I admire any professional chef who can just reach for a kitchen towel and snag a hot sheet pan straight from the oven, but my home cook fingers aren’t as battle-tested. Crisping the perfect pizza crust on a baking steel, searing steaks on a grill, draining a pot of scalding pasta water, or pulling a hot potato from an oven—none of these are the time or place to play it fast and loose.
If you’re like me, you need a good set of oven mitts to protect your hands from high-heat scenarios without the risk of searing off your fingerprints like a secret agent. That’s why I tested more than a dozen of them in a variety of styles and materials to find the very best ones for daily cooking.
The top oven mitts
- The one oven mitt to rule them all: Oxo Good Grips Silicone Oven Mitt
- The best cloth oven mitt: Hedley & Bennett Oven Mitts
- The best silicone oven mitt: Gorilla Grip Silicone Oven Mitts
- The best glove oven mitt: Sur La Table Tile Oven Gloves
- The best mini oven mitt: Le Creuset Mini Oven Mitts
A bit about choosing the right oven mitts
It’s easy to treat oven mitts as an afterthought—something you buy because you see it on an end cap at a housewares store or toss in your cart at IKEA when stocking up your first apartment, and then never look back. But oven mitts have many easy-to-overlook aspects to consider.
First, there’s the style or shape of mitt. In the mitt biz, this is broken down into the categories of mitten (looks like a large winter mitten); pincer, which has the thumb flap directly opposing the other fingers like a hand puppet (which is why they’re also called puppet mitts); and glove, which separates all five fingers. Subcategories of the pincer style are the mini oven mitts, which stop at the wrist rather than covering the forearm, and pot pinchers, which can be used as oven mitts in a, well, pinch. However, I’m considering these last two a whole different product for the purposes of this review.
Second to consider is material. Cloth mitts can offer the most protection from heat, but they can also be bulky and become wet, oily, or stained easily. Silicone mitts have high heat thresholds (but not always improved duration of protection), superior grippiness, and they easily wash up with soap and water. Oven gloves are also fabric—usually some kind of fire-resistant fiber knit—and while they’re great for nimble fingers in high-heat situations, they can get stained and, if damp, can actually transfer heat to your fingers faster.
Finally, think about usage, or the reason you’ll be wearing this mitt most of the time, and if there are any special circumstances for which you’d want to be prepared. Cloth is probably fine for baking and pulling pots off the stove or out of the oven, but saucy and splashy situations might call for silicone. Mittens are great for grabbing hot cookware with easy-to-hold handles or lips, but pincers or gloves might serve you better for flat sheet pans, awkward vessels like bowls, or while using tongs, flipping filets, and in slipperier situations. Gloves offer incredible dexterity, but get them wet and they become almost useless as they allow hot steam direct access to your skin. And while you can buy oven mitts in both singles and pairs, I suggest having two of your go-to mitts around for balancing awkward or bulky things safely.
That said, you may not want a bunch of mitts cluttering up your kitchen, which is why out of all these styles and sizes of oven mitts, I narrowed it down by specific categories and picked an overall winner. That is to say, if you buy just one oven mitt, make it this:
Best Overall Oven Mitt: Oxo Good Grips Silicone Oven Mitt
Pros and cons
Pros
- Grippy
- Easy-to-clean texture
- Machine washable
Cons
- Fewer color choices
- Single mitt only
What I loved: Oxo Good Grips has a reputation for thoughtful, quality-driven products, so it’s no surprise its oven mitts are a solid pick. The embossed, diamond pattern on the silicone portion of the mitt not only improves grip and helps insulate against heat, it also washes more cleanly than some other textured silicone mitts I tried—plus the whole thing is machine washable. Of the silicone mitts I tested, it lasted relatively long (30-plus seconds) before my scorching hot skillet became too unbearable while still providing enough flexibility to grab pan lips and handles.
While it only comes in one size, the 13-inch length meets Gorilla Grip and other brands in the middle between longer and shorter options, making Oxo an all-around better choice if multiple cooks in the same house are sharing. For about $20 per mitt, you’ll get something that is best of cloth and silicone combined.
What I'd leave: The silicone portion only reaches as far as the start of the wrist, and that means cloth could absorb stains and moisture. But that also made the mitt feel a bit less bulky, so it’s definitely a trade-off. As of this writing, the Oxo mitt only comes in Jam (red), Oat (off-white), or Black, though scant additional colors have been available in the past. It also comes as a single mitt rather than a pair, so you’ll probably want to buy two.
Best Cloth Oven Mitt: Hedley & Bennet Oven Mitts
Pros and cons
Pros
- Comfortable
- Fun colors and patterns
Cons
- Bulky
- Shorter length
What I loved: With a 100-percent cotton exterior and polyester interior, the heat protection was fine enough, especially for quick ins and outs of the oven (though, if you’re looking for mitts that allow you to hold hot things for a long time, look at something with silicone). Shiso, Blueberry, Oat, and Paprika, a plaid, and some Disney-branded prints.
What I'd leave: I did notice a little scorching from the long exposure to a hot skillet handle. At 10.5 inches, we’re barely into the long oven mitt category, especially when our winning mini oven mitts are 8 inches.
Best Silicone Oven Mitt: Gorilla Grip
Pros and cons
Pros
- Fully silicone exterior
- Multiple lengths
- A variety of colors
Cons
- Debossed pattern harder to clean
- Not so attractive (subjectively)
What I loved: Gorilla Grip makes a bunch of kitchen and household products with the unifying factor being (generally) the use of food-safe silicone for friction. With the brand’s oven mitts you get a full 12.5 inches of silicone coverage with a fabric-lined interior (there’s also a longer 14.5-inch mitt available). At over 30 seconds of exposure, they weren’t the absolute longest lasting when it came to keeping my hands from getting too hot while holding cast iron (that gold medal went to Williams Sonoma’s silicone mitts) but they were impressive nonetheless.
Where Gorilla Grip has other brand beats is with flexibility and dexterity, as I found the silicone mitten shape the easiest to manipulate. It also comes in a variety of color choices, so you’re more likely to be able to match your kitchen’s vibe. Also, for about the same price as one Oxo, you get a pair.
What I'd leave: Compared to the Oxo mitt, Gorilla’s has a debossed honeycomb texture which, while super grippy, can end up being a bunch of tedious-to-clean recesses full of barbecue or marinara sauce. The quilted lining is better than no lining at all, but doesn’t feel super luxurious.
Best Mini Oven Mitt: Le Creuset Mini Oven Mitts
Pros and cons
Pros
- Roomy despite size
- Soft interior
- Super insulated
Cons
- Stitching through silicone
- Limited colors
What I loved: If you need to lift a scalding cast-iron pot, I would still reach for some silicone mittens or oven gloves (more below). But if you’re short on space and would like something you can slip on quickly to grab sheet pans and casserole dishes with a pinch, Dutch oven maker Le Creuset has lent its name to a line of small but mighty mini mitts. Of all the mitts I tested so far — in every category — Le Creuset’s beat the pants off the competition with 90-plus seconds of heat protection. I actually stopped the timer because my wrist got tired of lifting the cast-iron skillet before I felt any concerning amount of heat. Only the inner panels of these mini mitts are silicone (the rest is 100-percent cotton fabric), which feels nice but isn’t waterproof. However, like Oxo, the silicone portion is an embossed pattern that wipes and rinses easily.
The 8-inch length is a little more substantial than other minis, and the thick interior fabric is a comfy terrycloth texture. Factoring in heat insulation, high temperature tolerance, and roomier fit while still giving some wrist protection, Le Creuset’s were by far the best-made mini mitts in this round of tests.
What I'd leave: For me, the reddest flag is that these mitts are labeled as “hand-wash only,” which isn’t ideal for anything in my kitchen that’s mostly made of fabric. Also, they are stitched through the middle in a few places (i.e. they have tiny holes); in my limited testing, this didn’t present any problems, but I could see liquid getting through or, over time, some wear and tear at those points. The roomy size was a comfortable plus but they could, in theory, be a little too big to be considered “mini” by some cooks. They come in very limited, neutral colors, surprising from Le Creuset, which is known for tons of color options.
Best Glove Oven Mitt: Sur La Table Tile Oven Gloves
Pros and cons
Pros
- Multiple sizes and colors available
- Superior heat protection duration
- Decent wrist cuff protection
Cons
- Snug to get on and off
What I loved: These oven (or grill) gloves follow a pretty standard format: silicone grip, a woven heat-resistant exterior, and a poly-cotton blend interior. Perhaps one of the best features is that they come in two sizes. I don’t have particularly beefy hands, and I found the small size to be much more comfortable and well-fitting than the Ove Glove or Pit Mitt, both of which were too floppy on some of our daintier fingers. But the fact that they also come in a large size means these are the most customizable gloves of the bunch.
Compared to those other gloves, Sur La Table’s 500ºF tolerance kept the heat at bay about 10 seconds longer than they did, too. Though, as great as the promise of oven-safe gloves seems to be, only Sur La Table’s glove gave me anything above 20 seconds of threshold before the 450ºF skillet hand’s heat was too much.
What I'd leave: Overall, while I think oven gloves are perhaps the best option for nearly every home cook use, they aren’t necessarily quick to throw on like a looser cloth or silicone mitt. Gloves, in general, were more cumbersome in those “Hey, do you smell burning?” moments when I needed a mitt on my hand in a flash. Because Sur La Table’s gloves were a better snugger fit, they were also a bit trickier to put on than even the larger Ove Glove and Pit Mitt. Stretch the material far enough in front of a sunny window and you can see light, so it’s possible these could get soaked through, but it was much drier inside after similar exposure compared to the others, though they must be hand-washed.
If you’re prepared in advance and in need of the dexterity of all your digits, then Sur La Table’s gloves were the best bet. If you just need to grab that pan of over-broiled salmon in a snap, you might find yourself reaching for something else.
How I tested oven mitts
There’s more than one way to use an oven mitt (keep any jokes to yourself), but with so many different styles, materials, and intended applications, I decided that the most important factor should be how easy they are to cook with on a day-to-day basis. With that in mind, I graded them on a few key factors:
Heat protection
I put a cast-iron skillet in the oven and cranked up the heat to 450ºF, representing the higher end of home cooking temperatures. Then I lifted and held the hot skillet handle for as long as possible while using a stopwatch to measure the point (in seconds) at which the heat felt just shy of unbearable. I also noted whether the mitt material showed any sign of scorching, melting, or other damage due to this direct and prolonged exposure.
Grip
I used each mitt or glove to lift a heavy cast-iron Dutch oven off the stove, picking it up by both the handle and by one of the straight sides, noting any slippage as well as how forgiving the mitt material was to getting a finger or two in the handle. I also held the bare metal handle of a steel skillet and shook it back and forth (mimicking tossing ingredients in the pan) and noted any slippage, as well as if the layers of mitt fabric or silicone allowed the pan too much give.
Cleaning
Each mitt or glove has different care instructions, so this category is a bit subjective. For any fabric or fabric-silicone hybrid product, I wet the exterior with water and noted how long it took to dry and whether it soaked through to the interior. Machine washability was generally given preference (but surprisingly hard to come by). Silicone mitts were washed with a sponge and soapy water and I noted the ease to do so given their patterned textures.
Fit and feel
I have medium-size hands, so I noted whether mitts felt roomy enough for larger hands (or too roomy for anyone) or too snug and might pose a problem for too many users. The internal material, while not a dealbreaker, varied from mitt to mitt, so anything that was especially comfortable or uncomfortable to wear was called out, too. Also, oven mitts are one of those fun and quirky ways a cook can show their personality or color-match their kitchen accessories, so a really good mitt with many color options might get some bonus points compared to a great mitt with only one or two colors.
Other oven mitts I liked:
Williams Sonoma generally won’t put its name on anything that isn’t decent quality, and the Ultimate Oven Mitt is a good example. It’s got a silicone mitten portion with an embossed pattern and thick lining for extremely long heat protection (I clocked it at 45 seconds of direct contact). It’s long, too (15 inches), but with a split down one side of the cloth cuff to aid in wrist flexibility. The reason it wasn’t my favorite is that its thick layers reduced the tactile quality of my grip so I didn’t feel as in control of the pan I was holding compared to the more forgiving Oxo and Gorilla Grip.
Ikea’s puppet-style mitt is effective at keeping your hands safe but it does so at the expense of any flexibility. It’s super stiff and that’s corroborated by online reviews complaining it’s difficult to pick up smaller and smoother items. If you can work with that, then this really comes down to a “Why pay more?” argument, and at just under $5, it’s hard to dispute. What I don’t like: the complete lack of any color options other than beige.
I actually have a set of these at home, purchased as my own version of the hastily chosen-at-the-last-minute tale, so I know full well their limitations. They’re unlined, so the quality of heat retention compared to lined silicone mitts is reduced to about 20 seconds, making them less ideal for longer pan-handling needs. Plus, their debossed pattern texture allows for even quicker transference of heat if you grab something too tightly. However, they don’t take up much space, they’re super easy to slip on (not too snug), and very simple to clean. And at just $5 each, they work for small budgets.
Oven Mitts I don’t recommend:
Cuisinart opts for a textured neoprene as its grip material (think yoga mat), but that texture melted away smooth when grasping the 450ºF skillet handle, which just doesn’t cut it when so many other mitts made good on their promise of high-heat tolerance. Like Le Creuset’s, these are annoyingly hand-wash only. Unlike Le Creuset, they are a bit shorter, but interior fabric is a little less plush, which may be good for large hands. Despite melting, heat protection from my skillet lasted 45 seconds, so if you’re not cranking the oven and want small mitts, they could be just what you need.
I grew up seeing the commercials for the Ove Glove, and while I was excited to try them for nostalgia’s sake, I found the product underwhelming in practice. It’s a one-size-fits-all, 100-percent cotton glove that errs on the larger end of “all,” leaving floppy fingertips on smaller hands. The wrist cuff is looser than Sur La Table’s and shorter than Pit Mitt (below), so it feels a little less secure but it was a bit easier to slip on. While the product is listed as flame-resistant and heat safe up to 540ºF, I found it easier to locate “hot spots” or portions of the fabric where I could feel heat permeating more intensely. Perhaps most disappointing was it’s short duration of protection from a hot skillet at just 13 seconds.
Similar to Ove Glove, Pit Mitt goes big to accommodate a wider variety of hands but does so at the expense of that “like a glove” fit. The wrist cuff, however, was longer than Sur La Table or Ove Glove by a good 2 inches and clung snugly, so it never felt in danger of slipping. Despite the same material makeup as Sur La Table’s, they’re only rated to 475ºF and, like Ove Glove, lasted a paltry 13 seconds when holding a hot skillet.
This looks like your standard quilted oven mitt, and it performs just fine for what it is. It’s in the mitten shape category, which after testing so many different styles, I’ve come to think is probably the most versatile shape. However this relatively inexpensive mitt ($15) is notably thinner on insulation and only lasted 19 seconds under high heat, plus it got scorched by the skillet handle. Tt does come in a bunch of colors and it’s machine washable. It’s not a bad mitt, but you can do better.
I get that this is an ironic complaint when testing mini mitts, but these were too mini. They’re snug to the point of feeling stiff, and despite having a silicone lining on the open palm side, I felt the heat rip through to the inside after just 10 seconds, which is almost too close of a call for a trip from the oven to the cooling rack.