The Best Cookware Sets

We loved the well-balanced, sturdy construction of these tri-ply pans (a layer of aluminum sandwiched between layers of steel). We’ve recommended individual pieces from this set in standalone cookware reviews over the years; by offering these pieces for sale together, this set potentially saves you a lot of money. (The stockpot alone costs about half the price of the set.) Overall, the cookware pieces included in this set run a bit smaller than those we prefer, but they’re still large enough to be useful. We appreciated the skillets’ open, flared sides that aid in evaporation and browning; the generous sizes of the sauté pan and stockpot; and the saucepans, which offered excellent interior visibility, uniform heating, and neat pouring. Every piece had all-steel handles that stayed cool on the stove, with an angular shape that anchored securely in hand. These pans are well-designed for serious home cooks and will last a lifetime.

We appreciated this cookware’s solid feel and handsome appearance. Pans performed well, browning and heating evenly. Though they were made from five layers of metal (steel, pure aluminum, aluminum alloy, pure aluminum, and steel) the pans didn’t take significantly longer than other pans to heat. This was likely because the five individual layers were relatively thin, with the large skillet’s bottom measuring 2.7 mm thick, slightly thinner than our co-winner’s large skillet, which had only three layers. We liked the pans’ level rather than uptilted handles, which felt natural to hold, and their hollow steel construction stayed cool. We noted that the skillets’ sides weren’t smoothly curved but met the bottom at an angle that trapped food. We liked that this set included larger saucepans, including a roomy 4-quart size. (Other sets’ biggest were 3 quarts). It was also the only set with a saucier. These round, wide-mouthed saucepans were originally designed for reducing sauces and stirring custards, but we love using them as regular saucepans. The saucier’s size was a little redundant with the other saucepans, but we didn’t mind.

This set came closest to having our ideal sizes and pieces of cookware, with nothing superfluous, at a remarkable price, likely because these direct-to-consumer pans are sold by the manufacturer, which reduces costs such as retailers’ price markup. The set included our preferred 12-inch skillet size, which provided plenty of cooking space and browned food well when we cooked a whole chicken cut in pieces. All of the pans had shapes that made them easy to use, including wide, sloped skillets that let us monitor browning and sweep a spatula around the gently curved sides; saucepans that poured neatly and were easy to see into, which helped when we mashed potatoes; and a roomy stockpot with large, secure handles. We appreciated the pans’ moderate, balanced weight that made them comfortable to lift, pour, or scrape while holding aloft and angular steel handles that stayed cool and felt secure in hand. Our only disappointment came when its skillet warped very slightly after we thermally shocked it by plunging the very hot pan into ice water, an extreme test we do to assess durability.

This weighty, sturdy, handsome set included five-ply pans in generous, useful sizes, and we generally enjoyed cooking in them. In fact, we previously tested and highly recommended the 12-inch skillet. The stockpot, while heavy, was nicely proportioned, with a wide diameter that made it easy to stir and cook in and big looping handles that felt secure. Our main quibble was that the other pans’ handles were very smooth and rounded; the skillet handle dangerously rotated in our hand as we held it with a pot holder while taking chicken out of the oven. The handles also were short, with a tapered, pointed end; while they were sufficient for testers with smaller hands, those with larger hands found they offered fewer options for grasping securely. “Titanium” in the name indicates that this metal was added to the alloy of steel used in the pans’ cooking surface for increased corrosion resistance. However, during testing we didn’t notice any durability differences compared to other cookware.

This set’s pans generally cooked well and browned food nicely, but they were slightly smaller and the skillets a bit more bowl-shaped than we prefer. The comparatively petite stockpot made cooking even a pound of pasta a bit challenging. When we seared chicken pieces in the 10-inch skillet, its rounded handle was hard to grasp securely through a pot holder as we removed the hot pan from the oven; it also began to rotate in our grip as we tilted it to scrape out sauce. The saucepan felt slightly pan-heavy and unbalanced as we held and poured with it, while the sauté pan had taller sides and a narrower cooking surface than sauté pans of the same volume in other sets, which made it seem smaller. While prices fluctuate, at the time of purchase this was the only cookware set we bought that cost slightly more (about $2) compared to buying pieces separately.

We cooked successfully in every pan in this very inexpensive set, but a series of minor failures lowered its score throughout testing. We’re not fans of the smooth, round handles; one slipped inside our pot holder as we removed a hot skillet full of chicken from the oven. The handles on the slightly narrow stockpot became hotter than those on other sets; we scorched ourselves a few times. The pans in this set were lighter and had thinner bottoms than those in other sets, so while they were easier to lift, they were also less durable, denting and warping more significantly than others we tested. In general, the too-rounded, bowl-like skillets and tulip-shaped saucepans were attractive but less functional than lower-sided, flared skillets and straight-sided saucepans, which make it easier to reach and monitor food. On the bright side, we appreciated the (reasonably accurate) volume markings inside the stockpot as we filled it with water for pasta.