I had two sizes of items to drain food with: a giant plastic colander, and a small wire mesh strainer, about five inches across. I wanted an "in between" size of colander or strainer. Most of the kind of medium-sized ones I found were still too large and unwieldy, or too small. I am disabled and have some arthritis, and wanted something that would be easy to manipulate. I'm also only cooking for one, so the big colander was always far too big. And I was continually finding the wire mesh strainer was just too small.
After a lot of searching, I found this set of colanders. They are perfect! They are like "Goldilocks" colanders- neither too big, nor too small, as you have three choices of sizes.
You're going to find a size that is "just right." The largest colander holds a lot more than my mesh strainer, but isn't so big that it is a hassle to move around. The opening on the largest one, the pale teal blue one, is 8 1/2" x 6 1/4", and is 4" deep. This sounds small, but it actually holds a lot. It has a nice depth to it. I boiled macaroni for pasta salad I was going to share, and it was the perfect size, even though it was a larger volume of pasta I usually prepare. I also boiled some potatoes- three large ones- and it handled those easily as well. The opening on the gray one, the middle size, is 6 1/4" x 4 1/4", and it is 3" deep. It's perfect for draining small batches of vegetables or a bunch of grapes. The smallest one, the yellow, is 5 1/4" x 2 5/8", and is 2 1/8" deep. It looks like it might be too small to be useful, but was perfect for draining a small amount of shrimp for some stir fry.
These colanders are made out of very sturdy plastic. You know how, these days, you order something, and are happily surprised if it is of superior quality? That was the case when I unwrapped these colanders. They are obviously built to last. Both the teal one and the gray one have a ring on the bottom that keeps them above the bottom of the sink's surface. The little yellow one doesn't, but it fits easily into any bowl hanging around, so I just suspend it over one of those in case I don't want it to be in contact with the sink's bottom.
I wish I had found these and ordered them long ago. The larger colander I have is huge, and it is kind of a pain to manipulate. And the small wire mesh strainer, while it works well, can only hold a very small volume of food, and I found my linguini or whatever was totally overwhelming it, even though the pasta was a serving for one person. So using the teal colander, the largest one, was great, as it was just what I was needing, and hoping to find. And the three little nesting colanders are easy to store in my already over-full cabinet, so they are easy to find and pull out to use.
I think for their quality, and for the smart engineering of their construction, these three colanders are a steal for their price. I am very happy I found them, and I recommend them.
