Whether you’re just starting out in the kitchen or aiming for a spot on the next season of MasterChef, using the right tools can make your culinary creations that much better. The material your cookware is made from can affect every aspect of the dishes you’re whipping up—and though it can be easy to grab the first pan you come across while prepping dinner or baking dessert, choosing the right one can vastly improve results and make cooking and cleanup easier. An aluminum pan, for instance, can speed up the cook time of a casserole, creating a dark crusty bottom before you realize it, while a glass dish is more likely to gently bake the delicate ingredients to perfection.
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To make things easier, we’ve pulled together a breakdown of the different cookware likely to be sitting in your cabinets, along with when and when not to use each type.
Ceramic and glass
Best for: casseroles
Pans made from glass or ceramic conduct heat slowly and evenly, which makes them the perfect vessels for any delicate ingredients that can burn, curdle, or dry out easily. Common casserole ingredients such as eggs, cheese, and pasta do best when baked gently, which you can more easily do in a pan that heats slowly.
Although you can successfully bake a casserole such as lasagna in a metal pan if you keep a watchful eye on the oven, it’s too easy to overcook the bottom and sides in a metal pan because aluminum and stainless steel heat up more quickly than other materials (which means the ingredients making direct contact with the pan cook faster than the middle of the dish). You might have to adjust the cook time, as well, something that can be hard to eyeball if you’re used to following a recipe.
On the flip side, glass and ceramic aren’t ideal for baking brownies, cookies, or cakes. Most of those recipes are developed with metal pans in mind (unless they specify otherwise), so the cook times are shorter than they would be if their creators had written them for glass and ceramic pans. With glass or ceramics, your cake or brownies will bake more slowly, potentially throwing off the baking times and leaving you with undercooked sweets.
Cast iron
When it comes to cast iron, there are two main types people usually have in their kitchens: bare cast iron and enameled. Although the two types have many similarities and work equally well for many dishes, you can’t always use them interchangeably.
Bare cast iron
Best for: high-heat cooking and baking
Cooks have used bare cast-iron skillets for the past century. Often employed for pan-frying, searing, baking, and making eggs, cast-iron cookware is the workhorse of the kitchen. Able to withstand temperatures past 500 degrees Fahrenheit, this versatile and durable material can safely move from stovetop to oven to broiler. And because of the seasoning that develops with use and proper maintenance, these pans can even serve as an alternative to nonstick cookware.
Thick, heavy cast iron holds on to heat better than thinner stainless steel or aluminum does, which makes it ideal for searing and high-temperature cooking. As we note in our guide to the best cast-iron skillets: “All that stored heat translates to a thick sear on steaks and roasts, crispy fish skin, and deep caramelization on vegetables.”
But it’s for this same reason that you should pay careful attention when you’re cooking lower-temperature recipes in cast-iron cookware. Eggs, notoriously delicate, can overcook quickly because cast iron doesn’t distribute heat as evenly as materials such as aluminum or tri-ply. Take care with pancakes, as well, moving them around the pan to promote even browning. Although Wirecutter’s kitchen team suggests avoiding cast-iron pans to bake delicate cakes or cookies, it’s not uncommon to make heartier baked goods—such as a cornbread that can stand to develop a little crust—in a cast-iron skillet.
If seasoned properly, your bare cast-iron cookware can do almost everything enameled cast-iron cookware can do. But proper cast-iron maintenance is key—otherwise, food may stick or burn. Bare cast iron can also react with acidic foods, giving your dish a metallic taste, so if you’re thinking of making a shakshuka recipe, make sure your pan is well seasoned first.
Enameled cast iron
Best for: low-and-slow cooking and baking
Enameled cast iron is simply bare cast iron covered in an enameled coating. It’s an ideal material for vessels such as Dutch ovens and braisers that you use to cook stews and soups because it effectively retains heat and can transfer from stovetop to oven. And unlike bare cast iron, the enameled variety doesn’t run the risk of imparting a metallic taste to long-cooking or acidic dishes. Non-reactive with a smooth finish, enameled cast-iron cookware is a good choice for baking bread, deep frying, making stew and soup, and braising—a technique that relies on consistent heat over time to slowly break down and tenderize meat.
Although Dutch ovens can be made from other materials, such as ceramic, aluminum, enameled steel, or bare cast iron, the Wirecutter kitchen team focused on enameled cast-iron vessels during testing because such pieces are better suited for braising. Enameled cast-iron braisers, very similar to Dutch ovens, are shallower with lower sides. As senior staff writer Lesley Stockton says, you can make almost anything you can make in a large Dutch oven in a braiser—including one-pot meals, casseroles, chicken and rice, roasted meat, fried chicken, sautéed greens, caramelized onions, and fruit desserts such as cobblers, buckles, and crisps.
We recommend a Dutch oven or braiser with a light-colored enamel interior. A darker interior doesn’t affect the taste or cooking of your meal but might make it harder for you to monitor the color of the fond—the browned bits at the bottom of the pan that serve as the base for sauces.
Avoid cranking the heat on an enameled cast-iron pan when you’re searing cuts of meat or fish. Unlike bare cast iron, enameled cast iron doesn’t handle sudden changes in temperature well. And adding a cool steak to a ripping-hot pan, senior editor Marguerite Preston adds, can cause the enamel to crack.
Aluminum
Best for: cookies or any other dessert that requires a baking sheet
Home bakers looking to perfect their chocolate chip cookies should stick to sheets made of bare aluminum, which heats up quickly and evenly. Most cookie recipes are developed with aluminum in mind, so you don’t need to adjust the cook time.
Although stainless steel tri-ply is the best material for general cookware, we don’t recommend tri-ply baking sheets because they’re pricey and can retain heat longer than bare aluminum. This heat retention could cause cookies to overbake after you’ve pulled them from the oven. Our kitchen experts also suggest a heavy-gauge aluminum sheet over a superthin one: While a thicker pan will take more time to heat up, a thin pan may burn the bottoms of cookies faster if you aren’t carefully monitoring the situation. Thin pans are also more likely to warp and to sustain dings over time.
Bare aluminum alone is sticky—it’s why you need to line your baking sheets with parchment when making cookies, Marguerite explains. Though you may be tempted to use nonstick baking sheets instead, we don’t recommend them because they aren’t as durable as bare aluminum pans. Nonstick finishes break down at high temperatures and become less effective over time.
The color of your aluminum cookware matters, too. “It’s better to use light-colored bare aluminum for the same reason it’s better to wear a white T-shirt than a black one on a hot day: dark colors absorb heat, light colors reflect it,” write Marguerite and deputy editor Christine Cyr Clisset in our guide to the best baking sheets. “A dark pan retains too much heat and is liable to burn baked goods.” Nonstick coatings are often dark, which is yet another reason such pans are not the best choice.
Keep in mind that bare aluminum is highly reactive, so you should avoid using any type of cookware made from this material to prepare acidic dishes that use tomatoes, citrus, or vinegar. Also avoid using aluminum to cook delicate ingredients, which fare better in vessels that heat more slowly.
Stainless steel tri-ply
Best for: sautéing, searing, simmering, and oven-finishing
Stainless steel tri-ply skillets, pots, and pans sandwich a piece of aluminum between two pieces of stainless steel, thus combining aluminum’s quick and even heat distribution with steel’s durability and heat retention. Inexpensive tri-ply pans have only an aluminum-core base, while fully clad tri-ply pans have an aluminum core that extends up the sides.
There’s little you can’t do in a stainless steel tri-ply vessel, which is why we think it’s the best material for general cookware such as pots and pans. All of the cookware sets we recommend are tri-ply because of its durability and versatility. The material is good for sautéing, high-heat searing, and simmering, and it can safely move from the stovetop to the oven. We focused on roasting pans made of stainless steel tri-ply for similar reasons. Tri-ply is lightweight, less likely to warp, nonreactive, and flameproof, which makes it effective for stovetop tasks like gravy-making.
Cookware manufacturers also make five- and seven-ply stainless steel pans. We don’t think these expensive pans are worth their price tag: Multi-ply pans took nearly twice as long to heat up in comparison with tri-ply in our testing, and they hold more heat, which means they stay hot for longer after you turn down the heat on your stove and can thus produce scorched or burnt food.
This article was edited by Annemarie Conte.
Straight to the Point
The best stainless steel cookware set is the All-Clad D3 10-Piece Cookware Set. Every piece performed excellently and was easy to clean. The best starter set (which includes four pots and pans) is from Made In.
In general, we have stayed away from recommending cookware sets. Why, you ask? Most often, consumers get shoehorned into paying hundreds of dollars for a collection of cookware with varying levels of utility. If you only use a couple of pieces on a weekly basis, why pay for a bunch of other items you’ll break out once a year? Plus, our product reviews have shown us time and time again that while one company may produce the best stainless steel skillet, for example, a different company will make the best saucier.
With that being said, cookware sets have an appeal—especially if you're just starting to build your kitchen or looking to replace a bunch of worn-out gear. So, we set out to determine if any stainless steel cookware sets were truly worth buying. After testing 19 sets, we found four we recommend.
Editor's Note
We recently tested the Goldilocks Cookware set, using the pots and pans for over three months. The set was durable, responsive, and heated evenly, so we added it as a no-frills cookware set option.
The Winners, at a Glance
Looking for a set you'll never have to replace? The D3 from All-Clad is the best in terms of usability and performance. It includes two fry pans (8- and 10-inch), two saucepans with lids (2- and 3-quart), one sauté pan with a lid, and one stockpot with a lid.
This set is smaller but only comes with the essentials, including a nonstick pan we liked and our favorite stainless steel skillet.
For those that want a nice stainless steel set that's less pricey, this is the one to get. It even includes two of our recommendations for stainless steel skillets and saucepans.
We appreciated this cookware set's restraint; sets like this often include frivolous pieces that tack extra money onto the overall price tag without added benefit. But in this case, for about $45 a pop, you’ll get a 10-inch skillet, 1.5- and 3-quart saucepans with lids, and an 8-quart stock pot with a lid. It’s everything you need and nothing you don’t. Not to mention each piece is sturdy, cooks nicely, and is dishwasher-safe.
The Tests
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
- Fried Egg Test: We fried two eggs in minimal oil in a nonstick pan (if the set had one) to test the skillet's nonstick ability.
- Brown Butter Test: We made browned butter in a saucepan from each set, evaluating how responsive the pans were and how evenly they cooked.
- Pork Chop Test: We seared boneless pork chops to test searing ability and ease of use.
- Boiled Pasta Test: To determine capacity, how quickly the stock pot reached a boil, and how well each maintained heat, we filled each set's stock pot with 72°F water and recorded how long it took to reach 212°F. We then added salt, timing how long it took the water to return to 212°F. After cooking the pasta, we evaluated how easy it was to handle and pour from the stockpot into a colander.
At this point, we could narrow the best-performing sets down. The next round of tests delved further into performance.
- Mirepoix Test: To observe sweating, browning, heat conduction, and responsiveness, we cooked a combination of onions, carrots, and celery in the stockpot (first on a low heat to soften, then a medium heat to caramelize). We finished this test by deglazing with broth to see how the fond released.
- Rice Test: We cooked rice in each saucepan, evaluating its final quality.
- Bechamel Test: To further determine heating evenness and ease of stirring (with special regard to corners), we made bechamel in each saute pan—if the set had one.
We still had some weeding out to do, so we brought the four best sets (All-Clad, Made In, Tramontina, and Le Creuset) home and used them each for a week at a time to test them in a real-world setting. (Note: When we tested the Goldilocks set more recently, we used it over the course of three months to examine its ease of use and durability).
What We Learned
Certain Pieces Are Essential
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of price, materials, and construction, let’s first discuss the essential pieces that should come in a cookware set.
The first is a skillet or fry pan. A good 10-inch fry pan is one of the most essential pieces of equipment in any kitchen. We’ve already gone on at length about this item in our review of stainless steel skillets, if you want to know more.
The second is a large stockpot. While this will probably only see sporadic use in your kitchen (unless you’re a big soup fan), there is nothing else that can replace this piece. Boiling boxes of pasta, steaming a whole cauliflower, making chicken soup, sous vide–it all requires a large stockpot. You want this to be able to hold at least six quarts of liquid to be useful (though we recommend something even larger).
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
The third is a small saucepan, which is good for everything from heating up a jar of pasta sauce to making a fluffy batch of stovetop rice. We liked saucepans with flared lips that made it easy to pour from and that exhibited nice, even heating. All of the 2-quart saucepans that made it to the final rounds of testing had 6- or 7-inch diameters, which allowed us to stir easily in them.
Many of the sets (excluding the Made In) also included a 3- or 4-quart saucepan, which we found helpful and is a versatile-sized pot we generally recommend having around.
Beyond those four pieces, most of the sets we tested had different items. This is truly going to be the decision maker when it comes to choosing a cookware set, as you want to make sure the pieces are useful for your cooking habits.
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
A few of the sets came with a 3- or 3-1/2-quart braiser or saute pan. The former had two smaller side handles and the latter had one long handle and one helper handle. We find both of these pans nice to have around for shallow frying, sautéing, and braising.
Some of the sets—like the Tramontina and the All-Clad—included an 8-inch fry pan, which we particularly like for eggs. The Le Creuset set came with a colander insert for the stock pot instead of a small fry pan and, ultimately, we prefer a separate colander. The Goldilocks set was the most pared down, with a 10-inch skillet, 1.5- and 3-quart saucepans with lids, and an 8-quart stock pot with a lid—the essentials and nothing more.
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Look For Tri-Ply Stainless
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
While all of the sets we tested were made with stainless steel, not all stainless steel is the same. Some stainless steel pans are made with a disk on the bottom that conducts heat, while others are fully clad. We recommend the latter, as this type has all the durability and longevity of stainless steel combined with a reactive and even core. Most of the sets that made our final cut were made of tri-ply stainless steel, which means they had a layer of aluminum sandwiched between two sheets of solid stainless steel. The Made In set takes it even further and boasts a five-ply construction. While this sounds fancy (five must be better than three, right?), we didn’t find that this translated to a vastly superior cooking experience. Don’t get us wrong, the pans still yielded great results, but not that much better than tri-ply. If you find a set made with five-ply that suits your needs and is worth the price, go for it. But if you have your eye on a great tri-ply set, rest assured you won’t be sacrificing quality.
Bundling Can Save You a Bundle
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
One of the main reasons anyone should even consider a cookware set over just assembling your own a la carte is the discount. Take the All-Clad D3, for example. When we separately added every item from the set to our cart on the manufacturer’s website, the total came to $859.94, compared with $600 for the set. That’s some significant savings.
Stepping aside from any brand loyalty, if you bought our favorite stainless steel skillet (Made In), saucepan (All Clad), nonstick pan (Tramontina), and stock pot (Cuisinart) from each respective company, the total would set you back $431.77. That’s less than the Made In set we’re recommending that comes with the same four pieces, but more than the Tramontina and Goldilocks. At the end of the day, a quality stainless steel cookware set can offer a substantial discount if you’re ready to invest in an array of cookware from the same brand.
The Criteria: What to Look for in a Cookware Set
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
As we discussed above, a good stainless steel cookware set should contain a 10-inch skillet, stockpot, and saucepan. After that, the other pieces come down to personal preference and cooking habits.
Once you’ve established what you need in the set, you should look for a set made with tri-ply stainless steel construction. This means that the pan contains an aluminum core coated in layers of stainless steel on the outside, which makes for even heating and solid heat retention. Across the board, the handles should be also comfortable to grasp. Price is a factor, too, and we found that the average price for a cookware set hovers around $600. Any less, and you’re getting a bargain (and good bargain options do exist). Any more, and the set ought to have some reason for the added cost.
Our Favorite Cookware Sets
What we liked: If you’re going to ditch all your old, mismatched, dinged-up pans, you may as well invest in a set you’ll never have to replace. All-Clad’s D3 set is a gleaming collection of top-notch stainless steel coupled with comfortable, ergonomic, and well-balanced construction.
The stainless steel skillet was beaten by Made In in our skillet review only in terms of price (side-by-side, this pan is only $10 more than Made In’s), and one of our testers is still using a 15-year-old skillet at home that looks almost identical to the brand-new one we tested. All-Clad’s 3-quart saucepan was also one of our winners in our saucepan review.
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
What we didn’t like: Of course, the price can be a turn-off. The manufacturer lists the base price at $1405, which would put it far beyond the realm of what we would consider worth buying. However, this set is usually priced at a far more affordable $600.
Key Specs
- Number of pieces: 10
- What’s included: 8- and 10-inch fry pans, 2-quart saucepan with lid, 3-quart sauté pan with lid, 3-quart saucepan with lid, 8-quart stockpot with lid
- Materials: Tri-ply stainless steel with aluminum core
- Dishwasher-safe: Yes
- Induction compatible: Yes
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
What we liked: For those who are just starting out and want to invest in something that will last (or those unsure of jumping right into ordering a huge set), the 6-piece set from Made In comes with the essential pieces for a decent price. The stainless steel skillet took the top spot in our review for its beautiful searing and comfortable grip. All of the pots have flared rims to prevent spillage while pouring, and our testers found that the pans were lightweight and easy to maneuver.
When we tested the sets in a real-world setting to see how often each piece got used in a week, we really liked the 10-inch nonstick skillet—a helpful addition other sets lacked.
What we didn’t like: We didn’t find that the 5-ply cladding performed much better than other brands’ tri-ply, though you end up paying for it anyway. For just $100 more, you could have the All-Clad set that comes with two more pots. During the boiled pasta test, the Made In stockpot took the longest to heat up, at just over 45 minutes, likely due to the 5-ply cladding. That’s a long time to wait.
Key Specs
- Number of pieces: 6
- What’s included: 10-inch nonstick fry pan, 10-inch stainless steel fry pan, 2-quart saucepan with lid, 8-quart stockpot with lid
- Materials: 5-ply construction; PFOA-free nonstick coating
- Dishwasher-safe: Stainless steel? Yes. Nonstick? No.
- Induction compatible: Yes
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
What we liked: Bottom line, the most attractive thing about this set is the price. None of the pieces in the set performed better than our other winners, but they were able to hold their own. The skillet did fairly well in a head-to-head test against All-Clad’s. It seared a pork chop perfectly golden brown, and our testers described all the pieces as “incredibly easy to clean.” During a review of saucepans, the 3-quart saucepan was one of our winners—performing as well as pots that cost way more.
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
What we didn’t like: Some of this set's pans felt unbalanced. One of our testers described it as “awkward and clunky.” There was a significant amount of spillage when pouring out of the saucepans.
Although the manufacturer states the cookware is safe up to 500°F, they explicitly order you to use the pan over low to medium heat only, or risk voiding the warranty. This would explain some of the staining we saw during testing, but a good-quality stainless steel skillet should be durable enough to withstand high heat for searing purposes.
Key Specs
- Number of pieces: 10
- What’s included: 8-inch fry pan, 10-inch fry pan, 3-quart braiser, 1.5-quart saucepan, 3-quart saucepan, 6-quart stockpot
- Materials: Tri-ply clad 18/10 stainless steel with aluminum core
- Dishwasher-safe: Yes
- Induction compatible: Yes
Serious Eats / Russell Kilgore
What we liked: This heavy-duty set came with everything we needed and nothing more. We liked the straight handles (similar to those on All-Clad cookware) and flared lips on the saucepans, which made pouring easy. Plus, every pan heated up evenly without hot spots or food sticking; we got great sears in the skillet, and the 3-quart saucepan whipped up perfect browned butter, caramel, rice, and mashed potatoes. This is a great choice if you’re moving into your first apartment or house, or as a gift for someone who is trying to cook more and doesn’t want to commit to a massive, expensive cookware set.
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
What we didn’t like: It’d be nice if the skillet came with a lid; other than that, we have no complaints.
Key Specs
- Number of pieces: 7
- What’s included: 10-inch skillet, 1.5-quart and 3-quart saucepans with lids, and an 8-quart stock pot with a lid
- Materials: Tri-ply stainless steel
- Dishwasher-safe: Yes
- Induction compatible: Yes
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
The Competition
FAQs
What’s the best cookware set?
We found that the best cookware set to be the All-Clad D3 10-Piece Cookware Set. For a more affordable option with a slight compromise on design, go with the Tramontina Gourmet Stainless Steel Induction-Ready Tri-Ply Clad 10-Piece Set or the 7-piece set from Goldilocks.
Is a cookware set worth it?
If you are building your kitchen from nothing or looking to do a major overhaul, a good set can be worth it. Often, the pieces stack together and have interchangeable lids. And sets usually come with a discount over ordering each piece individually.
Is it worth buying a nonstick cookware set?
When we tested nonstick pans, we found that the best options were cheaper, as nonstick coatings invariably wear out over time. Stainless steel, on the other hand, is designed to last decades. Plus, there are no worries about whether you're using non-toxic cookware. If you want to invest in a set, go with stainless steel and supplement it with some cheaper nonstick pans.
Should you clean stainless steel cookware in the dishwasher?
How about this: You can clean (most) stainless steel cookware in the dishwasher. That said, hand-washing is recommended for longevity. The high-pressure wash cycles and detergents can speed up a pan's deterioration. That said, care should be taken when washing by hand, too. Stainless steel can warp when exposed to extreme temperature swings (for example, pouring cold water on a skillet fresh from the stovetop).
Why We're the Experts
- Taylor Murray has worked in food and food media for over 10 years.
- She has written dozens of reviews for Serious Eats, including on enameled cast iron skillets, tagines, and vacuum sealers.
- We tested 19 sets of stainless steel cookware by frying eggs, browning butter, searing pork chops, boiling pasta (in stock pots), cooking mirepoix, and making rice and bechamel.
- Grace Kelly is a commerce editor at Serious Eats, where she has been reviewing gear for almost two years.
- Grace tested the Goldilocks Cookware Set for three months, integrating the set into her daily cooking routine.
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