings more often than conventional can openers.
John started JSnowCreations as a place to post random tech guides and product reviews. However, while shopping for his daughter’s first “big girl” bed in 2019 he learned about the hidden dangers of fiberglass in mattresses. Since then, John has made it his mission to expose as much hidden fiberglass in mattresses as possible. His ultimate goal is federal regulations that ban fiberglass from being used in mattresses, or at least a law that require it to be listed in the material tags.