Good kitchen towels are indispensable to any home or restaurant. There are so many options out there, but we to prefer flour sack towels because of their many advantages over traditional terry cotton. Read on to learn more about flour sack towels and our picks for some top options.
Why Flour Sack Towels Are Great
If you are in the market for some new kitchen towels, you should consider flour sack ones because…
- They are easy to clean. Flour sack towels are normally all white, so they can be cleaned with your whites and they can even be bleached if you do that. We tend not to recommend the use of bleach in the home, but it will keep your towels clean.
- Flour sack towels are absorbent, but they are easy to ring out. They are also light weight so they dry very quickly, whether they are hanging off the handle of your fridge, hung outside on a line, or thrown in the dryer.
- Flour sack towels have a bit of texture, so they can be used for scrubbing plates and other surfaces. This is super helpful as they get older and you are less concerned about them staying perfectly white.
- They are tough! The coarser thread isn’t downy soft, but it doesn’t shed or unravel.
- Flour sack towels are lint-free!
- Nothing is more versatile. They an be used as a cheese cloth (we’d recommend the organic ones for that) or they can be used for embroidery.
Recommended Flour Sack Towels
Our picks for flour sack towels for the home and kitchen…
Utopia Kitchen Flour Sack Dish Towels
If you want the best value flour sack towels then this 12-pack from Utopia Kitchen is almost impossible to beat. You get 12 28″ x 28″ towels, which are quite large. They are not a premium or fancy product, but they are a true workhorse around your kitchen. Care for these towels and they will last for years, first as a nice white kitchen towel, then as a cleaning rag around the home, and then they will be great for the garage or shed or your next painting project.
Check out our full video review of the towels we purchased from Utopia Kitchen (via Amazon) above. They found them to be well-packaged, clean, and everything that was promised in the materials.
Organic Pick: Nino And Baddow
If you would prefer an organic towel then you can get these flour sack towels from Nino And Baddow. You are going to spend more, but you’ll get a highly rated product is that fully organic. These towels are also unbleached, so they seem to have been safely made from start to finish.
These towels are also 28″ x 28″ so you are getting a full-sized kitchen towel.
As with many other organic products, specially linens, organic is a good deal more expensive. 12 of these organic flour sack towels won’t cost double the price of the Utopia Towels above, but they almost that expensive.
Organic towels aren’t always necessary but they are a good option if you plan on using these as a cheesecloth, for straining yogurt, or other similar food-adjacent activities.
Flour Sack Towels Tips
It’s possible to increase the effectiveness of linen and flour sack towels with baking soda. This will make them more absorbent and help clean them. The process is very simple:
- Assuming you have white flour sack towels, soak them in hot water. If they are a color, use warm water, not hot.
- Add a splash of vinegar to the water. About 1/2 cup per gallon will do if you are hand washing, or a cup if you are using a washing machine.
- Run a rinse cycle or handwash in the water.
- Wet the towels again, with water. This time add about 1/2 cup of backing soda (not powder!).
- Completely rinse and dry your towels. They will be cleaner and more absorbent than before.