8 Best Cheese Graters, According to Kitchen Pros (2024)

A cheese grater is an essential tool for even the most minimalist of kitchens. While buying pre-grated cheese might save you some time, it comes with some downsides: It’s often more expensive and comes loaded with chemicals and preservatives to prevent clumping. This powder that coats the cheese shreds can give a gritty mouthfeel and prevents it from melting as smoothly as fresh cheese.

On the other hand, grating cheese gives you control over the coarseness of the shreds as well as opening up the doors to different varieties of cheese to grate. It can also be used for so much more than cheese: Think coleslaw, latkes, and the freshest tomato sauce.

The Good Housekeeping Institute regularly tests kitchen appliances, tools, and gadgets to find out which ones are actually worth your money. We rounded up 19 top-rated cheese graters and shredded pounds of soft and hard cheeses and evaluated the strength, versatility, practicality and ease of use of each grater. As well as how well they grated cheese, we also considered each grater's sturdiness, how effective its blades were, and the uniformity of cheese gratings. All considered, these are our picks for the best cheese graters you can buy:

Best Box Cheese Grater: OXO Good Grips Etched Box Grater
Best Handheld Cheese Grater: OXO Good Grips Multi Grater
Best Rotary Cheese Grater: Zyliss Classic Rotary Cheese Grater
Best Electric Cheese Grater: Cuisinart FP-13DGM Elemental Food Processor and Dicing Kit
Best Value Cheese Grater: Joseph Joseph 20017 Twist Grater
Best Cheese Grater for Zesting: Microplane 46020 Premium Classic Series Zester Grater
Best Cheese Grater Attachment: KitchenAid Fresh Prep Slicer/Shredder Attachment
Best Multi-Use Cheese Grater: Cuisinart CTG-00-MBGR Mixing Bowl with Grater

What is the best type of cheese grater?

When choosing a grater there are two types of blades to look for: stamped and etched. Stamped graters have thicker, more rigid blades that stick out. Etched graters are made using a chemical process that corrodes teeth into the sides of the metal to make super-sharp teeth-like indents. Etched blades are sharper, but the shreds tend to be much thinner and shorter in length. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just something to be aware of. The sharper etched blades can also cause more damage if you're unlucky enough to catch a finger.

In terms of style, box graters are what most people associate with cheese grating and it's the best option for most people. They are the most bulky option but are also the most multi-faceted and most efficient for shredding large quantities of cheese. They typically come with four sides, each with different blades for different types of shreds (and foods!):

• Large shredding holes are great for quickly shredding hard and soft cheeses, as well as carrots, zucchini, apples, tomatoes. Most cooks agree that these large openings are the most useful.
• Medium shredding holes are useful for creating smaller shavings of any of the aforementioned food. They're great for grating potatoes for hash browns, too.
• Small shredding holes are best for finely shredding hard cheeses, like parmesan.
• Rough, raspy pinholes create a fine, almost powdery grate, good for chocolate, ginger, nutmeg, citrus, and garlic. These small holes tend to hold on to food, which can make them harder to clean.

Beyond box graters, there are four other main styles of cheese graters — and the best choice for you depends on your needs:

✔️ Handheld graters are single plane graters that typically come with one blade and are less bulky to store. They're less versatile, but usually more affordable than box graters and are good for occasional grating.

✔️ Rotary graters are enclosed contraptions in which a hunk of cheese is pressed against a rotating blade. You might recognize them as the graters used at Olive Garden: These are best for grating hard cheeses, nuts, and chocolate, and cheese. Rotary graters are safe for kids to use since hands don't come into contact with the blades. All of the models we tested could be easily reversed, making them suitable for left-handed consumers too.

✔️ Electric graters generally come as attachments to larger kitchen gadgets such as food processors or stand mixers and are perfect for rapidly shredding large volumes of cheese and vegetables, with minimal effort.

✔️ Zesters/rasps are a key kitchen tool for any serious cook. They are much more effective that the pinhole side of a box grater and are perfect for parmesan, chocolate, and nutmeg, as well as making pastes out of ginger, garlic, and chiles.