9 types of spoons and their uses

How much do you worry about whether you're using the right spoon for a particular meal or dish? If you're particular about your crockery (and table manners), you'll know that spoons come in a variety of shapes and sizes. There's one for soup, one for salad, and one for dessert that's totally different!

If you want to be a cutlery connoisseur and do things correctly, this spoons guide will help you.

Dinner Spoon

The most popular and multipurpose piece on a dinner table is this one. A tablespoon with a shallow, oval-shaped pattern is commonly used. You may eat rice with it or tie long strands of pasta around it.

Serving Spoon

This is particularly useful for scooping food from a main dish and placing it on individual plates. “These are considerably larger than normal eating spoons, with longer handles, deeper bowls, and ensure that you can easily dish out generous portions,” says chef Pankaj Bhadouria.

Soup Spoon

These have a larger bowl and are designed primarily for soups and stews. Soup spoons come in a variety of types, but the two most popular are British soup spoons and Chinese soup spoons. The bowl is circular and the former are thin. The latter is a flat-bottomed container that comes in a variety of sizes. Soup spoons with a large bowl and long handle are ideal for eating hearty soups like gumbos and chowders, which are enriched with shrimp, cheese, and other ingredients.

Iced Beverage Spoon

Because of the extremely long handle, this one is quickly identified. “Also known as a soda spoon, this is the tallest spoon in a package of flatware, with a small bowl and a handle that is 7 to 10 inches long. According to Bhadouria, the long handle makes it easier to stir beverages served in tall glasses, such as iced tea or iced coffee. Tall parfaits, sundaes, floats, and thick milkshakes all profit from it.

Demitasse Spoon

This tiny spoon could have caught your eye at your local coffee shop. In espressos, teas, and other drinks, a demitasse (a.k.a. espresso) spoon is used to whisk in sugar and milk. When it comes to sugar, sugar spoons resemble small shovels.

Salad Spoon

If you put time, effort, and love into your salads, it's only natural to want to serve them with salad spoons. From preserving delicate greens to scooping up the right ratio of ingredients, this often underestimated serving tool will make all the difference. The traditional salad server set consists of one spoon-like and one fork-like implement, but there are now a bewildering array of choices, including small, chubby salad 'hands.' A pair of tongs, on the other hand, is the way to go for others.

Dessert Spoon

Don't use a standard spoon to eat your favorite dessert; there's one made especially for sweets. A dessert spoon is similar in size to a soup spoon, but with an oval rather than circular bowl and a capacity roughly twice that of a teaspoon. This allows each spoonful to contain a healthy portion of dessert. “The wide capacity is also useful when consuming layered and complex desserts, as it means that a bit of each flavor can be gracefully fit into each bite,” explains Shefali Shah, a home cook.

Amuse Bouche Spoon

If you've ever visited a posh cocktail bar, you've probably seen a bartender stir some of the drinks with a long, spiral-handled spoon. This is a spoon for use in a kitchen. “Without this vital method, you can't make a great Old Fashioned, Martini, or Manhattan. Because of the cocktail glasses they are used with, these spoons are made to be tall. The bartender can swirl the cocktail easier with the spiral/twisted handle. “On one end of the spoon is a small bowl that can be used to measure out ingredients like bitters, syrups, liqueurs, and other ingredients, as well as to help make beautiful layered cocktails,” says Nitin Tewari, bar consultant and director of Together at 12th.

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