Which dutch oven is best

The color is fantastic and bright The enamel non-stick surface is so easy to clean, I don't know why I didn't buy this before. Le Creuset has quite the fan base , and for good reason. For one, it's a trusted brand that sells some of the highest quality cookware on the market—and its Dutch ovens alone are gorgeous.

While Le Creuset's signature round Dutch ovens are on the pricier side, anyone who owns one seems to agree that they're well worth the price because they don't just last years, they last decades talk about durability.

What's more, the enameled cast iron material allows for advanced heat distribution that results in quick, easy, and consistent meals every time. The interior coating also prevents food from sticking and makes it easy to clean, while the exterior is resistant to chips, cracks, or damage. This 7. One shopper called Le Creuset's famous Dutch oven "the Bentley of cookware" while another said "there are reasons this is a classic. Speaking to its longevity, one buyer said "I have had mine for almost 50 years, it has seen heavy use, and it still looks good and works perfectly.

While heavy-duty options from brands like Le Creuset and Lodge are sure to last you for years, you don't have to shell out hundreds of dollars to reap the benefits of cooking with a Dutch oven. It trades the usual cast iron or enamel Dutch ovens which work well but can be extremely heavy for a stainless steel material that's much more lightweight, so it's easier to clean and carry around the kitchen.

Safe for both the stovetop and oven, it can even be put in the dishwasher after use. Along with an aluminum disc bottom that allows for even heating, its see-through glass lid comes in handy when you want to check on your food's progress without removing the lid. Many customers raved about its durability and ability to evenly heat the food. Plus, the 6-quart pot is larger than most standard-sized Dutch ovens, making the budget-friendly price an especially great deal.

Many chefs prefer pre-seasoned cast iron cookware because it helps food quickly and evenly, not to mention, it creates meals with tons of flavor—and this 5-quart cast iron Dutch oven from Lodge does just that. It comes pre-seasoned and ready to cook in, so you can grab your favorite ingredients and roast, fry, simmer, braise, saute, or bake right away.

With superior heat retention and distribution which you can expect from Lodge products , this versatile Dutch oven can be used in the oven, on the stovetop, on the grill, and even over a campfire. Plus, the cast iron construction means this pan is as durable as it gets.

Williams Sonoma shoppers gave this smaller 5-quart Dutch oven an impressive 4. Excellent quality. Cooked whole chicken comes out so moist and delicious. Cast iron can rust if not washed and seasoned properly, so be sure to read the care instructions upon arrival and check out this cast iron guide.

Another great stainless steel option, this 6-quart pot from Zwilling has a ceramic non-stick coating inside to make cooking and cleaning easier than ever. It's also dishwasher safe, compatible with most stovetops even induction , and can be used in the oven at temperatures up to degrees Fahrenheit.

Other useful features include heat-resistant handles and a tightly sealed lid to ensure heat doesn't escape. Reviewers praise this Dutch oven for its quality and say that the ceramic interior makes "cleanup a breeze. The best Dutch oven size for most standard needs is a mid-sized 6-quart option , like this enameled cast iron one from the Martha Stewart Collection.

This size is large enough to cook almost anything most 6-quart pots can serve multiple people but is still compact enough to carry to the table for serving. We wanted to see whether there were any differences in how well each loaf rose and browned, which could depend on how well a pot holds heat and traps steam.

A hotter pot could cause more oven spring the initial rise you get when the dough hits the hot pan and water vaporizes, generating bubbles in the bread. And a pot that traps more steam could allow the bread to rise higher before the crust crisps up.

As we cooked with each oven, we evaluated how cumbersome they were to lift when full. After testing, we took note of how easy each was to clean, and we looked for any chips in the enamel coating. You can firmly grip the large handles to lessen the strain of moving a full pot in and out of the oven or to the sink. In our first round of testing, in , none of the ovens scorched rice, and the lids retained enough moisture to keep the grains from drying out.

In our testing, they all browned onions nicely, too, and in our tests, they made similarly toothsome loaves of bread. Every oven we tested also made a tender beef stew, but we did notice a difference in how much each stew reduced over many hours in the oven. The lid on the Lodge allowed for enough evaporation to leave concentrated, rich cooking liquid behind. The Lodge hit the sweet spot for evaporation, creating a thick and flavorful stew.

The Lodge also has some design features we like. For one thing, its shape makes cooking in it particularly easy compared with other ovens we tested. With the same technique and timing, onions we cooked in darker-colored ovens like the Staub burned slightly, because the dark surface made it difficult for us to judge the color as it developed.

Using the infrared thermometer, we found that the pots with dark and light interiors heated about equally, so it was really visual cues that made the difference between browning or burning. The enamel finish on the Lodge was smooth and even, and it has remained intact over several rounds of testing and years of long-term use in our test kitchen. By comparison, the enamel on both the bottom and the handle of the Milo Classic Dutch Oven we tested chipped after just a few washes, and we noticed that the surface was pitted in a few places.

The glossy surface of the Lodge is also painless to clean, but we found that matte interiors like the one on the Staub gripped onto food and required more scrubbing.

We struggled to hold onto the spindly half-moons attached to either end of the Great Jones Dutchess or the stubbier handles on the Milo. The only model we tested with better handles was the much more expensive Le Creuset. But we have heard from some readers and Wirecutter staffers that the enamel on their Lodge ovens has chipped.

The Lodge is much more affordable than our upgrade pick , but it may also have a shorter lifespan. Repeatedly moving the pot from stovetop to cabinet has caused some exterior scratching on the bottom, but the enamel finish is unmarred.

The interior is still free of any major scratches, and the enamel finish has no cracks or chips. To remove stains on the light interior, you can use a bleach solution or a baking soda paste. We got a great sear on meat, too, since there was a little more room on the bottom. It turned out perfectly caramelized onions, and it made bread with a burnished crust and even crumb.

At Le Creuset makes ovens in a wider range of sizes and colors than Lodge. The brand is beloved by professional and home cooks alike, and in our experience these pots can last for decades.

Most Dutch ovens are dishwasher-safe, but manufacturers warn that dishwashing can wear down the enamel finish. Anyway, we prefer hand-washing Dutch ovens, to get into the corners. But before you wash your pot, be sure to let it cool. Putting a hot pot in a sink of cold water can lead to damage from thermal shock: The rapid contraction of the cooling cast iron can warp or crack the pot or cause pieces of the enamel coating to pop off.

You should avoid heating an empty pot for similar reasons, since adding cold ingredients to a very hot pot can also cause thermal shock. That said, there are plenty of home-baked bread recipes that call for preheating an empty Dutch oven. Enameled cast iron is durable and should last a long time, but it needs to be treated with some care. To prevent the coated finish from chipping or cracking, you should stick to using utensils made from wood, silicone, or other soft materials.

To choose which Dutch ovens to test, we considered best-selling options from major retailers like Amazon, and cross-referenced reviews from other reputable brands, like America's Test Kitchen subscription required and The Sweethome.

More than half of our testing field came from the last category, proving that there is some stiff competition for your Dutch oven dollar. While an increasing number of brands are producing enameled cast iron Dutch ovens, the pot's basic design has changed very little over the years.

The main differences from one pot to the next come down to small but sometimes important variations in form, and more or less stringent oversight of the production process. One of the main selling points of the heritage brands, like Le Creuset and Staub, is that they operate their own factories and are therefore able to maintain higher production standards.

The engineers at the Staub foundry, for example, adjust the moisture of the sand in the molds that form their Dutch ovens daily based on the air's humidity. At Le Creuset's factory in Fresnoy-le-Grand, about two hours north of Paris, 15 employees inspect every pot before it ships out. Ultimately, though, most of the brands we talked to were pretty tight-lipped about the specifics of their manufacturing process good luck getting much info about how the enamel coating differs from one manufacturer to the next.

Still, we can safely say that what makes a great pot is a closely controlled molding process for the cast iron, followed by a quality enamel finish, usually applied in two coats. We appreciate the kind of quality control practiced by the heritage brands and the durability it tends to promise, but we can certainly see a counterargument—take your chances spending less, and if it does one day fail, just replace it.

In the end, the most important attribute in a Dutch oven is how well it cooks food, both on the range and in the oven. Despite what you may have been told, iron is not a great conductor of heat, and needs time and a relatively large burner to heat evenly before you can properly sear meat in it. The glossy enamel, while definitely not Teflon, should release stuck-on foods without shredding them to bits. As for form, a few small details can make a big difference.

Small pot handles can be difficult to grip securely, especially when you're using mitts or pot holders. The knob on the lid is similarly important. It should be durable and easy to grab, a basic fact some brands didn't seem to grasp literally! One maker went with a whimsical daisy-flower design for its knob, with pointy metal petals jutting out from all sides.

Another pot had sharp corners that dug into our fingers and palms. All of the enameled cast iron Dutch ovens we tested are backed by a lifetime warranty.

Despite some big price differences, they are fairly consistent from brand to brand. Does spending more get you a better warranty? No, but it might buy you a warranty without a lot of loopholes, from a company with a better reputation for honoring it.

We don't have much evidence, beyond anecdotal information that the best-known brands—Le Creuset, Staub, and Lodge come to mind—are pretty good about it. Whether that's worth considering when you plunk down your card for a new pot is up to you.

The first question we had about our lineup of enameled cast iron Dutch ovens was whether there was much difference from one to the next in how they conducted and retained heat.

We know that iron in general is a poor conductor of heat, and a great retainer of it, but given that each pot has a different mass and slightly different build, including variations in floor and wall thickness, it's conceivable that some would conduct heat better than others, while others might retain the heat better.

We tested heat conduction by placing each Dutch oven on an induction burner set to a fixed, moderate heat setting. We then snapped photos with a thermal imaging camera and measured floor and wall heat in timed increments with an infrared thermometer. We did the latter in a dark room to reduce the effect of reflective light on our measurements. While our methods of measuring the temperature of the pots weren't perfect because slight variations in the enamel coating of each pot could impact the accuracy of the infrared thermometer's readings , they gave us a decent enough picture to confidently draw an interesting conclusion: There isn't a significant difference that sets one enameled cast iron Dutch oven apart from another in terms of thermal properties.

They all heated and cooled in remarkably similar patterns and at remarkably similar rates. This is not the area where one pot will distinguish itself. As we washed, cooked with, lifted, and examined the pots, we noticed which details made certain Dutch ovens more user-friendly, and which frustrated us.

As described above, handle and knob design was one of the more important design factors we encountered a fact that speaks to the overall sameness of most Dutch ovens in both design and performance. Some aspects of a Dutch oven's build turned out to be not as important as we had expected.

We measured the thickness of the wall and the bottom of each Dutch oven and found that there wasn't much of a correlation between those numbers and performance. Our top picks were all over the map in terms of bottom thickness, with the Cuisinart the thickest followed closely by the Staub and the Le Creuset on the thinner side.

And yet they all performed well in cooking tests. Enamel quality, meanwhile, was difficult to assess. In many cases, failures can occur after many months or years of consistent use—not something we could easily reproduce in our tests.

Still, we tried some more extreme abuse trials to see if we could uncover any obvious differences in quality.

We banged the pot bottoms together and smacked the insides with a metal measuring cup to see if we could chip the finish. Some pots retained slight scuff marks from the metal, but most wiped clean with minimal effort, and none chipped.

The test proved to be a great stress reliever, but it didn't help us eliminate any of the contenders. Nearly all the pots washed up easily, too.

Some manufacturers are okay with cleaning the cast iron in a dishwasher, though with time—after around washes, we were told by one of the makers—the enamel can dull. A hazy finish won't change the performance, but we'll stick to hand-washing, using dish soap and a scratch-free nylon sponge for daily cleanings, to keep the pots looking their best. To see how well the Dutch ovens cooked on a stovetop and in the oven, we used them to make Creole-style red jambalaya with chicken, sausage, and shrimp.

Using just enough oil to grease each pot, we expected the boneless chicken thighs in our recipe to quickly brown over moderately high heat. Here, we uncovered a rare quality that really does distinguish one cast iron pot from another: the bottom surface area. A larger surface area is critically important, since it reduces crowding and allows better, faster, more efficient searing.

In the end, we just couldn't abide pots that skimped on surface area for searing.