The Simple Hack That Brings New Use To Canning Tongs

If you've ever grown your own vegetables then you know that at some point during harvest time you'll be faced with a unique problem: eating all the stuff you've grown before it goes bad. There's only so much zucchini you can leave anonymously on your neighbor's porch, so you've got to get creative. If you have a lot of produce to process, whether it's your own or you just went overboard at the farmer's market, canning is a great way to save your fruits and veggies to enjoy after the growing season is over, plus you'll cut down on food waste and save some money too. As an added bonus, once you have all the tools, you can use your canning tongs for more than just grabbing Mason jars. If you like to make crème brûlée, flan, or pot du crème — or anything else that cooks in a water bath — canning tongs are perfect for moving them around while they're hot.

Canning tongs are jar-shaped utensils that are coated with high-heat rubber or silicone and are designed specifically for lifting and lowering canning jars in and out of boiling water. Because they have a round shape that's designed for jars, they happen to also be perfect for lifting up round-shaped dishes like ramekins.

Canning is a method of preserving food in glass jars using boiling water, so having a pair of canning tongs on hand is indispensable. Pot holders or oven mitts are helpful for moving hot jars around when they're out of the boiling water, but they're not good for lifting jars out of the water bath. When mitts get wet, the water that saturates the cloth conducts heat, according to Mental Floss, which can result in a nasty steam burn. Canning tongs, on the other hand, are made of metal and are designed to keep the hot jars away from your hands. Plus, they have rubber or silicone to grip the slippery sides of a jar, so you can grab it with confidence — something else you can't say for a pot holder (or even a towel).

When you think about it, canning is a lot like a bain-marie, which is a French term for a hot water bath for cooking. Chefs use a bain-marie for all sorts of recipes that require delicate cooking, including cheesecake and custards like flan, crème brûlée, or pot du crème. When you're baking up a batch of mini cheesecakes or crème brûlées, every minute counts; and, when it's time to take them out of the oven, it's a good idea to snatch them out of the water bath so that they don't overcook and curdle or crack.

While it's tempting to try and use regular tongs for lifting things out of a hot water bath instead of springing for a pair of canning tongs, consider that the canning models are inexpensive (usually around $8 to $10), and they are bent in a way that they can get around wide, round objects. Regular tongs don't open far enough and have edged tines that are designed for gripping food, not containers. While you might be able to get one or two crème brûlées out of the water bath with regular tongs, there's a pretty big chance you'll drop one, which can damage the custard and even break the ramekin; and you can also splash boiling water on yourself.

Rather than struggle with regular tongs, grab the canning tongs and lower them down around the ramekin in the water bath using two hands. Grip the tongs around the dish and simply lift it up and away from the water to cool it on a wire rack. Repeat with the rest of your water bath beauties and you'll be all set — no splashing or crashing. Once you get the hang of using your canning tongs for other jobs, making anything with a hot water bath seems a lot simpler, and the results will be a lot more successful.