All the Best Stainless-Steel Cookware We’ve Ever Used

After testing this stuff for more than 5 years, we’ve figured out what works and what doesn’t.
Best stainless steel cookware collage

All products featured on Bon Appétit are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.

Stainless-steel cookware is the foundation of any kitchen arsenal. Sure, you can get by with that inexpensive nonstick cookware set you got after graduating college, but eventually you’ll need to upgrade. And investing in good-quality high-end cookware is one of those generational purchases that’s well worth your money.

Why is stainless steel so vital? Because it is the most durable and reliable material you can use for cooking. Step into any professional kitchen and you will see a stainless-steel something in action. “If you’re going to spend money on quality cookware, you should go with something that can withstand all the nicks and scratches and drops that inevitably occur in the kitchen,” says test kitchen editor Kendra Vaculin, “You can buy one really good stainless-steel pan and have it for the rest of your life.”


Our top picks

Featured in this article

The best stainless-steel set
All-Clad D3 3-Ply Stainless-Steel 7-Piece Cookware Set
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The best stainless-steel frying pan
All-Clad D3 3-Ply Stainless-Steel Fry Pan, 10"
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The best stainless-steel sauté pan
All-Clad D3 3 Quart Sauté Pan
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We’ve been testing (and retesting, and retesting) stainless-steel pots and pans for years, focusing specifically on frying pans, sauté pans, saucepans, and stockpots. We consider these the essential pieces of stainless-steel cookware for a home kitchen, but consider them a starting point for your cookware collection. There’s a whole world of niche, specific cookware to explore (Dutch ovens, carbon steel, cast iron, oh my!)

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Below you’ll find a list of all our top picks in each cookware category, and a little bit about why we chose them as our winner. If you want more in-depth information on how we evaluated each individual type of pan.

The best stainless-steel cookware set: All-Clad 7-piece cookware set

All-Clad D3 3 Ply Stainless Steel Cookware Set 7 Piece

All-Clad D3 3-Ply Stainless-Steel 7-Piece Cookware Set

Pros & cons

Pros

  • Durable and high-quality
  • Long-lasting
  • Lightweight

Cons

  • $$$

Specs

Material: Stainless steel with stainless-steel lids
Included pieces: 10.5" skillet, 1.5-qt., or 3-qt., or 4-qt. saucepan (with lid), 3-qt. sauté pan (with lid), 6-qt. or 8-qt. stockpot (with lid)
Induction compatible: Yes
Oven safe to: 600℉ (may change color with exposure above 500℉)
Warranty: Limited lifetime warranty

Cookware sets come in all sorts of numerical combinations, but for most people, we recommend starting with the basics first and branching out as you figure out your specific needs. A 7-piece cookware set from most brands will consist of a saucepan, stockpot, sauté pan and skillet. It is the perfect kitchen starter pack (lids count as pieces in these sets). Larger cookware sets will typically include smaller and larger versions of the skillet and saucepans, which you may find quite useful. But if you aren’t sure what you’d do with both a 2- and 3-quart saucepan, we say table that decision. You can always add pans on an ad hoc basis later.

In case you didn’t catch it on the list at the top, we really like All-Clad pans. They have been top performers in our product tests for years. Are they an investment? Definitely, but they’re pans that you’ll have for a lifetime—or several lifetimes, really.

All-Clad produces a few different lines of cookware, but we think their Everyday D3 line is the best choice for home cooks. You’ll notice there are two D3 lines—Stainless Everyday and Stainless—both are clad stainless steel, the difference is in the handle. The classic All-Clad handle has a semicircular rounded shape with a deep thumb divot, which stays secure in hand when wrapped in a towel (how many line cooks use pans), It’s also suited for a pinched grip with the thumb on top—how many professionally trained chefs tend to hold pans. Many non-chefs find this style of handle to be uncomfortable, which is why the Everyday line has rounded more ergonomic handles that feel more comfortable across a wider range of hand positions.

We analyzed the available assortment of cookware sets online, taking note of the most common assemblages, and tried to identify pieces that we felt were redundant or unnecessary. We came to the conclusion that it would be best to start with fundamental pieces of cookware you’d most likely use, and encourage expanding a collection based on your needs on a piece-by-piece basis. For selecting specific lines of cookware, we used our testing data for previous product tests to inform our recommendation choices, as well as the industry expertise of the professionals in our Test Kitchen.

Get more cookware set details here.


The best stainless-steel frying pan

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All-Clad D3 3-Ply Stainless-Steel Fry Pan, 10"

Pros & cons

Pros

  • Built to last
  • Even heat distribution
  • Lightweight

Cons

  • $$$

Specs

Sizes: 10", 12", 14"
Weights (with lid): 3.5 lb., 4 lb., 5.5 lb.
Oven-safe to: 600°F

If you’ve ever dined at a restaurant, you’ve consumed a meal that’s prepared in this pan. It’s a favorite of industry chefs and our Test Kitchen editors alike, and has a long-standing reputation for longevity and durability. It has a generous cooking surface relative to its overall diameter with wide angled sides. The high-quality tri-ply cladding (two layers of stainless steel with an aluminum core) does a superb job spreading heat evenly across the surface of the pan, delivering consistent and even cooking results. Inferior stainless-steel pans tend to have hot or cold spots that will cook food inconsistently. It’s an investment, a recurring theme with All-Clad items, but as the centerpiece of your cookware set (and the piece you’ll likely use the most), this is one to invest in. Sizing is up to you, but we think the 10.5-inch is a good middle of the road size that is spacious without hogging too much of the cooktop.

Read our full test and review of more than a dozen stainless steel skillets


The best sauté pan: The All-Clad D3 3-quart sauté pan

All-Clad D3 3 Quart Sauté Pan

All-Clad D3 3 Quart Sauté Pan

Pros & cons

Pros

  • Generous cooking area
  • Even heating
  • Lightweight

Cons

  • A tad shallow

Specs

Pan weight: 3 lb., 5 oz.
Pan height: 2⅜"
Top diameter: 11⅛"
Cooking surface diameter: 10"
Lid weight: 1 lb., 3 oz.
Volume: 3-qt.
Material: Stainless steel and aluminum
Warranty: Lifetime

Next verse, same as the first. It’s All-Clad again, and we recommend it for all the same reasons we do for the skillet above. So instead of rehashing all that, we will explain why sauté pans are great and you should have one in addition to your saucepan and frying pan. Think of a sauté pan as the original “do everything” pan. While you may reach for a skillet more for casual meals, the sauté pan offers more versatility thanks to its straight side walls that can accommodate more liquid for making braises, stews, and sauces. The broad cooking surface of the All-Clad gives you plenty of room to sear meat for a family of four, and its relatively wide base also allows for quicker sauce reductions because it has more surface area than some other sauté pans.

Read our full test and review of stainless steel sauté pans


The best saucepan: All-Clad D5 Saucepan

All-Clad D5 Sauce Pan with lid 3 quart

All-Clad D5 Sauce Pan with lid 3 quart

Pros & cons

Pros

  • Smooth, even heating
  • Nice flared edge for pouring

Cons

  • $$$

Specs

Diameter: 8.8"
Depth: 6.4"
Handle length: 9"
Weight: 3.6 lb.

Guess who! All-Clad. At this point we want to make it abundantly clear that we aren’t prejudiced against other brands (you’ll see in the next category), but All-Clad really just knows how to design good cookware. The saucepan we recommend is a little different than the other All-Clad on this list though.

Out of all pieces of cookware, heat conduction matters most to saucepans, due to the kind of things you make in them—sauces, caramels, reductions, custards—things that can easily scald, curdle, or burn when not treated carefully. Even, well-dispersed heat will keep the temperature from spiking in the pan, even at a high heat, lessening the likelihood of scorching the food on your stovetop. This is why we actually prefer All-Clad’s D5 saucepan—a 5-ply pan compared to the D3 line’s triply. The additional cladding will heat up more gradually and smoothly compared to the D3. However, if you want consistency in your set, the D3 is still a great piece of clad cookware.

Also, there’s also something called a saucier, which is a saucepan with a more bowl-shaped bottom and edges more accommodating for a whisk. Both get the job done, so the choice is a matter of preference.

Read our full test and review of stainless steel saucepans


The best stockpot: The Made-In 8-quart stockpot

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Made In Stainless Clad Stock Pot (8-quart)

Pros & cons

Pros

  • Accommodating dimensions
  • Lightweight without sacrificing quality

Cons

  • Nothing, really nothing

Specs

Dimensions: 14.5 x 10.75 x 5.5"
Material: Stainless steel
Size: 8-qt.
Weight: 4.5 lb.

A slight divergence from the trend above, the Made-In stockpot managed to slightly edge out the All-Clad in our tests. Made-In is a newer cookware brand that has quickly gained momentum and a positive reputation in professional kitchens over the past few years. In gathering expert sourcing for our stockpot test, several working chefs were quick to call out the Made-In as their stockpot of choice. In our testing, we came to the same conclusion, and it really all came down to specs. The Made-In stockpot has the same squat and wide dimensions as the All-Clad that can nicely accommodate chicken and even turkey carcasses without too much fussing. The main difference between the two pots, though, is that the Made-In, while a 5-ply pot, is half a pound lighter than the All-Clad. Is it a big difference? No, but hey, when tasked with choosing the absolute best, sometimes we do have to split hairs.

Read our full test and review of stainless steel stockpots


How we tested stainless-steel cookware

We’ve been testing stainless-steel cookware for over five years, and in that time, we’ve done a lot of boiling, braising, shallow-frying, searing, sautéing, saucing, caramelizing, and stock making. The particular tests we do depend on the particular use cases for a given piece of cookware. However, we are always looking for even heating across the cooking surface, smooth responsiveness to changes in temperature, and ease of handling regardless of the shape or size of a pan. There are a variety of ways we evaluate this, and for more in-depth description, check out the individual review of each of the types of pan linked above.

In addition to more objective tests, like analyzing hot spots and response to temperature changes, we put the pans in as many hands as possible, sourcing opinions and feedback across our entire staff, which is a mixture of professionally trained chefs and avid home cooks. We also like to hear from chefs from our favorite restaurants about the cookware they like to use. We then synthesize all this information to inform our judgment and deliver a recommendation that we hope will serve you best in your own home.