Wooden Spoons

janetsjunk1972

janetsjunk1972

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21 Jan 2015
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Why is it that I've heard you should never put wooden spoons in the dishwasher? To me it sanitizes any type of cooking utensil or dish and makes sure any left over food particles are gone. I pre-wash everything I put in so it wouldn't be the food molding to the wooden spoon. Does it make it where they split easier? Does the wood rot? I just don't get it...I've always put mine in the dishwasher and never had an issue. Thoughts?
 
I can imagine that soaking wood in water for a long time can't be good for it and same goes for a wooden spoon. I also like to sanitize everything in the dishwasher, but I don't think it really would work for a wooden spoon. That is the problem with wooden kitchen utensils. As pretty and nice as they are to use, the stains and wondering about whether it is really clean bother me. So I stick to the stainless steel or other materials for my kitchen utensils.
 
Chances of catching something you pick up from a washed wooden spoon - slim. Chances of catching something you pick up from someone in the street or on a bus - much greater.
 
IIRC beech wood has anti bacterial properties, hence it is used for cooking utensils and butcher's blocks.

You needn't worry about catching anything from a wooden spoon so long as you have washed it off.

The only thing I have used my dishwasher for, aside from post party washing up, is for washing my Lego bricks!
 
I can't imagine it would do the wood much good either and a lot of my wooden spoons are ancient and well impregnated with oils from cooking which would create a natural seal to the wood. I look at my mother's wooden spoons which go through her dishwasher (we don't have one) and they are dry and parched and look 'bad' to me. They need soaking in cooking oil IMO!
 
I do put my small wooden cutting boards in the dishwasher to disinfect them. They are ok in the short term but in the long term they do split and break. I only paid a few dollars for them though so I don't mind. I get very nervous with things like raw chicken so I do sanitize everything in the dishwasher.

If you have the cheap dollar store type of wooden spoons I wouldn't worry about it, but if you do have some nice spoons (I have a bamboo set I only hand wash) I would probably not put them in the dishwasher.
 
DIna00 said:
I do put my small wooden cutting boards in the dishwasher to disinfect them. They are ok in the short term but in the long term they do split and break. I only paid a few dollars for them though so I don't mind. I get very nervous with things like raw chicken so I do sanitize everything in the dishwasher.

If you have the cheap dollar store type of wooden spoons I wouldn't worry about it, but if you do have some nice spoons (I have a bamboo set I only hand wash) I would probably not put them in the dishwasher.
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What Dina said. If you have cheap replaceable ones, I'd wash them thoroughly with the washer. Oftentimes the wooden spoons we're referring to have an "Age" or "history" behind them, and thus we're more afraid of actually damaging the wood then the actual process itself.
 
I'm pretty sure that the only reason it is suggested that wooden spoons shouldn't go in the dishwasher is because of the risk of the wood splitting. I never worry about my wooden spoons harboring bacteria - as long as all the food residue is off and they've been washed at the appropriate temperature, they'll be fine. I suspect there would have been a media frenzy had anyone actually proved they were unsafe!
 
I have always put my wooden spoons in the dishwasher with all of the other dishes, but I am going ot rethink this now. The cheap ones I will probably continue to wash in the dishwasher, but my nice bamboo ones are going to get handwashed from now on. I do not want to ruin them by potentially drying them out in the dishwasher. The oil comment that SatNav made is a good one. Wood needs to be conditioned, much like cast iron. I oil down my wooden cutting board and I should have the same respect for my nice spoons.
 
I've had wooden spoons, wooden spatulas and wooden cutting boards start to mold on me over time since I kept putting them in the dish washer. I was always paranoid about the juices from raw meats soaking into them, so I did it, against other people's recommendations. I guess black mold on them isn't much better though - but in my defense, the mold issue didn't start happening until a long time later when they were already far too worn out.

I cannot stand brand new wooden utensils though, and try to break them in right away by getting vegetable oil all over them and wearing them down a bit by scraping the bottoms of my stainless steel or glass cookware with them. I hate going to taste some soup off of a wooden spoon, and the texture of the wood scrapes against my lips - it's like nails across a chalk board to me, and makes my hair stand up. The more worn out they get the smoother the surface of them becomes, then it's not so bad.
 
We don't have a dishwasher but we do have wooden utensils, so far neither of us have caught anything from them because we wash them with hot water and detergent.
 
We don't have a dishwasher but the spoons often soak in water, one spoon has stains from cooking but it does not look like it splitting. The spoons are really old, it seems like we have had them for ever, we use them for everything.
 
I really do not think that it is that much of an issue. Wooden spoons are best to work with and to be honest food tastes best with them
 
I DO have a dishwasher, but I don't wash wooden products at all in it.

Nor do I wash knives that I use for processing things on a cutting board! I'm often told that knives washed in the dishwasher can become dull and won't cut as good as if you didn't machine-wash them. :eek:
 
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It's better to use wooden or nylon utensils, even for stainless steel cookware! To keep the cookware's interiors from being scratched up & marked up. :wink:
 
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