I Love These OXO Tongs, AKA the Platonic Ideal of Hot Dog Grabbers

Dear lord, people have so much bullshit random clutter in their kitchens. I include myself in this—I’ve got a Le Creuset utensil crock (which I highly recommend) that’s absolutely overflowing with spatulas, wooden cooking spoons, tongs, citrus presses, and other culinary tools. I’m not sure how it came to this, though testing kitchen products for a living might have something to do with it. (I won’t say the rest of it is the result of living with my partner; but I will say that when I lived alone, I feel like I had a lot less stuff all over the place. Food for thought!)

In any case, my culinary obsessions have led me to essential tools like this powerful fish spatula (which works on anything), this game-changing and hella affordable vegetable cleaver, a goddamn professional-grade French fry cutter, and an immersion blender that I might have sexual feelings for. In that vein, as part of my never-ending quest to apprise you of the finest and most awesome kitchen tools so that you may someday reach kitchen utensil balance nirvana, it’s time we talk about tongs.

If there’s any single utensil that’s brought me more pain and suffering than the rest, it’s kitchen tongs. They can be surprisingly hard to lock and unlock, and some are super difficult to clean, forcing you to get up in their little nooks and crannies with forks or pipe cleaners so you can remove bits of that carbonara you just had to have. Some have weirdly shaped or too-smooth edges, making it difficult to pick up and hold food. Have you ever tried to serve roasted carrots or asparagus with really wack tongs? It sucks! And then there are the tongs that [cringes] have plastic tips. If I added up all my time spent looking for those tips after they’ve escaped into the dishwasher, sink, utensil crock, or elsewhere, I’d probably find that I could have gone on a trip to Italy instead.

Well, my brothers and sisters in tong frustration, I am here to tell you that there is a Platonic ideal of tongs, and I’ve found them. If you cop the OXO Good Grips 12-inch stainless steel tongs, you can pretty much count on never having tong anxiety again, and probably never having to buy another pair (or at least not for many years). These bad boys absolutely annihilated my tong stress. Here’s why.

First, the locking mechanism is very dependable and sturdy. They have a little grippy circle on the end, making them super easy to use even if your hands are oily as hell. (Many other tongs simply have a metal latch that’s janky at best.) Also, as the name suggests, these have really reliable non-slip handles, so no more dropping your beautiful piece of chicken or a whole dang potato because your gear was slippin’. On that note, this pair has scalloped edges, giving it high-performance texture to really pick up and grip a hefty load of carrots, asparagus, or salad without most of your bounty sliding out because the tongs were too smooth at the tip. And at 12 inches, these bad boys are the perfect length to toss a salad, serve up some fries, reach into a steamin’ frying pan, or even grab charred doggies off grill.

Sure, there’s not too much else to this tool—it’s literally just a piece of steel that you use to delicately cook and serve food. But as far as tongs go, it’s the Platonic ideal… and nearly 13,000 reviewers on Amazon agree, as this baby has an incredible 4.8-star average rating. They say that the perfect chef’s knife should feel like an extension of your hand, and that’s how the OXO Good Grips 12-inch tongs feel.

On that note, if you’re ready to become the T-1000 or RoboCop of your kitchen, a tong-handed freak who cooks (and kills) with surgical proficiency, go forth. The future (aka dinner) awaits.

Buy the OXO Good Grips stainless steel tongs here.

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