How to chop cabbage thinly and very quickly: choosing the best tool

Shredding cabbage thinly and beautifully is not as easy as it seems at first glance. You will need a special cabbage shredder and some skill. Let's look at all the methods and reveal the secret: how to get the thinnest chips.

What kitchen tools can you use to shred cabbage?

Let’s say right away that it will be difficult to finely chop a vegetable with an ordinary knife. Professional chefs are capable of this, but even they prefer to use special tools:

graters;
hatchets with two blades;
jichen.

Each of these tools must be used taking into account its specific features.

Let's deal with them.

How to shred cabbage with a grater

A hand grater allows you to finely chop a head of cabbage, and most importantly, quickly. In stores you can find different types of vegetable graters: wooden or plastic, with 2 or more blades.

We use a plastic grater with 2 different attachments:

- The first attachment allows you to obtain thin but short cabbage sticks.

- The second attachment helps cut the head of cabbage into thin but long strips.

To make it more convenient to chop the vegetable on a grater, you can cut a piece from the head of cabbage or, if the head of cabbage is small and fits in your hand, work with it. Here you need to focus on convenience and nothing else.

How to proceed:

We rest the grater against the cutting board.
We take cabbage in the other hand.
We make monotonous movements with the cabbage on the grater from top to bottom, with slight pressure.Under no circumstances should you make too fast or sharp movements - this could result in injury from the sharp grater.

In addition to cabbage, you can also finely grate other vegetables on this grater. For example, potatoes, carrots, beets.

The grater has only one drawback - it takes a lot of energy. Monotonous movements quickly become boring. Therefore, chefs recommend using it when you need to finely chop a small amount of cabbage, for example, for salad.

How to chop cabbage with a hatchet

Ordinary people, not cooks, prefer to chop a head of cabbage with a special hatchet. Externally, this device looks like an ordinary kitchen hatchet, the metal part of which has two sharp blades built into it. There is a small gap between them - it regulates the thickness of the shredder. The handle of such a hatchet is usually made of plastic, sometimes of wood.

It’s convenient to grate vegetables on a grater, but a hatchet is much safer. After all, its metal edges are blunt, it is impossible to get hurt on them. The sharp blades are located in the middle of the hatchet.
If you use the hatchet correctly, you can chop the head of cabbage quickly. This method is suitable for cutting a large number of vegetables. For example, for pickling, when you need to process several heads of cabbage at a time.
Using the hatchet is very easy:

You need to place the head of cabbage on a cutting board.
And then just run the hatchet along the edge of the vegetable a little forward and immediately down. Movements should be with light pressure.

The sharp blades will instantly begin to chop the cabbage, without the person having to put in much effort. This is how you can get fairly thin bars, medium in length. Fast and easy!

How to shred cabbage with jichen

And here is the secret shredding method we promised.Thanks to it you can get the thinnest cabbage shavings. This is the use of a kitchen tool - jichen. It is convenient for them to work, the process goes quickly. In 10 minutes you can finely chop a small head of cabbage.

Externally, the jichen looks like a paring knife. The latter, by the way, can easily replace jichen if it is not there. The product is made of stainless steel. The handle can be made of thick rubber or plastic. Jichen comes in different sizes.
Perhaps the most important thing (besides the excellent result) is that it is impossible to cut yourself with a jichen or a vegetable peeler. These are absolutely safe tools that even children can use.

To work with jichen, you need to cut a small piece from the head of cabbage so that it is comfortable to hold in your hand.

Then you should take the piece in your hands and move your jichen along its edge, performing actions towards yourself. In this case, you need to press lightly, just a little bit.

This tool really produces very thin but crispy slices of cabbage. These are the ones that are ideal for pickling for the winter and preparing vegetable salads.

Useful tips

Before work, we recommend reading our useful tips:

The first thing to do is remove the top leaves from the head of cabbage.
There is no need to wash cabbage. Then it will be slippery and it will be inconvenient to work with it. It is enough that the top leaves are removed.
It is better not to use ceramic and glass cutting boards for work. They look beautiful, but contact with them will dull any knives. But wooden and plastic boards work great. It is desirable that they be large in size.
You should chop the cabbage quickly, making movements in one direction, but calm, not sharp.
You can’t grate the vegetable for future use. Finely chopped cabbage quickly loses juice, becomes dry and tasteless. You need to work with it immediately before cooking.

The fastest way to shred is with a hatchet. The only way to cut vegetables faster is with a food processor. But not all housewives like this method, since a food processor is an expensive pleasure, and not everyone can afford to buy it just for the sake of preparing a small amount of vegetables.