Colander

Colander against sieve

Colander

Large holes, rigid bowl, feet or a stable base. For draining pasta, potatoes, washed vegetables and tinned pulses.

Sieve

Fine mesh. For straining stock and sauces, sifting flour, and anything where you want to keep the liquid and lose the solids.

Chinois

A very fine conical sieve. For genuinely smooth sauces and soups.

Both, ideally

They are cheap and they do not substitute for one another. A sieve drains pasta slowly and a colander lets a sauce straight through.

What makes a good one

• Feet or a footed base. So it stands in the sink without sitting in the dirty water below it.
• Handles that clear the rim, so you can lift it out of a sink or hold it while it drains.
• Stainless steel or a sturdy plastic. Thin plastic warps under boiling water.
• Holes across the base as well as the sides. Some designs have surprisingly few, and drain slowly.
• Big enough for a full pan of pasta without heaping. Around 25cm across is a sensible size.
• Nothing that collapses. Folding silicone colanders store well and are unstable under weight.

Beyond draining

• Sit it over a bowl and salt sliced courgette or aubergine in it, so the drawn-out water collects below.
• Line it with muslin and it becomes a strainer for stock, yoghurt or ricotta.
• Sit it inside a large pan over simmering water and it becomes an improvised steamer.
• Use it to rinse and drain tinned pulses, which improves them considerably.
• Use it as a rack for cooling small fried items, though a wire rack is better.
• Sit it in a bowl of iced water to refresh blanched greens, then lift the whole thing out at once.

Looking after it

• Rinse it immediately after draining anything starchy. Dried-on pasta starch and rice are much harder to remove an hour later.
• Check the holes. Colanders accumulate lodged rice grains and pasta shapes that block them and slow the draining.
• Do not put a thin plastic one under a full pan of boiling water — it can soften and buckle, and a colander collapsing over a sink is genuinely dangerous.
• Store it somewhere it does not get used as a fruit bowl, or it will never be to hand when a pan is boiling over.

The pasta water rule

The most common colander mistake has nothing to do with the colander: it is tipping the pasta straight into the sink and losing the cooking water.

Pasta water is starchy and salty and it is what turns a sauce into something that clings — see how to cook pasta. Once it is down the drain, no amount of stirring will produce the same result.

The habit worth building is to put a mug in the sink before you drain, or to lift the pasta out with tongs and leave the water in the pan. Either works; the second is what most professional kitchens do.

Common questions