Meat Pounders
Skip most mallets. Our winning pounder was a wide, weighted disk.
Tool Test
Our tool of choice for flattening cutlets, crushing graham crackers and cracking crab claws is a sturdy, reliable meat pounder. To find our favorite style, we put 11 popular pounders to the test.
These tools typically fall into three categories. The most common is a mallet, which functions similar to a hammer. There also are disk-style pounders—flat, weighted rounds with short handles that rise from the center. Less common are spatula-like pounders, which feature an offset paddle attached to a long, straight handle.
We evaluated all of the models for comfort, ease of use, effectiveness and ease of cleaning. Our top choice was Fante’s Uncle Giuseppe’s Stainless Steel Meat Pounder, a disk-style tool. Simply designed and solidly built, its smooth, wide surface flattened cutlets without shredding or tearing them. It was one of the heavier entrants in our lineup, but its weight enhanced its performance. The heft kept the tool centered, yielding evenly pounded meats.
Our runner-up was a mallet-style pounder, the Westmark Meat Hammer. Overall, we found that mallet-style tools were more prone to ripping cutlets and flattening them unevenly. Westmark’s model was the exception. Testers loved its light weight and noted that it made quick, easy work of flattening various proteins. Both models are dishwasher safe.
The Rösle Meat Spatula was our least favorite. While it did a decent job of pounding cutlets, testers agreed that the spatula-shaped tool was cumbersome and awkward to use.
