Strainers come in many shapes and sizes. But what are strainers used for?
Strainers separate solids from liquids and can also sift flour, dust desserts or smooth sauces, depending on the mesh. Some tools are intended for steaming or lifting food from hot oil, but those uses need specific heat approval and a stable setup.
Let’s now talk about the different types of strainers and which one you should choose for your culinary needs.
How Many Types Of Strainers Are There?
Many people think of a strainer as any bowl-shaped tool with holes at the bottom.
This definition adds many random things to the list, like potato ricers, salad spinners, and food mills.
We’ll keep our topic focused on general-use strainers and break down the other types later.
We’ll discuss colanders, mesh sieves, chinois, and spiders in detail.
All of these have many uses and can make cooking much easier and more efficient.
What Are Colanders Used For?
Colanders are probably the first thing you picture when you hear the word “strainer.”
They’re the most basic type—just a metal or plastic bowl with hundreds of tiny holes punched in.
You usually use a colander to strain pasta after cooking; you can also wash fresh fruits and vegetables in it since the bowl size is quite large.
Draining canned vegetables and giving them a rinse in a colander will also help you get rid of excess sodium. All the better!
A colander with a standing base is not automatically a suitable steamer. Check that its maker permits steaming and that it fits the pot securely.
For steaming, use approved equipment and follow its directions for water level, lid and heat. Protect your hands from steam.
Follow the recipe for the vegetable size and doneness; there is no universal five-minute result.
Unfortunately, colanders aren’t suited for separating finer particles. For this, you’ll need the following type of strainers.
Recommended Further Reading: Can A Pot Go In An Oven? | Can A Ceramic Bowl Go In An Oven? | Can A Non-Stick Pan Go In An Oven?
What Are Mesh Strainers (Sieves) Used For?
A mesh strainer also called a fine-mesh sieve, is a more refined form of the sieve.
They’re made of a solid rim of metal attached to the handle and a curved piece of wire or nylon mesh.
Mesh sieves are the jack-of-all-trades of the strainer universe.
They can do what a colander does, but they also have the added benefit of smaller openings.
You can use a fine-mesh strainer to sift the flour to aerate it before making batters and doughs.
Additionally, you can accomplish the professional-looking dusting of powdered sugar or cocoa on desserts as well.
And, of course, you can use them to strain pulpy bits out of soups and smoothies.
More unusual uses for mesh strainers are cheese-making, using them to make perfectly-shaped poached eggs, and this simple but brilliant use: straining citrus juice to catch any stray seeds!
The best thing about mesh strainers is that they can come in sets of different sizes, making them more versatile and easy to grab when you’re in the middle of a recipe.
What Is A Chinois Strainer Used For?
Chinois strainers are a bit of a fancy piece of kitchen equipment.
In fact, they’re more often found in professional kitchens than in regular households.
A chinois is a cone-shaped fine strainer used for smooth sauces, soups and other liquids.
Construction and mesh fineness vary. Choose one suited to the texture and ingredients in your recipe.
Some chinois designs can be used with a suitable pestle to help pass purées through; check whether the tool is included and follow its instructions.
However, this process can take time and some elbow grease, depending on how smooth your food processor or blender pulverizes the food.
Some people reserve their chinois to strain stocks, broths, and soups.
In this case, you’ll only need the back of a spoon to pass most of the liquid through.
What Is A Spider Strainer Used For?
If you’ve ever watched one of those very popular street-food videos, where the cooks are handling multiple woks over open flames, you’ve probably seen a “spider” as their tool of choice.
The fascinating spider strainer gets its name from the pattern of the wires forming it, which looks like a spider web.
Spider strainers often have a shallow wire basket and a long handle. Handle materials vary; a bamboo handle is not automatically heatproof.
A spider designed for hot-oil use can lift food from a fryer. For poaching, blanching or stirring, check the actual tool’s heat and use instructions.
You can use it to drain pasta or blanch vegetables.
A skimmer can remove floating solids or foam from a liquid. A coarse wire spider does not reliably separate liquid fat from broth.
Are There Any Other Types of Strainers?
There are many other sieves on the market; some are single-task gimmicks.
However, some are very useful and well worth their price and the space they take up.
Boiling baskets come in handy if you want to drop a couple of servings of uncooked pasta in boiling water, then lift the basket to drain.
And salad spinners, especially collapsible ones, make for a less-soggy salad.
You also won’t have your dressing watered down with the excess moisture from wet greens.
Food mills are another type of strainer with a long history of use in the kitchen.
They help break down and puree vegetables and fruits.
For example, they make for an amazing tomato sauce or apple sauce since they separate the pulp from seeds and skins.
This is what our great-grandmas probably used before electric blenders were invented!
Last but not least, there’re potato ricers, which are an ingenious contraption in their own right.
They help you make the smoothest, creamiest mashed potatoes by breaking them down into rice-grain-sized bits.
Then, you can easily incorporate butter and milk, stir, and have a delicious mashed potato side dish in minutes.
Interesting Further Reading: Can A Glass Bowl Be Used For A Double Boiler? | What Can Be Used Instead Of A Double Boiler? | What Is A Double Boiler Method? | Can A Stainless Steel Bowl Go In An Oven? | Are Cast Iron Woks Good?
Which Type Of Strainer Should You Have In Your Kitchen?
Every home cook has priorities when it comes to cooking equipment.
But in the end, the choices you make boil down to your skill level, storage space, and favorite dishes.
If it’s unthinkable for you to own one piece of every type of sieve we mentioned above, we recommend you go for the choice that can double-task and give you more functionality for the price or space it occupies.
A suitably sized mesh sieve can handle some colander tasks, but capacity, stability and hole size affect whether the substitution works.
A fine sieve may help smooth some purées, but it does not duplicate every function or texture of a food mill or potato ricer.
A rinsing strainer cannot automatically replace a steamer basket. Use equipment intended for steaming with a secure fit.
A long-handled spider can be useful for lifting food from liquid when designed for the task.
Choose a size, basket and handle suitable for the food and cooking method. Hot oil requires a frying-rated tool; a generic mesh or bamboo label is not enough.
So, take note of your storage space, what you usually reach for in the kitchen, and the recipes you choose to cook.
And hopefully, you can make better decisions regarding which sieve is best for your needs based on the information we provided.
