Tongs (Kitchen Tools & Utensils)

Tongs extend your finger and thumb into temperatures your hand cannot approach. Two arms joined at one end, a spring holding them open and a pair of gripping tips make up the whole machine. Grip is what separates them from everything else on this page, because gripping lets you turn, lift, toss and hold food in one motion without piercing it and draining the juice. This is what a fork does every time.

Length sets the use. Nine inch tongs suit stovetop work and give enough control for plating. Twelve inch tongs put your hand roughly a foot from the surface. This is what deep frying at 350 degrees Fahrenheit and an open grill both demand, and they feel clumsy for anything delicate. Tips arrive scalloped in bare steel, which grips a chicken thigh best and scars a coating on contact, or capped in silicone, usually rated near 450 degrees and harmless to any pan. Silicone tips are also fatter, so they cannot pick up a single green bean the way thin steel edges can.

Test the lock, not the tips. A pull ring or slide lock you can set and release with the same hand holding the tongs stays usable while your other hand is full, where a lock needing two hands means putting the tongs down each time. Squeeze the arms fully closed and let go. The spring should return them briskly, since a soft spring makes your hand supply the grip pressure across a whole session. Weak springs are the usual failure, arriving years before anything else on the tool wears out.

Turners and spoons overlap surprisingly little here. Whatever you can grip from the sides belongs to tongs. Whatever would break under side pressure, meaning fish fillets, fried eggs and pancakes, belongs to a turner. Deep frying small pieces is better served by a spider skimmer, because tongs lift one item at a time. Store them locked closed and hanging, since a pair that springs open inside a drawer jams it. Bare steel takes the dishwasher without complaint, and silicone tips go on the top rack away from the heating element.