It’s time to build your bowl collection
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Hannah Crowley
Executive Editor, ATK Reviews
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When it comes to cookware, we usually recommend avoiding pre-fab sets and advocate for building your own collection as you go. But there’s one category of equipment where we love a good set: mixing bowls, the topic of our new review.
We’ve found that a set of bowls in graduated sizes is infinitely useful for cooking, baking, and other prep tasks. One bowl is never enough! For our new review, we only tested sets that included a large bowl with a capacity of 4 quarts or more—perfect for tossing a salad, marinating chicken, or mixing up cookie dough.
We focused on glass and metal bowls. We skipped plastic because we want to be able to use our mixing bowls with hot ingredients and put them in the dishwasher afterwards. We also skipped ceramic bowls because they’re heavy, expensive, and more limited in sizes.
The conclusion? Metal mixing bowls are hard to beat. Our favorites from Vollrath are inexpensive, durable, and lightweight. If you have the storage space, getting a great glass set, like our top pick from Pyrex, is also worthwhile. They can go in the microwave, and their transparent walls are an added bonus for tasks such as monitoring how much your bread dough is rising.
Read our full review of mixing bowls.
Bowls with broad rims offer a helpful surface to hold on to while vigorously mixing, ensuring they don’t slip out of your hands. Bowls that lacked any sort of rim were more difficult to lift or hold on to during mixing.
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Pro Tip
In the test kitchen, we stock both metal and glass mixing bowls in a wide range of sizes, from tiny glass bowls to huge metal mixing bowls. Test cooks choose based on the shape, weight, and function they want. Both materials are in high demand.
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