Apple pies, apple cobblers, apple crunches, apple butters, apple preserves, and apple cakes are all great choices for seasonal fare. Some peelers are designed to peel apples as well as other fruits and vegetables, while others are apple specific. Lesley estimates that the gargantuan task of peeling apples for dehydrator testing would have taken her “easily five times longer” without this mighty little tool. I recently peeled, cored, and sliced nine large apples—about the amount you’d need for most apple pie recipes—and cleaned everything up, all in under five minutes. The sheer speed and efficiency makes me feel like I’m a contestant on Top Chef, while the actual apparatus makes me feel like I’m churning butter in the 1890s.

Senior editor Jennifer Hunter says that the apple peeler she used all the time growing up—on an organic vegetable farm in Oregon—looked exactly like our staff favorite, too. A hand crank is also low effort and combines tasks like coring and slicing, while a handheld requires the most effort since the peel is removed one stroke at a time.

Fill a bowl with water that has added lemon juice or white vinegar at a ratio of 1 tablespoon to each cup of water, and drop apples in after peeling. Make some Apple Scrap Jelly or Homemade Apple Pectin or help the planet by making your own in-home compost bin.

If you go with a countertop tool, you'll want one with strong suction cups at the base, so it doesn't go crashing to the floor. As fall settles in I direct you to one of our favorite fall kitchen gadgets: The Apple Peeler Corer Slicer by Progressive International. The Matfer Bourgeat brand has an excellent reputation, so why this tool performed so poorly is a mystery. It looked great when first taken out of the box, but during assembly, some of the parts did not fit correctly. This affordable, sturdy peeler works great for not only apples, but potatoes and other veggies as well, making it a versatile value tool.But once you do all of that (which took Samantha about 10 minutes), the rest becomes super simple, although you may need to realign over time. This device shines when it comes to ease of use: Setup took us just 4 minutes (including reading the directions), and peeling a small apple took about 5 seconds. If you make a lot of apple desserts—think pies, crumbles, or applesauce—this is a good tool to have around, especially because coring and slicing only takes the machine 30 seconds. Still, this is a particularly versatile attachment as it was able to slice any veggie or fruit we tried—even dense sweet potatoes. This ergonomic Oxo set comes with three different style blades—a swivel, a julienne, and a serrated—so you'll have peelers year-round for every recipe.