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    Best Oven Mitts

    Which oven mitt—cotton, silicone, neoprene, or leather—deserves a coveted spot in your kitchen?

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    oven mitts Photo: Consumer Reports

    Oven mitts are indispensable cooking utensils that protect your hands and arms from painful burns, but chances are you spend less time thinking about them than you do a great set of chef’s knives or even your cutting boards. And while you may have preferences when it comes to choosing silicone, wood, or plastic cutting boards, how often have you weighed the pros and cons of various oven mitt materials before grabbing the first one you can find? 

    When you just need something to get those french fries out of the oven without burning your skin, anything that resists heat seems like it will do. But if you’re ready to graduate to a pair of oven mitts that’s versatile enough to resist high temperatures for long periods of time, provide superior grip, and feel comfortable in your hands, there are key differences among four oven mitt materials—cotton, silicone, neoprene, and leather—that may sway you to choose one over another.

    More on Kitchen Gadgets & Appliances

    To set up the ultimate face-off among cotton, silicone, neoprene, and leather oven mitts, we enlisted the help and expertise of CR’s own lab tester José Amézquita, who tested each mitt in CR’s lab for heat resistance; CR’s classically trained chef Paul Hope; Joshua Resnick, lead chef and operations manager chef-instructor of Culinary Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education; and Lisa McManus, executive editor of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews. 

    Because your experiences with oven mitts will take place in your kitchen and not a CR lab, I also tried out their grip and comfort on my small hands and recruited the help of my friend Pasquale Giaquinto, a seasoned home cook who has been faithful to his mom’s cotton mitt for decades, so that he could weigh in on how each performs on larger hands. 

    Without further ado, oven mitts: the great, the good, the just okay, and the “why does this one even exist?”

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