8 Best Sheet Pans, Lab-Tested and Reviewed
These options, from brands including Lodge, Nordic Ware, and Williams Sonoma, can bake and cook well, and are easy to clean, too
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Search for recipes online, and you’ll find scads of recipes for easy sheet pan dinners. But simple one-pan meals are just one reason to own a sheet pan. You can use it for so much more: cookies, roasted veggies, pizza—and, yes, sheet cakes or jelly rolls.
To test sheet pans, we cooked a variety of foods, including a one-pan chicken dinner with potatoes, onions, and carrots, and we baked cookies. We also baked canned pumpkin and cream cheese onto the pans at a high temperature to see how easy it would be to remove the burned-on gunk. You’ll see these results in the cleaning score in our sheet pan ratings. (Spoiler alert: There were significant differences.) We also subjected the coated pans to a durability test in which we abraded the surface with steel wool to see which pans would stand the test of time.
We tested both coated and uncoated sheet pans, including an unconventional cast-iron model. “The coated pans tend to heat up and cook faster,” says Bernie Deitrick, the engineer and cooking enthusiast who conducted our tests. But the uncoated pans fare better in cooking, evenness, and durability. Below, we’ve included the winners from both categories.
The largest sheet pans that fit in most home ovens are often called half sheet pans, because they’re half the size of the sheet pans used in commercial kitchens. Most of them measure about 13x18 inches.
Best Uncoated Sheet Pans
The Nordic Ware Naturals Baker’s Half Sheet pan earns a lot of accolades, and we like it, too. It’s one of the highest-rated uncoated sheet pans, and it’s the least expensive as well. It earns an excellent rating for cooking evenness, but it takes a little elbow grease to clean. Like the other aluminum pans, scouring powder removes soil marks left on its surface.
The Made In Cookware Half Sheet Pan is on a par with the other best performers in this group. Cooking evenness and durability are top-notch, but like the other pans in this group, cleaning it is not the easiest.
The Lodge Seasoned Cast Iron Baking Pan is the smallest of all the sheet pans in our tests, but at almost 8½ pounds, it weighs the most—by far. In fact, it’s difficult to remove it from the oven with just one hand. On the plus side, it doesn’t warp and cleanup is easier than it is for all the other uncoated pans.
Best Coated Sheet Pans
The Williams Sonoma Goldtouch Pro Nonstick non-corrugated sheet pan takes the prize in our nonstick sheet pan category, but not by a lot. It cooks food fairly evenly, but the pan fares only so-so on the durability test. Its scores for cooking speed and cleaning are first-rate.
For the price, you can’t go wrong with the Mainstays Gold Nonstick Aluminized Half Sheet Pan, sold at Walmart. It heats up like a champ, and it earns very good ratings in our tests for cooking evenness, ease of cleaning, and durability.
This All-Clad Pro-Release nonstick pan receives very good ratings for its cooking evenness and durability, but this pan is a little more difficult to clean than some of the other coated sheet pans—though it’s still easier to clean compared with uncoated pans.
While the Oxo Good Grips Non-Stick Pro Half Sheet Pan hits some high points, it falls short on our durability test, in which we abrade the surface with steel wool. It earns a poor score for durability. But it cleans like a dream and heats up quickly, so it won’t leave you waiting for dinner.
Okay, you have to appreciate the pun in the name of the Great Jones Holy Sheet pan. But does it live up to its name? Yes. The Great Jones earns a very good rating in cooking evenness, and it heats up quickly, so our chicken dinner was ready in no time. It’s middling on our durability test, but it cleans up nicely. The Holy Sheet Pan is available only from Great Jones.
