Melon ballers are a great way of making food fun. Whether serving a fruit platter to guests or just trying to get your kids to eat healthy, balling melon is a great way to make your meal unique.
Despite the name, melon ballers are not just for melon. Melon ballers can also be used to make spheres of many other soft foods including:
- Pawpaw and Papaya
- Soft apricots, plums, and peaches
- Pears
- Butter
- Soft Cheese
It may surprise you to learn that melon ball scoops come in all different sizes and shapes. The size and shape of the scoop will determine what kind of melon ball you end up with.
By using different sized melon ballers you can really make your fruit salad pop! Below are just a few of the different sized and shaped melon balls you can create.
From left to right:
- 10mm
- 13mm
- 19mm
- 22mm
- 25mm
- 30mm
- 33mm Oval scoop
- 33mm Canele/Scallop Scoop
- 30mm Love Heart Scoop
The above melon balls were achieved using the French made Deglon Melon Ballers. When it came to different scoops, Deglon offered more choice than any other brand on the market.
But not all melon ballers are created equally. While some performed remarkably well at creating round pieces of melon, others downright sucked.
Fortunately, we have done the hard work for you, painstakingly testing each melon baller before awarding a winner.
Before we take a closer look at the best melon ballers it is important that I teach you the correct technique. Simply scooping into a melon will leave you with a flat edge to your ball.
How to Make Perfect Melon Balls
Use the following method to create perfectly round balls of melon. No more flat edges! For this example we chose to use a cantaloupe but any melon will do.
1. Cut it – Cut your melon in half
2. Hollow it – Using a regular tablespoon, hollow out the inside of your melon. Skip this step if you are balling a watermelon or other fruit that doesn’t contain seeds.
3. Push it in – This is the most important part in achieving perfect spheres of melon. Push the scoop of the melon baller into the flesh of your melon. The flesh should touch the rear of the scoop. If your melon baller has a hole in the bottom of it you will be able to see the flesh hits the back of the scoop.
4. Twist it – Twist the scoop of the baller through the flesh of the melon. Use a scooping motion, the idea here is to completely spate the ball of melon from the remaining flesh.
5. Lift it – Lift the scoop of the melon baller out of the melon. The ball of melon flesh should easily lift up, allowing you to deposit into your fruit salad, smoothie or other food creation.
Our Top Picks
Comparison Chart
Double Sided Melon Ballers
For many of you a double sided melon baller will be the best solution. While other melon ballers only offer a single scoop, a double sided melon baller offers two in the one handle.
Double sided melon ballers represented the best value for money. While all were capable of creating spheres of melon, one model blew the competition out of the water:
It really is that simple.
OXO Good Grips – Best Two Sided Melon Baller Scoop
The OXO Melon baller checked all the boxes, a long easy to grip handle, sturdy design, sharp scoops and dishwasher safe.
it was also the only melon baller to have the foresight to have the scoops facing different directions. This means that the opposite scoop would not dig into your wrist while scooping melon out with the other. It may seem like a simple design change but it gave the OXO melon baller a huge leg up over the competitors in terms of comfort.
The sharp scoops easily dug through all the different types of melon and was capable of creating perfectly round balls. Combine all this with an affordable price and you have our top pick of the double sided melon ballers. Unanimously loved by everyone who tested it.
Double Sided Melon Baller Runner-ups
The following two-sided melon ballers fell short in one way or another.
Comparison Chart
Victorinox Double Melon Baller – A strong contender for first position. The Sharp scoops and solid welding were to be expected of a product made in Switzerland. It is also dishwasher safe. The only downside was the small size of the handle, which some testers felt made the melon baller difficult to hold (but other testers didn’t mind it). Please note – Victorinox also manufactures this melon baller in wood, which isn’t dishwasher safe.
KitchenAid Dual-Sided Melon Baller – An incredibly sturdy melon baller, perhaps the sturdiest we tested. Unfortunately, testers did not like the plastic handle, which was slipperier than our top pick, especially when coated in melon juice.
Norpro Dual Scoop Fruit Baller – The cheapest double sided melon baller we tested. The wooden handle was not dishwasher safe and the shallow scoops made it difficult to create perfectly symmetrical balls of melon.
Faberware Classic Double Melon Baller – The scoops were blunter than other melon ballers we tested and the plastic handle had a sharp burr, a manufacturing defect that made it uncomfortable to hold.
Excellante Melon Baller – Another poor quality melon baller with shallow scoops. Perfectly round melon balls were too difficult to create with the shallow scoops. The melon baller could also only be hand washed.
PROfreshionals Melon Baller – PROfreshionals plastic melon scoops failed to impress any of our testers. The blunt edges had a tendency to squash the fruit rather than scoop through it. Despite being plastic, the handle is not dishwasher safe.
Small Melon Baller
A small melon baller is the secret tool that chefs use when making vegetable pearls for a consommé or Parisienne carrots.
Small melon ballers are also popular for making balled fruit salads, the smaller sized fruit balls contrast nicely to the larger balls of melon.
Wusthof 12mm Mellon Baller – Best for mini balls
While it may have made balls 2mm larger than the other mini melon ballers, testers favored this model because it was easier to make perfect pea sized balls of fruit while being comfortable to use.
The scoop easily sliced through the flesh of watermelon and honeydew along with slightly firm pears. The handle also has a loop for hanging on a peg board.
Small Melon Baller Runner-ups
Messermeister Pro-Touch 10mm Melon Baller The short and thick handle of the Messermeister Pro-Touch made twisting the handle more a more difficult task than our top pick.
Deglon 10mm Melon baller While the Deglon baller had the longest handle, it also welded the neck to the underside of the scoop rather than the top. This caused the neck to dig into the flesh of the fruit along with the scoop. This made scooping more difficult on harder fruits.
Large Melon Baller
If you just want a large melon baller then we honestly can’t give you a reason as to why you would choose anything over the OXO double-sided melon baller we covered earlier. Single sided scoops did not ball fruit any better.
However, if you have an aversion kitchen utensils with two ends then there is only one other large scoop we would recommend:
Westmark 2.5cm Melon Baller – Best large melon baller
While it wasn’t the largest melon baller scoop we tested it was the most effective. The sharp scoop effortlessly cut through melon leaving us with perfectly symmetrical balls. This was perhaps the sharpest scoop out of all the melon ballers we tested.
The handle was easy to grip and dishwasher safe. And to top it all off, it’s made in Germany. Highly recommended.
Large Melon Baller Runner-ups
Comparison Chart
Cuisinart 3cm Barrel Melon Baller The Cuisinart came close to taking out this category. A soft grip, durable head were features that testers loved. But whatever Cuisinart made the grip out of is too sticky. We noticed it attracted a lot of dust, particularly when left to roll around our kitchen gadget drawer.
Zeroll 3cm Stainless Steel Melon Baller – The Zerol had the biggest handle out of all the melon ballers we tested. The soft grip was surprisingly comfortable and easy to grip. However, the handle added a lot of weight which made the melon baller awkward to use. The scoop also showed signs of bending when we were balling pears.
Norpro 3cm Grip-ES Melon Baller – Cheap and nasty. The neck was welded off center making even scooping impossible.
Oval Melon Ballers
Oval melon ballers leave will leave you with oval shaped pieces of fruit. They have no advantage over a regular melon baller other than making a unique shape.
Mercer Culinary – Best Oval Melon Baller
Mercer culinary was one of the only oval melon ballers to attach the neck at the side of the scoop rather than underneath it. This made it easy to scoop out oval pieces of fruit without the neck tearing into the flesh.
The melon baller effectively made oval shaped pieces of fruit and was appeared to be dishwasher safe, surviving ten trips through out dish washer.
Oval Melon Baller Runner-ups
Comparison Chart
Messermeister Pro-Touch Oval Melon Baller – Let down by the dull blades, oval melon balls made with this slicer did not have the same smooth finish as our top pick.
Deglon Oval Melon Baller – The neck welded to the rear of the scoop made a bigger mess of the fruit than our top pick. The saving grace is the price, this is the cheapest oval shaped melon baller on the market.
Messermeister Double-Ended oval/scalloped baller – Same problem as the above oval baller except with the added annoyance of one end digging into your wrist when in use.
Scalloped Melon Ballers
Scalloped melon ballers are similar to oval melon ballers excelt they leave the ball with a lovely ribbed pattern, similar to the shell of a scallop (hence the name).
We found scalloped melon ballers to be unsuitable for firmer fruits. Stick to the soft stuff like melon and you will be fine.
Messermeister – Best Scalloped Melon Baller
Messermeisters scallop shaped scoop had more defined ridges than its competitors. Because of this, melon better resembled the shape of the scoop than the other scalloped ballers.
Love Heart Shaped Melon Ballers
We recommend heart shaped melon ballers with reservations. Getting a perfect heart shape was difficult and time-consuming. A lot of melon was wasted in the process and more often than not a knife needed to be used to detail the heart. While managed to turn honey dew and cantaloupe into heart shapes, watermelon was a complete and utter failure.
The heart shaped melon baller worked best on butter and soft cheeses, substances that would stick together to hold their shape.
Deglon – Best Heart Shaped Melon Baller
Out of the heart shaped melon ballers we tested, the Deglon was the best built. Dishwasher safe and sturdy, this France made melon baller easily out classed the other heart shaped melon ballers. That said, the bar was pretty low.