The Best Metal Spatulas to Perfect Every Flip and Sauté

Finding Your Next Metal Spatula: A Buyer’s Guide

If it’ll determine our culinary bragging rights, we’re going to pay as much attention to it as possible! Don’t you think so too? The spatula is one of the most commonly used kitchen utensils, only second to items like knives, forks, and spoons. They come in different sizes and variants, each specifically designed for different uses. Before we discuss some elementary features a good spatula should have, there are some things we want you to know.

Essential Spatulas Every Chef Should Own

The one way to say you’re serious about your culinary business without saying you’re serious is by showing off your cooking utensils. That being said, unless you’re looking to spend a lot of money, we recommend you focus on buying the stuff you really need. Here are four types of spatulas we think every chef should have in their arsenal:

Metal fish spatula

We consider this the model spatula, with a sharp, thin, and well-beveled edge that can flip your foods faster than you can blink your eyes. It also has slots for proper food tension distribution and a flexible, curved offset.

High-heat silicone spatula

These are easy substitutes for spoons. If you want to seamlessly mix your pancake batter and flip those flapjacks without getting multiple utensils dirty, they’re the way to go.

Metal turner

Remember the Mannkitchen spatula? That’s an example of a metal turner, which are spatulas custom-made for heavy-duty flipping and smashing burgers or other meats on a griddle. This kind of spatula also has edges sharp enough to chop food on fire, so it allows for a good amount of versatility.

Plastic or silicone-coated spatula

A major problem common to all metal spatulas is their incompatibility with non-stick pans. Being metal, they scratch the coating of the pans, gradually making the entire non-stick design null and void. Plastic or silicone-coated spatulas are milder in contact and hence keep these pans scratch-free.

The Perfect Metal Spatula

It is important to know which spatula is a good fit for your task. Having considered the broad categories, you already know that your go-to for an ideal experience on grills and steel pans is a metal spatula/turner. It is also the best choice when you need something sharp enough to cut through cookie bars or scrape burnt food off your griddle. Every spatula must be able to lift, support, and turn fairly heavy items even in the tightest spaces. For metal spatulas, the expectations are even higher — after all, these spatulas are not made of metal to simply look pretty, they’re designed to lift lasagnas, pizza, heavy burgers, and more for a living. The best metal turners have:

• an offset angle for easy leverage.
• just the right amount of stiffness that confers enough strength.
• a flat, wide, non-slotted blade for evenly smashing burgers and pressing down seared burger meat, sandwiches, or even thick pancakes.

Spatula Handle Length: An Interesting Controversy

What the handle length of metal spatulas should be has been a gray area for some time. One school of thought is that shorter handles allow for complete control in lifting, carrying, and flipping. In contrast, there are advocates for longer handles that protect the cook’s hand from the edge of the hot pan.It might come as a shock to you, but actual scientific research was conducted by Swei-Pi Wu et al. to this effect. Their extensive study, as it were, painted the handle as the most important part of the spatula. The premise of their study was that using a spatula requires repetitive wrist movements and lower arm deviations that could cause cumulative injuries to the hand and wrist, particularly carpal tunnel syndrome. The perfect handle length and lifting angle reduce these risks to the barest minimum. Their study ended with judging spatulas with a 7.8-inch handle length and a 25-degree lift as the best. It’s somewhere in the middle: not too long and not too short. To absolutely steer clear of the edge of your hot pan, spatulas with 9.8-inch handles were recommended.It is ultimately up to you to weigh the odds. Though you have more control, you stand the chance of suffering a few burns (or more) with a shorter handle; longer handles, on the other hand, prioritize safety over impeccable efficiency. A mix of the two is what we, along with the experts, consider best.

Taking Proper Care of Your Spatula

It’s as simple as washing with soap and water. Or is it? Read on, because there’s more to proper spatula maintenance than you think you know.

Wash with soap and water

Well, duh! Electronics, engines, and of course, paper, have got to be the only items you can’t clean with soap and water. Most metal spatulas are dishwasher-safe and do not require special soap. You should, however, avoid using abrasive detergents — they have been found to peel off the protective coating and expose it to rust. Dry your spatula with a paper towel after washing.

Clean with paper towels

If you have used your turner rather lightly, say for flipping pancakes, you may not need to go through the trouble of washing with soap and water. Simply wiping off the oil stains with a paper towel will do. Stubborn dry stains are an exception, however.

Scrub with steel wool

For some reason, you might not wash your spatula immediately after use and have food dry on it. Other times, it might just become stained from heavy use. In these cases, you’ll need something stronger than ordinary soap and water to get it as clean as new, and the perfect option is a steel wool pad. Do not scrub too hard, though; you don’t want to smudge the finish with avoidable scratches.

Use a nonstick spray

If you want that good-as-new shine on your spatula, consider a ‘pre-wash’ by adequately oiling it before washing. This is a way to seamlessly wipe off stains without leaving any ugly scratches behind. Another alternative is oil, which separates the dirt from the metal spatula’s surface.

Proper storage

Imperative to a long-lasting spatula is proper storage. Store it away from moisture (to prevent rust), heat sources (to prevent cracking and chipping), and dust.