Vegetables: Pre-Sliced or No?

Thinking of switching to Pre-sliced onions, tomato, green peppers. Any suggestions? We currently slice them all on our hand slicer and wondering if anyone has done the leg work of a 50# bag of onions…what is the actual usable weight. Have serched PMQ for this topic and found nothing. Thanks

buy a manual dicer & do your own…fresher/better/cheaper…

diced cooks fast & preps fast

What brand dicer do you use? Thanks for responding

only thing we buy pre-sliced is fresh mushrooms and pepperoni…onions & peppers we put through our deli slicer

here is one brand

http://www.foodprepworld.com/lincoln-instadice.html

the other work on the same principle…

we used to get thin sliced mushrooms from our supplier, then changed and the new supplier only carried regular sliced 'shrooms…

we then began “dicing” our 'shrooms and tho it takes a little time, is well worth it…better coverage…faster application…better moisture control…

Pre-sliced really depends on your useage. The higher your useage, the more convenience you get. It is a huge trade-off using pre-prepped vegetables . . . food cost versus labor costs . . . . and spoilage.

Pre-sliced costs more and spoils much quicker than fresh, whole product. Suggesting dicing really avoids the question when the shop really wants slicing. we use slices for the appearance and the ‘quality assurance’ since lots of places use frozen diced vegetables on their pies. We can say we use sliced fresh vegetables. Marketing tool.

We are moving to slicing our own onions after 3 years of using bagged, sliced. We are going to get a good mandolin or rotary slicer, cut resistant gloves, and some good food containers to hold the product. We are also going to invest in a tomato slicer for our tomatoes to get out of hand slicing . . . plus we hope this will cut our green pepper rings.

I ran the math and found out that I could have bought both slicers already if I had been buying bags of onions and slicing myself. That said, I may still go back to pre-sliced one day. BUT, since I cannot find a good green pepper ring source that is even marginally afforable, I will always cut those myself until I go to pepper strips or something like that. Cannt ever imagine using diced peppers, though . . . . seems too much like Totinos frozen pizza for our operation.

dicers generally come in several sizes…much bigger than your fav Totino’s

I used 2 hand slice peppers & onions…started using a dicer a few yrs ago…no comparison, IMHO…faster 2 prep…faster to top…cooks better…better coverage…safes…customers luv 'em…we do tomatoes for the pies as well…great 4 salad production

Here’s a link to what we use. In 10 years, we’ve had to replace it once, and have probably replaced blade 4 times. quick and durable.
http://www.restaurantsource.net/prodDet … %22%29,MX2

I’m in the deli slicer camp.

I’m set up the same way I did it long ago - using a slicer with a “TUBE” to load full of tomatoes, onions, mushroom, bell peppers, whatever (heck - I USED to do my own pepperoni). And it’s a full automatic - just get the thickness set right, turn it on, and go do something else.

We run that thing half the day. We slice ham too.

We like the look and flavor/texture of sliced, though I might reconsider with bell peppers one of these days.
I did finally stop using my lettuce chopper and switched to a bagged product - because my fresh lettuce price SKYROCKETED past the bagged price - even BEFORE taking the waste into account.

Here’s my ignorance moment. What are you referring to as a “deli slicer”? If it a meat slicer that has an automated back and forth mechanism? I’m seriously in the market to find a solution to this issue. I’d love to get a machine that does them all: Tomato, mushrooms, onions and bell peppers. I’m willing to go for two gadgets . . . three is right out.

I like the lever action one in the link above. I can find it a little cheaper still at a local supplier.

Yes - I meant one of these below. I know it’s a little bit of an unusual approach, which is why I posted it.

Slicer:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi … 0104701855

Chute:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi … 0114711535

Paul,

The Nemco 3/16 onion slicer – is that the size you use as well? 3/16 seems about right, but slightly smaller seems like it would be better for onions.

Anyone else care to chime in on what size blade assembly they are using?

Thanks

-Scott

It is the 3/16 that we use. Cut green peppers, onions and plum tomatoes with it. Perfect thickness in my opinion. If you think thats too thick, they do sell them with 1/8th inch blades.

presliced veggies are a god send for high volume operations, however I wouldn’t buy presliced tomatoes because tomatoes are so fragile I don’t think they’d hold up well during the mass slicing and packaging process. If you’re not doing a large volume I would definately stay with slicing your own veggies, with the exception of mushrooms.

Why would you except mushrooms? They’re the easiest/cleanest thing to slice (the way we do slicing - in a slicer with a veggie tube)…

MM,

Can you take a picture of what your veggies look like after they have been sliced by the slicer?

I would except mushrooms because I’d rather pay a few cents more than pay the labor costs for cleaning and slicing mushrooms

I’ll try to get that done! Shoot me an private with an email to follow up…in case I can’t get an image pasted here…

I agree with AD plus I have found the pre-sliced to hold better/longer most of the time