Side by Side Comparison of: KitchenAid vs Mirro

So glad I got this. I used to use the hand grinder to make Spaghetti sauce...so happy that I got this. Made life cleaner and easier. Yes you should elevate or use a high bowl for both the waste and sauce. But it's worth it. I usually blanch my tomatoes and then send them thru the grinder as a personal preference. But they say you do not have to do that.

Fantastic tool for separating tomato pulp from the skin and seeds. Just the right amount of pulp makes it through the strainer to have a base for fresh sauce over the winter.

This thing is amazing! I used it to make apple sauce, A LOT of apple sauce. Very pleased.

I never knew I could get meat ground to the extent of this grinder. I was able to put all the leftovers from our christmas ham into the meat grinder and turned it into the best ham salad Ive ever had. This thing really grinds whatever you throw at it, very very impressed. Plastic used seems to be very stiff and long lasting.

This is the first attachment I've purchased for my Kitchenaid stand mixer with the main purpose of processing 1 bushel of tomatoes for canning. It did this job very well and saved me hours of blanching, peeling and seeding. I processed the tomatoes raw, only having washed, cored and cut into quarters.The only thing that I didn't expect was that with my 6qt raised bowl mixer, this attachment ends up being quite high off of the counter and you can end up with quite a bit of juice slash from the "good" end. As I kept adjusting my setup I found that an enormous mixing bowl to catch the "good" juice and pulp was best for me. High walls and large diameter of the catching bowl stopped most of the splashes, although I did need an apron and to wipe down both the machine and the wall afterward.This hilarious looking setup I created with 2 bowls a cutting board and a plastic freezer container (shown in my picture) was well worth the hours I saved blanching and peeling by hand.For those who have mentioned the consistency is too runny, just remember that a tomato is mostly made of water and the sauce needs to be reduced by cooking it for hours. I had 2 pots of sauce going and had best results using an enamel coated cast iron Dutch oven compared to a standard stainless steel stock pot. The sauce cooked down and looks & tastes fantastic.Last point - I did run the waste though the strainer a second time. The first time through definitely left a lot of good stuff in the waste, but the waste on the second round was almost as thick as ground beef and was made up of just seeds and skin. *The 3rd pic shows the waste after it has been passed though the strainer a second time.

Our first year with tomatoes we went the old fashioned route and did the peeling and straining by hand. This took hours upon hours with one of us standing at the stove and the other peeling away. This year we bought the fruit strainer attachment for the KitchenAid stand mixer and tomato sauce was a breeze. One of us cut the tomatoes into chunks (most of our tomatoes were Roma so in half or quarter depending on size). Using this cut our process time by over half. We are so happy we purchased this. If we only ever use it for tomatoes we would consider it money well spent, but right now I'm looking at a boat load of apples....applesauce here we come.If I had any complaints about it I would say that the plunger is odd. Sometimes we would get "vapor locked" and it was hard to get the fruit moving again and the tray is quite small, but you adjust and get used to it and your rhythm starts and it's all good.

Great product has been used in my family for many generations. This was a gift purchased for my niece. The quality is stellar. The price is excellence. They last forever if you take of them properly.

This is the second Foley food mill in my lifetime. I had one for more than 40 years and swore by its efficiency.The resson I bought this one is because the first was not stainless steel and was beginning to show just spots.I love this mill for making my Italian sauce. It strains out all the skins and seeds from my tomatoes.

Item was delivered on time ,tried right away .Great tool very usefulI seen a latso negative reviews on this item,like rosty my advaiseDot not put on dishwasher machine ,the soaps have strongs cleanersthat's tarnish the metalThanks very much AMAZON company that I trust from the beginningspecially on my portfolio

I can't have a kitchen without one of these food mills. Bought this one for my friend. I've had mine for 50 years, so it's not really shines like the new one. But, my old one still works like a charm. I purchased a food mill for each one of my kids when they started out in their own kitchens. If they want me to cook when I visit, they make sure the mill is handy for me! The only drawback that I can see with the new mill, is that the handle isn't one piece like the old ones. But you can get a silicon pot holder (the kind that just fits over the pot handle) that should solve any "grip" problem on the new mill.

After 25 years of regular, moderate to heavy use, my previous Foley food mill had worn out. I was delighted to find that the new one is just like the old one! We've been using it weekly all summer, processing veggies from the garden, and fruit from the orchard. I'm so glad that there has been no reduction in the quality of spring, handle, bowl brackets, blade, or vessel!

I've had 2 different food mills over the years, but didn't use them much because they were zinc coated and that left a metallic taste on tomatoes and other citrus foods.I'm now more heavily involved in food procession for both freezer and canning, and found I needed a Food Mill again. I did just a little research and decided on the 3.5 qt by Mirro Foley, the same brands I had before, because I knew what to expect. I wasn't disappointed.My first job was pureeing and separating out the seeds and skins from grill-roasted tomatoes for canning. It is the quality I expected, it works as expected, and there is no unexpected extra metallic taste!I'm looking forward to running the passion fruit pulp through the mill to separate out the seeds. I have 2 gallons of strawberry guava in the freezer awaiting the same process for jam.I highly recommend this unit, in stainless steel.

Very pleased.

There are some design flaws...like you can't actually get a bowl situated properly under the pour out, and it still drops some of the leftover material (like tomato skin/seeds) in the liquid if you are not super careful, and it is really messy, however, it does exactly what I need it to do. It peels and seeds my tomatoes so that I can make my own sauce.

5 stars for the tomato grinder,2 stars for the meat grinder.Meat grinding is a pain in the ass.Make sure to cut the meat in very small pieces so you don't get a long piece of sinew that can break the plastic.You have to push down hard on the plunger all the time because of ,what seems to be an air lock.The top thingy is ridiculous.I use a blender for the tomatoes and then pour them in, which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 2.

excellent tool for making applesauce.My only complaint is that the upper hopper where you put the cooked apples is to shallow. The sides need to be higher. Food overflowed and hot apples splattered. Is there a different hopper when you purchase the food grinder? Please let me know.Linda Farrell lfarrell62@gmail.com

Love this.. juicer is great for tomato's.. we make juice, and spaghetti sauce using this and I love all the work it saves me by using this verses doing it all by hand, and we have ground our own meat, but the little ring did break... so we replaced it.. and are good to go again! would recommend to anyone looking for kitchen aid parts!

This tool works very well, my first one lasted 25+ years.It's a must for any serious home gardener.It makes preparing tomato sauce a breeze.The problem with these is the plastic discolors, and splits over time.Do not make the mistake of attempting to seed grapes with it, the screen is too fine.The end result is irreparable damage to the unit.The manufacturer should sell with a variety of screens, and all metal parts.

1, I love this, my Grandmother had one and this works just like I remember. This one is larger though and holds a lot more than Gram's did. No skins or seeds in my apple sauce, no stings in my squash soup, much nicer than my previous one.2, I wanted to give 4.5 stars because this would work so much better if the handle was put on from the bottom up instead of top down, so it sat more level and allowed more room in the receiving Pan/bowl instead of tipping so much and sitting so far down in and taking up usable space.

Bought this for making tomato sauce, Does a good job

This was great! Just like the one my Mom had. We made applesauce with it. We did core the apples first, so I don't know how it would have done with the seeds and all in it.Handle design should have been solid, would be easier to hold on to. Overall would recommend it!

Be prepared to push...HARD

Just as good as the same brand I had for 30 years but got rid of because I didn't think I could use my arms again for making jellies and applesauce after surgery. I am stronger now years later and find this model similar but the handle is hard to grip without a potholder while bearing down on the turning. Works best when set on top of a saucepan with a handle so the potholder can be wrapped around both the mill's handle and the saucepan handle at the same time. Gets the job done!

I used this to make about 12 quarts of tomato soup this year and it gave me no problems. I had gotten it to replace an old, somewhat rusty food mill that my grandma had given me as a hand-me-down that was on its last legs. Turns easily, gets all the juice out on the first go, didn't rust, was surprisingly not terrible to hand-wash (I don't have a dishwasher, though I imagine it'd be easier to wash that way), the little feet-latch things fit on a variety of pot sizes---all around a good mill.

Pricey and bit cumbersome and it does not handle black raspberry seeds very well. (clogged up) But overall it eventually got the job done.

Could have designed a larger feeder to enable more efficient use for straining and grinding. Use to have an older model Oester which did have a larger feeder which was easier to use when canning tomatoes and apples.

this device is much faster than my old peel method; however, it does clog easily with most berries I've tried and the tray is too small. Overall, it still saves my wife and I a considerable amount of time, especially with medium size batches. Also, the replacement parts seem rather expensive. I'd like to see it made a little more solidly and would pay more for such improvements.

I liked the speed, of the KitchenAid FVSFGA/vegetable strainer, but it is difficult to clean esp. around the grinder that fits into the strainer and difficult to catch the liquid and the waste.

There are several things that would make this a better product. The strainer should be a bit wider, and the hopper where you add the fruit or veggies should be big, like a bowl (see a traditional Victoria strainer). Works really well for making tomato sauce.

I bought this grinder to make baby food and it doesn't do the job that a standard blender would do. I have only used it twice in the past 3 months and would not recommend it to anyone using it for that purpose. This is a pretty good deal if you need something to just chop/grind up food, or for juice. SocialMommie

There was no instruction booklet with this product. It was harder to work than I thought it would be. Maybe the bolt needs to be tightened?

It's OK but does not catch more of the food under the blade so more is wasted. I takes a lot of scrapping the food in order for it to be processed under the blade.

Just okay. This is my first food mill purchase so I wanted something that wasn't going to break the bank but still get the job done. It does. My only complaint is the handle. Poorly designed, it hurts my hand with just one small batch of applesauce. I even put an oven mitt on to help cushion it a bit. Just so you know I am a 39 year old woman in perfect health. It's not like I'm old and arthritic. It does make beautiful applesauce though.

It does what its supposed to, but not easily. After ten minutes of making apple sauce, I had a bad cramp in my left hand. Also, the paddle bend is too shallow. By that I mean, the blade that rotates and forces the food through the holes isn'tt high enough. You have to work extra hard to make up for it.

I got this to replace our old foley food mill which was rusting and probably not adding good things to the food we milled. This one will never rust. If you have never had a food mill, they are very useful for making apple sauce or tomato sauce. We don't bother to peel the tomatoes, just cook and run through the mill, skins and seeds stay behind. That said, The new food mill is much lighter and more flimsy than the old mill. The auger does not fit as tightly over the mesh, so it takes more turns to squeeze out whatever you are trying to separate from peels or seeds. I get the feeling that I am leaving more apple/tomato pulp behind, and I hate waste. I would have paid more for a heavier stainless steel mill if I had realized this was so thin.

It takes a long time to process apples into apple sauce. I wish it pushed the apples through faster, but it is nice and smooth when it finally processes all the apples. I was hoping this would be faster than a manual potato masher, but it actually takes longer. And the bottom screw drips gray goo (maybe grease) if it gets wet. I have only used it twice so far and I cleaned off the bottom screw really well after the last time. Hopefully it won't drip gray goo any more.

Very poorly packaged by the manufacturer. All the bits were just thrown into a box with no padding, which might explain why the plastic strainer tray was broken when I opened it. Will be returning this item today.

This kitchenAid product doesn't do what I was expecting it to do. I wanted to crush raspberry's and have the seeds removed much more easily.

Used this for making blackberry jam and it choked up on the seeds multiple times. This caused the whole unit to shoot off the end of my mixer and make a HUGE mess. Will try it with other items and (hopefully) update this review to something more positive.

Works but is poorly designed. Small hopper makes it difficult if not dangerous to process large quantities of very hot sauce. Also almost broke when it didn't efficiently move and eject the pulp through the center. Buy a hand cranked one. They are fast, require very little arm energy to use and as a bonus 1/3 the price. You need to do better Kitchen Aid.

I primarily bought this to make grape juice for jelly, and the grape seeds were just too much for it to handle. I think something with a greater proportion of soft fruit/vegetable matter to seed (like cooked apples or tomatoes) might work ok. But it just bogged down and clogged up, creating a huge mess. The hole at the end of the strainer (where the rejected material comes out) is just too small. I went back to doing it manually with my colander before it was over.To reinforce what everyone else has said, it is also annoying that the tray is so small, and basically requires you buy the extender tray to use it. Once purchased, the extender tray isn't a sealed fit, leaks, and adds to the messiness factor. The grinder has only 2 cutter sizes. I expected the larger cutter to allow a coarser grind. There should be at least 1 more size to allow more versatile usage (like relishes).I just expected more.

This thing works great for applesauce; cooked apple quarters or halves in one end, applesauce out the middle, and cores/stems/peels out the end. We cook the apples in 9x13 pans, 1 in the microwave and two in the oven, and still can't keep up with the strainer. I don't know what the other reviewer is talking about with a cross-shaped food pusher. Ours is a wooden pusher like in the photo. The top tray is a little small but not too big a deal for apples anyway.Found out the hard way that the plastic parts are no match for bread crumbs. Had the bread cubes totally dried out as per the instruction manual, after a while started noticing white flecks in the crumbs coming out. Turns out that dried bread cubes are harder than the plastic and had been destroying the thing by grinding the plastic off.

foley mills in general are super cool and very helpful, but this is not the most durable version. My handle broke off and also I had to replace the washer at the bottom multiple times with multiple trips to the hardware store. Granted, I do process like 15 bushels of various fruits each summer. It might be OK for occasional use. The high capacity is nice. The stainless steel is nice.

this item worked as they said it would. i did however have several complaints such as the metal it's made out of is very thin and the hooks that latch onto the pots bend flat and are useless the main issue though was the Metal would turn black and leave a residue in the food and made it unusable after third or fourth time i used it. it's good for just a couple of times but that's it. though I would probably recommend find one of a higher quality

I bought this food mill so I could tackle making 10# of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. The potatoes were sliced into 1/2" thick pieces so they could more easily be processed but potatoe kept getting compacted and stuck under the milling blade. I had to constantly stop and scrape the potato up thus making the whole process very laborious and long. Eventually the 10# of potatoes were processed but I was not happy with the amount of time and effort it required so I returned the mill. I would love a recommendation for a mill that does not trap food underneath its blade.

Now where as good as the original Foley sieve that was my mother's which finally gave up the ghost. The manufacturing tolerance is off. The blade does not reach the edge of the mill so that it builds up the material being sieved and takes too long to get all the food thru the mill and wears your arm out.

I bought this food mill expressly to make applesauce. Previously, I'd used a friend's antique wooden food mill attachment for her Kitchenaid mixer. The antique wooden one worked much better, although the size was smaller - the peels and pits were more clean and easier to discard.With the Foley Stainless Steel Food Mill, the paddle gets stuck a lot by the apple pits. It ends up either stopping entirely, or sort of dragging the pits along the bottom. Sometimes it grazes over the pits and you'll have a thin layer of applesauce just sitting at the bottom. It also would push the peels down to the bottom and they'd get just stuck there, covering the holes, and no applesauce would come out the bottom until you scraped them off. Also the bottom spring got a little mucked up with applesauce and started dripping gray liquid into my sauce. I think it was a little grease or metal from the mechanism. Pretty gross.All in all, it did work, but not efficiently, and it required a lot of manual labor. It would have been less of a hassle and just about the same amount of waste if I had peeled and cored the apples beforehand (a step I was trying to eliminate by using the food mill).As other users have noted, the handle itself is not too comfortable to grip. Also, the metal clamps which supposedly keep the food mill over a bowl are slippery as they don't have any rubber or grip to them - a towel or piece of rubber matting will help, but that's something the manufacturer should have thought of. So as you're manually cranking the food mill, it sort of slips and slides around, unless you're really gripping the handle and pushing it against the bowl. It ends up being a pretty good arm workout.Due to Amazon's new stricter return policy, I can't return this just because it doesn't work for me, unfortunately. So it's back in that awful corner cabinet in my kitchen where I store things I don't use very much. Next summer I may try it out with some sort of berry jam, and hopefully it will work better at removing berry seeds than it did for applesauce.

I am very much disappointed with the quality of my "new' Foley Food mill. It replaces one that was 40+ years old. The only reason I need to replace it is that the metal nut piece fell in the disposal and became bent. Otherwise, I think it would have outlived me! The weight of the new product is lighter, the handle - formerly a solid piece of metal - is now a metal loop as shown above. It does not give the firm support needed to process anything bulky, i.e. processing a bowlful of food takes much longer. My main complaint is that the screw mechanism and thin wire rod on the bottom of the mill do not screw tightly enough to offer the needed resistance to the straining process. Also, after 20-30 turns I have to check my processed food to make sure no "grey liquid spots" have contaminated the food. It appears to me that the friction of the screw and nut piece are causing pieces of the metal to wear off and drop into the food. This never happened before.I know there are many other products available which could provide the same processing. I chose the Foley Mill because of its reliability and performance. I am very disappointed with what I got.

If you want tomato juice - it's great. Totally useless on removing tomato seeds from the pulp. It's easier to remove the seeds by hand and then run your tomatoes through your food processor. That way you get a thicker and nutritionally better soup or marinara

This is a complete piece of junk. Cheaply make and made more of a mess in the kitchen than did what it was advertised to do. This item was returned for a refund.

I normally love kitchenaid products so I was expecting a lot of this. I tried to make tomato sauce with this and I absolutely hated it. It let the seeds into my sauce. It doesn't hardly pull the food though. I had to push everything through. Once the food was in the strainer part I still had to be pushing more in to get it go through. Otherwise it would just spin the food round and round. What finally did come out the trash end was full of good pulp. The only pro to this is that it was returnable.

Steel auger drive shaft broke after 1 day. Score: Steel 0, Carrot 1. Spring loaded auger did not line up correctly with food inlet so unless the auger had food pushing the auger back continuously food would get stuck between electric motor and auger. Incredibly poor at straining juice from carrots but was fine for soft fruits. Took two hours and produced very large mess to produce I 16oz of juice. Plastic is great quality but design needs to be reviewed. As the latin saying goes "caveat emptor" (buyer beware). Buyer's remorse for me.

This attachment is so disappointing. I've used it three times: the first time with cooked tomatoes, which worked great. The second time I ground tenderloin and it came out with grease all over it. Not sure how since I cleaned it well. That ruined $30 in meat. The third time, I ran cooked spinach and beets through it. It is currently jammed up and unusable. Amazon says that their return policy expired 14 days ago. I bought it two months ago. Total waste of time and money.

I purchased the grinder/strainer combination so I could make blackberry jam easily. I read through the instruction booklet to be sure I was doing it correctly. It started out fine, but then the strainer got clogged with seeds,and the strainer burst apart at the seams.Kitchen Aid help line person was very good and said they would send me a new part. When I asked what I could do so it wouldn't happen again, she looked up on their troubleshooting site. On the site, it warned against using large seeded-fruit such as blackberries. Had this been mentioned in their instruction booklet, I would have returned the item unused and gotten my money back. As it is now, I'll try to sell it and recoup part of my purchase price.

When using this product to rice potatoes the bearing for the crank would deposit a black grease like substance into the potatoes forming black streaks. Totally unacceptable, would not recommend this product to a friend.Product was returned to Amazon for a credit.FIVE stars to Amazon for their handling of the return and the issuing of the credit.Ordered a CUISINOVA Potato Ricer as replacement; hope it preforms better than the FOLEY.

Lousy design enabled food (cooked, quartered apples) to go over paddle instead of being pushed through the mesh. Also, the few apples I did get to go through ended up wasted as screw/nut apparatus on underside of unit leaked nasty oil into the applesauce, even though I had first washed the unit. Returned it.

I would rate this a NEGATIVE 5 stars if I could. Metal in my food!! Stay away from this product. I figured with the Foley name associated with it it had to be good. After using it once, I now think Mr. or Ms. Foley would be tossing in their grave to know their name was on this product.It arrived timely enough. I had just harvested a few bushel of apples from the tree in my yard, had the canning jars and canner all ready to make applesauce. When I unpacked the food mill, I noticed that there were no instructions included. Not a big deal, I had used a similar food mill before so figuring it out was easy. I washed it thoroughly in hot water, dried it and put it together. I loaded it up with about 4 cups of cooked apple slices, began turning the crank to press the apples through the mill then stopped after several turns of the crank to check on how it was looking in the pot where the sauce was going. "What the ??????" There were black "drippings" in the middle of the pot in my applesauce! Ruined, I thought. There was no oil or grease anywhere on the mill so it couldn't be that! As I looked closer, I could see that the black liquid dripping into my applesauce was ground up metal coming from where the stem of the mill press rotates through spindle of the sieve (see picture).Grrrrrrrr! I emptied out the pot, washed everything and looked at the spindle and stem again and could see where the metal had rubbed off. Then I also noted that one of the many holes of the sieve where the sauce is pressed through still had the metal tab in it. It was only partly punched out when it was manufactured and was hanging there ready to drop into my food to be swallowed later (see picture).I thought I would contact Mirro or Foley directly, however, not only were there no instructions and no warranty included in the box it came in, there was no phone number either. Isn't that great for the consumer! However, the package did clearly say "Made in China." I called Amazon for a return, which they did provide for, boxed the food mill back up and returned it. Fortunately I did not ruin much of the sauce. Sure glad I checked the sauce before I did. As far as pushing the softly cooked apples through, the mill did not work all that great - poorer than I expected.I resorted to my old standby of a large metal straining basket (about 2.5 qrts size) and pressed the cooked apples through it using a large wooden spoon. In about 20 minutes later I had 3 gallons of great sauce. Maybe there is a great Foley food mill out there someplace but this one is certainly not one of them.

I purchased it to strain cooked apples for applesauce. The old one is made of aluminum and I wanted to switch to stainless steel. I purchased the larger one to get the job done quickly. It works very slowly, much slower than my old one. Also, despite cleaning it carefully several times, it left a gray deposit in the middle of the applesauce so, I had to throw the applesauce away. I tried it several times and cleaned it several times. I suspect the center spindle is reacting with the applesauce and corroding.

I bought this based on reviews and i have to say that it doesnt hold up. The shaft pivots in a stainless steel bushing and that ended up coming apart. The bushing ripped right out of the bowl portion. I cant get it back in because the bowl is cracked around the location where it goes. I have only used it to make applesauce for 1 year. Though i make about 2 bushels of applesauce i still think it should last longer. I also had the issue of the shaft wearing in the bushing and would give off some black goop that would drip into my applesauce. I had to spoon it off all the time. Not very nice at all.

I purchased this food mill because of the high reviews and because it was less expensive than the OXO mill. BIG mistake! First of all, the mill is very awkward to use and feels flimsy. The handle is a pain to hold (even with a towel) and the little hooks on the side kept bending out of shape so the mill would fall into the pot I was milling over. However, never having used a food mill before I thought this must just be how they all are and I'd have to live with it.So I continued to use it heavily for things like tomato sauce, apple sauce, plums, etc but in just a little over a month it broke! The middle section where the crank attaches came clean off! It seemed like the welding was shoddy or the metal was too thin in that area or something.I returned it and purchased the OXO food mill which I HIGHLY recommend. So easy to use, sturdy, works great. Love, love, love it. Save yourself the hassle and purchase the OXO one in the first place. You'll be very glad you spent the extra dollars.