What is a French Fry Cutter?

A french fry cutter quickly cuts potatoes in french fry shapes of varying width, and can be a home utensil or a heavy piece of equipment for industries that make a lot of french fries. French fry cutters for home use can exhibit a range in price, style and features. All of them are meant to help you quickly make uniform french fry shapes from potatoes.

The simplest french fry cutter styles may be inexpensive, about $10-20 US dollars (USD). These may either lie on their sides or sit upright. Essentially, you take a potato, and push it through the cutter. The upright ones tend to work a bit better, since you have more leverage to push the potato. A few of these styles may have a couple of different size grates, so you can choose to cut thin or thick fries depending on your choice. The least expensive ones will only have one grate and may not be very durable.

You can then move in price into some very fancy, more durable french fry cutter types that will offer you many different grates for cutting fries, and tend to be made of heavy metal. Some are wall-mounted, which may be an excellent feature if you don’t have much counter space and make a lot of french fries. A few of the more expensive french fry cutter styles aren’t wall mounted, but table or counter top attachable. This gives you stability while you push the potato through to cut it into french fry shapes. A popular design is the Williams Sonoma® french fry cutter, made of heavy metal and costing about $100 USD.

Industrial styles of the french fry cutter may be automated, and might be able to cut more that one potato at the same time. This is a boon for people who depend on making large quantities of french fries on a regular basis. Some fast food restaurants employ these, though they are more likely to purchase ready-cut french fries that are made at another location. Industrial french fry cutters are large, costly, and impractical for home use. Yet they can produce not only standard cuts of fries, but also curly fries, and a variety of shapes and styles.