Best Baking Pans of 2023, Tested and Reviewed

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The best baking pans are versatile kitchen workhorses, good for everything from baking chocolate chip cookies to toasting an entire dinner. And in between there are all the delicious foods: roasted vegetables, crispy strips of bacon, thick pancakes, the list goes on. You can even make grilled cheese on a sheet pan. But which of all the baking pans works best and is easiest to clean?

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Over the past few years, we’ve tested more than a dozen highly rated rimmed baking sheets to find the best ones for home cooks. Read on to find out which one is the best (sorry, we had to do it). To learn the pros and cons of the pans we don’t recommend, and how to use your baking pan for more than just baking, scroll down.
Best Overall Baking Pan Best Nonstick Baking Pan Another Great Nonstick Baking Pan How We Test Baking Pans Factors We Rate Other Baking Pans We Test Conclusions How to Use a Baking Pan
Nordic Ware’s natural aluminum half panels are again our top pick in this category this year. Our more expensive skillet has been discontinued for 2022, and this second skillet is a high-quality skillet at an affordable price that we’ll continue to recommend even after it’s discontinued. It reliably cooks food evenly at both high and low temperatures, and the uncoated aluminum pan is easy to clean.
The 16-gauge aluminum pan conducts heat efficiently, meaning food cooks evenly and the pan heats up and cools down quickly. Rounded edges help maintain resistance to twisting pain when exposed to high temperatures and sudden changes in temperature. The light color reduces the likelihood of your cookies or cakes being too dark, but is thick and strong enough to produce a crispy crust.
After sautéing oiled vegetables over high heat, we were able to get this pan nearly flawless using only a cellulose sponge, dish soap, and hot water, although it did show some minor staining after three test cooks. Fortunately, normal wear and tear is primarily a cosmetic issue and usually does not lead to undesirable results when cooking and baking. (For a nonstick surface for delicate cooking or just to prevent discoloration, you can line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.)
Bare aluminum is the best and most versatile choice for most pan uses, but the material stains and scratches easily, and acidic foods like tomatoes can cause discoloration, pitting, and corrosion. As mentioned above, stains appear primarily for aesthetic reasons, but if you’re craving a clean slate, they won’t cost much to replace. (By the way, an “old” stained skillet is perfect for using on your Kamado grill and for catching up messes while the kids help in the kitchen.) Like most skillets, this one has a flat bottom. You will have to hold the pan by hand. I washed it, but it probably won’t. However, it is not suitable for most household dishwashers.
Every now and then we get a snarky social media follower who accuses us of paying shillings for Oxo, but the truth is that they make some really great products and the Nonstick Pro Half Sheet Pan is no exception. The ribbed surface combined with a PFOA-free “ceramic-reinforced” non-stick coating means virtually nothing sticks to the pan, and the delicate texture also allows (a little) air to pass under the food.
Even though it’s made of aluminized steel (rather than pure aluminum), everything we cooked in this pan cooked evenly. The square, rolled edges prevent warping and are tall enough that you can use this pan for shallow sheet cakes or anything that needs to hold a little more than a standard pan. Like most nonstick cookware, this pan is not dishwasher safe, but it is very easy to clean by hand.
Like most nonstick pans we’ve tested, the Oxo shouldn’t handle temperatures above 450°F. That’s a high maximum for most baking projects, but it’s not a baking pan you want to put under the oven or use for baking pizza at high temperatures. temperatures. While it has a nice golden hue that’s preferable to the standard earthy gray nonstick finish that many brands use, it’s not as aesthetically pleasing as some direct-to-consumer pan options like the Cilantro below.
If you use your baking dish for more than just baking, or if you’re interested in something that’s both beautiful and functional, the Caraway Large Ceramic Coated Aluminized Steel Bakeware is worth the splurge.
We love the durable stainless steel handles and nice color options, but this is also a great oven-safe bakeware.
While they’re not our favorite cookie (more on that below), they’re by far our favorite dinner pan because they’re the most nonstick and heat-resistant pan we’ve tested. Literally nothing sticks to the gray ceramic coating, making cleaning a breeze. While all other nonstick baking pans we’ve tried have a maximum temperature of 450°F, the Cilantro Baking Pan is oven-safe up to 550°F.
This pan’s ultra-smooth nonstick ceramic coating is one of the reasons it’s perfect for sheet pan lunches, but the two times we used it to bake cookies, the dough balls spread quickly and we ended up with thin, crispy cookies. They’re certainly not bad (think Tate’s Bake Shop cookies), but one of Callaway’s main marketing claims is that you don’t have to use as much butter or oil when using ceramic-coated stovetop cookware and seemingly baking supplies (This also includes muffin tins, loaf pans and muffin tins). Ceramic-coated cookware is also quite fragile, especially when hot, so never use metal cookware on it or put it in the dishwasher. Keep in mind that even with proper care, ceramic coating will wear down over time.
In the general pan category, which includes whole-sheet pans, half-sheet pans, quarter-sheet pans, jelly roll pans, and rimless pans, our testers only used those with rims and rolled edges. sheet tray. This is what we use in the Epicurious test kitchen and what most home cooks use, whether they call them baking sheets, baking sheets or baking sheets.
To test a bare aluminum baking pan, we first placed the empty, room-temperature pan in a 450°F convection baking oven. We left them for 10 minutes and listened for a loud popping sound that would indicate deformation. None of the pans we tested in 2022 warped during testing. We set the oven to 450°F and cooked lightly oiled and seasoned broccoli, cauliflower, and onions directly in an ungreased pan. We looked at how evenly each item cooked (and charred). After the pans cooled, we tried cleaning each pan using only a cellulose sponge, dish soap, and hot water.
We then used store-bought sugar cookie dough (for consistency) and baked the cookies in each pan according to package directions, at 350°F for unlined and greased pans, bake for 12 minutes. We moved each cookie to a cooling rack and, once cooled, checked the cookies for evenness, texture, and color, noting how well the cookies stuck to the pan and how easy (or difficult) it was to clean each pan by hand.
Since there are many popular brands now offering non-stick bakeware, we have also added a non-stick category. To test nonstick, we cooked the same sugar cookies according to nonstick instructions (325°F setting for regular baking for 12 minutes). We looked at how many cookies actually stuck to each nonstick pan and hand washed each nonstick pan with a cellulose sponge.
We also cooked lightly oiled zucchini slices in a 400°F convection oven for 17 minutes. After the pans cooled, we tried removing the rounds with a silicone spatula to see which pans had the charcoal and food stuck to them and how evenly the zucchini cooked in each pan. We then hand wash each pan.
To maintain consistency, everything was tested individually on the center rack of the oven and the oven was allowed to return to the set temperature between batches of cookies and vegetables.
Since the pan serves multiple purposes, it must be durable, reliable, and easy to clean. It should be able to withstand some wear and tear (this is not the delicate kitchen appliance we’re looking for) and provide the desired results, be it a crispy brown base on grandma’s pizza, a golden hue on delicate sugar cookies, etc., or high temperatures. Charred florets of roasted broccoli.
For heat conduction, pans with bare aluminum plates are ideal. It heats up quickly and cools down quickly, meaning your food starts cooking when it goes into the hot oven and stops cooking when it comes out. It’s also very light in color, giving you more control over how browned the bottom of your cookies, cakes or pizzas are. Aluminized steel is essentially steel encased in aluminum and is more prone to uneven heat distribution. While stainless steel is the material of choice for many cookware items, it is notoriously poor in the frying pan category. When testing nonstick bakeware, we looked at the functionality and durability of the nonstick coating.
Technically, what we call a baking sheet is a half sheet pan. While a standard half-sheet pan measures 18×13 inches, not all rimmed pans measure this exact size. Of the sheets we tested, one was 16×12 inches, another was 17×11/4 inches, and some were a true 18×13 inches, with a variety of other sizes in between. Two of them have protruding handles that also protrude beyond the hob area. This may not affect whether your vegetables are well charred, but if you’re cooking in a small home oven, it may determine whether the leaf will fit inside. (By the way, if you do most of your cooking in the oven, we recommend using a quarter sheet pan.)
Non-stick coatings are sometimes more trouble than they’re worth. Many methods are not very effective, and even if they are effective, they will disappear over time. Nonstick bakeware also tends to be darker than pure aluminum models. Unsurprisingly, darker baking sheets absorb and radiate more heat, resulting in a darker result (eg cookies that are brown rather than golden brown).
Rolled, steel-reinforced edges reduce the risk of warping due to sudden temperature changes compared to flat edges, but they can sometimes accumulate rust at the bottom of the pot if they are not thoroughly dried after cleaning.
As much as we love Great Jones’s gorgeous, colorful pans, the Holy Sheet didn’t perform as well as some other nonstick pans in our side-by-side testing. Roasted broccoli and cauliflower stick to it, as do sugar cookies, and is harder to clean than other nonstick baking pans. After prolonged use, we noticed that even with a special hand wash (as the brand recommends), the coating began to peel and wear off after about a year.
As much as we love the Nordic Ware Uncoated Sheets, we were surprised to find that everything we cooked stuck to the Nordic Ware Naturals Aluminum Nonstick Coated Half Sheets. This non-stick pan is also the hardest to clean. We might as well use open-faced Scandinavian clay pans – we recommend going that route.
The All-Clad Nonstick Pro Release Half Sheet is another bakeware made from thick aluminized steel with a nonstick, PFOA-free, ceramic-reinforced surface. The pan performed well in our tests, although not quite as well as the Oxo, and the gray finish showed some staining after the first time. We thought the three wide handles might be handy, but they’re actually a little awkward to use with bulky oven mitts.
The USA Pan Bakeware Half Sheet Pan is a durable aluminized steel baking pan with a ceramic nonstick coating and an oxo-like texture. The American skillet browned the vegetables nicely, but the cookies we cooked in it were too crunchy.
Not surprisingly, the Chicago Metal Elite Nonstick Carbon Steel Skillet—another durable aluminized steel skillet—also produced overly crispy cookies.
The Bellemain Heavy Duty Uncoated or Uncoated Aluminum Half Sheet is comparable in price to the Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Half Sheet, but it is almost too thin (19 gauge compared to the 18mm Nordic Ware material) and not thick enough for us to use. Everything cooked turns brown. It is also out of stock at the time of our last update.
The Vollrath Wear-Ever Half-Size Frying Pan is another uncoated frying pan similar to the Nordic Ware, but it’s thicker (13 gauge), costs about twice as much, and produces average results.
The Artisan Professional Classic 18-gauge aluminum half-sheet does a good job of crisping up the bottom of baked goods, but makes it difficult to clean up. Even with careful cleaning, browned bits of bread and vegetables will stick and remain in place.
At the time of publication, the Misen Aluminum Half Sheet Saucepan (our top pick for 2022) is no longer available on the brand’s website. Misen is more expensive than Nordic Ware aluminum bakeware and the performance difference is negligible. But we prefer Misen’s heavier 16-gauge aluminum pans and were glad to be able to buy a $40 set that includes a half-sheet pan and a quarter-sheet pan.
In most cases, we recommend unlined aluminum bakeware with rounded edges, and Nordic Ware’s natural aluminum half sheets are our top pick in this category. If you’re looking for a nonstick pan, the Oxo Nonstick Pro Half Sheet Pan outperformed other nonstick pans we’ve tried when baking cookies, and the Caraway Large Sheet Pan is our favorite option for roasting vegetables and a nonstick option for sheet pan dinners.
Now that you know which pans to buy, it’s time to get started. Here are some of our favorite ways to use this versatile cooker.
Cookies are the obvious choice here. But we wanted to mention them to point out that you don’t need any special cookie sheets to bake cookies—you don’t need nonstick, rimless, insulated, or anything else. A half baking sheet is the perfect tool. Depending on what you’re baking, simply line it with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat, or simply grease it with butter or oil. You can also prepare thick slices of the pie on a baking sheet. You can’t do this on an insulated rimless cookie sheet!
If you’re already using a baking sheet for anything other than making cookies, then you’re probably using it to roast vegetables, right? To keep your roasted veggies extra crispy, place the baking sheet in the oven while it preheats so the veggies come out nice and hot. This works especially well with potatoes, but you can really bake anything in a pan. The fact that the walls are only an inch high means that more direct heat can circulate around what you’re baking, creating a crispier surface all around. This is much better than baking in a deeper baking pan, muffin tin or other baking pan.
The more air that passes around food being cooked in the oven, the crispier the food will be. So, instead of placing meat and vegetables directly on the baking sheet, you can add an oven-safe rack to the baking sheet and continue baking. It’s ideal for baking breaded schnitzel or finishing oven-fried pork chops. It’s also the best way to cook crispy bacon for a crowd.
Likewise, in a preheated oven, a rack set in a baking pan is ideal for anything you want to keep warm without condensation forming on the bottom (like pancakes or waffles). When you’re frying, your best bet is a baking sheet with a rack: Place it next to the stove so the freshly fried chicken can drain and cool without getting soggy.
Editor’s note: We recommend using an unlined baking sheet for this tip, as the rack on a nonstick ceramic baking sheet can damage the baking sheet in a hot oven.
To make delicious pizza at home, you don’t need a pizza stone: just heat an inverted baking sheet in the oven to the highest temperature and spread the dough on top for a thin-crust pizza, or bake it inside for a thicker pizza. grandma’s pizza style pie.
Likewise, you can give frozen pizza a crispier crust by cooking it directly on the oven rack, then placing a baking sheet on the rack underneath to catch the breadcrumbs, melted cheese, and other toppings.
Line a baking sheet with a clean kitchen towel and spread out freshly washed herbs, vegetables, herbs or berries to dry. (Paper towels will also work, but using paper plates and towels will avoid unnecessary paper waste.)
If you want to make a large batch of whole grains and store them in the refrigerator for cold salads or other meals throughout the week, we recommend lining a baking sheet with parchment paper and spreading the hot grains on the baking sheet to help them cool faster and help them cool faster. Don’t overcook. Of course, you can put the cooked grains under cold water to stop the cooking, but this will make them all soggy.
Espresso, drip, pour over – no matter what kind of coffee you drink, we will tell you which coffee machine to choose.
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