If you ever use your oven—and we’re guessing you use your oven—you need a good sheet pan. Baking batches of cookies? Sheet pan. Roasting vegetables or a chicken? Sheet pan. Cake for a crowd? Sheet cake… which you make in a sheet pan. Need an easy meal that isn’t an air fryer or Instant Pot meal? Hellooo, sheet-pan dinner.
Our top pick
- Best overall: Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Half-Sheet
With so much versatility, there’s a good chance you’ll use this piece of bakeware more than any other in your kitchen, so you want to get the right one. We did the heavy lifting, testing popular baking sheets so you can choose the one that’ll be a perfect partner through years of Thanksgiving hosting, weeknight dinner scrambling, and emergency cookie making.
New in this update: We’ve added testing information on nonstick baking sheets and an explanation as to why we don’t recommend them.
The best baking sheet overall: Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Half-Sheet
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Affordable
- Cooks evenly
- Takes a longer time to warp
Cons:
- Won’t stay pretty forever
- Will eventually warp
Specs
Material: 20-gauge aluminum
Dimensions: Half sheet: 18x13"
Weight: 1.6 lb.
Several rounds of testing have proven the Nordic Ware pan to be the best out there—and one of the most affordable. It’s this mix of quality and value that earns it a top spot on our list.
What we love: It’s made of 20-gauge uncoated light aluminum, which means it gets hot quickly but also evenly, producing crispy, golden brown results—whether you’re roasting veggies for a sheet-pan dinner or baking cookies.
The rolled edges help the pan resist warping when subjected to high temperatures. Most sheet pans will start to bend at some point during their lifespan, but the Nordic Ware stays flat for longer than its competitors. When it does warp, it tends to bulge in the middle rather than fold in on the sides, which we find easier to work with.
Generally, we try to avoid recommending products that you know you’ll have to replace. However, aluminum is one of the easiest and most efficient materials to recycle on earth, so we think it’s okay here.
What we’d leave: The surface of this aluminum sheet pan will stain and discolor over time, though this won’t impact the quality of your food and isn’t itself a cause for replacing the pan. The warping that will inevitably happen after several years of consistent use, however, is your sign to recycle the old pans and get a new pack. Generally, we try to avoid recommending products that you know you’ll have to replace, but aluminum is one of the easiest and most efficient materials to recycle on earth.
To extend your sheet pan’s lifespan for as long as possible, hand-wash it rather than putting it through the dishwasher, as the machine’s heat and detergent will wear away at the surface.
How we tested baking sheets
Our testing process consisted of several steps:
- We placed the pan in a 450°F convection oven for 10 minutes to see if it warped right out of the gate. We listened for any loud pops or banging sounds, which indicate that the metal is starting to contort under the stress of high heat.
- We then added a medley of vegetables coated in oil to the pan to see how well the sheets browned or if they burned the food. This test also allowed us to suss out any significant inconsistencies in the distribution of heat across the surface of the pan.
- We hand-washed the pans with soap and water to see how easy they were to clean.
- We then baked store-bought chocolate chip cookies at 350°F for 17 minutes, and evaluated the results for color, evenness, and spread.
Alongside this testing, long-term anecdotal experience and recommendations from our Test Kitchen editors and industry professionals helped to inform our final decision.
Factors we evaluated
For consistency’s sake, we limited our selection to baker’s half-sheet pans. We tested uncoated stainless steel and aluminum pans. In past years, we also tested sheet pans with nonstick coatings; however, we have since excluded them from our recommendations because nonstick baking sheets are easily damaged, wear out faster, and can’t be recycled. If you want a nonstick surface for your cookie sheet, parchment paper,. or a silicone baking mat is all you need.
Material(s)
Aluminum is the best material for a baking sheet because of its high thermal conductivity. Aluminum heats up and cools down fast, a quality you want in a cookie sheet to prevent cookies from spreading flat.
Aluminized steel—which is stainless steel with a thin aluminum alloy coating—is another common material used for making baking sheets. Steel has poor thermal conductivity compared to aluminum, meaning that it heats up and cools down slower. This quality is great for certain types of baking pans or recipes that call for a gradual change in temperature, as well for when you want to avoid too much exterior browning for aesthetic purposes. But for crispy roasted vegetables and perfectly baked cookies, many professionals prefer aluminum.
Sturdiness
Good baking sheets shouldn’t warp, so we looked out for design features that aimed to prevent that. Rolled edges keep pans from twisting, and a heavier gauge metal can withstand high heat in the oven. The sheet should also be able to withstand scraping from metal utensils, which is another reason why nonstick sheets aren’t so great.
Longevity
Even though sheet pans do eventually give out, the longer a sheet pan can put in time, the better. Durability in the oven is most important, but it’s important to note that cleaning and care factor into a pan’s lifespan just as much. Many claim to be dishwasher-safe, but we recommend sticking to hand-washing because dishwashers accelerate wear and tear on pretty much all cookware.
Other baking sheets we tested and liked
Our top pick is far and away the best quality for price of the bunch. But if you’re drawn to a different brand, know that the below will also get the job done.
Made In Sheet Tray
The Made In is nearly identical to the Nordic Ware winner in terms of appearance and performance. It’s a great piece of equipment, and the only reason it isn’t a top pick is that it’s nearly twice the price of the Nordic Ware.
Chicago Metallic Commercial II Traditional Uncoated Jelly Roll Pan
For an aluminized steel pan, this pan performed pretty well. Its ability to brown vegetables was on par with the Nordic Ware, but it’s noticeably heavier.
Fat Daddio’s Natural Aluminum Half-Sheet Pan
This pan performed reasonably well in comparison to our winner. It was easy to clean, but it warped ever so slightly despite its heavier gauge.
Hestan Tri-Ply Sheet Pan
Hestan products are high-quality and luxurious. While a lot of the brand’s cookware is fantastic, this $130 sheet pan is a bit of an extravagance. It can withstand 600°F (not sure why you’d need it to), but it performs much like any other aluminized steel pan.
Baking sheets we don’t recommend
This is a very affordable pan—however, it warped quite a bit at high heat, causing the vegetables to cook unevenly.
For whatever reason, this sheet pan was especially hard to clean. Food really stuck on strong to the surface, which made scrubbing it a real pain.
This was one of the weakest we tested. It warped substantially in the oven, producing inconsistent results.
Of the nonstick baking sheets we originally tested, this was the best of the bunch. The nonstick surface was extremely effective, which worked well for sheet pan dinners, and not so well with chocolate chip cookies, which spread flat due to the slick surface.
All love to All-Clad, but this pan wasn’t it. Beyond the Teflon coating, we found the three handles to be a bit awkward.
Teflon, and it warped! Pass.
For a nonstick pan, this one wasn’t very nonstick. We love Nordic Ware, but just get the uncoated version.
Another exceptionally slick ceramic nonstick surface that makes every cookie look like it’s been put through a pasta roller.
The Yves Klein blue may look great, but the coating was subpar and began to chip after a year of regular use.
FAQs
How do I choose the right size baking sheet for my oven?
Baking sheets come in a variety of sizes: full sheets (26 x 18"), half sheets (18 x 13"), and quarter sheets (13 x 9"). The most commonly used size, the one ubiquitous in home kitchens, is a half-sheet pan. They are just the right size for a standard oven and can easily fit into most kitchen cabinets. It’s the sheet pan that sheet-pan recipes are built around, and we recommend every home cook stock their kitchens with a couple. Quarter-sheet pans also come in handy for toaster oven baking, serving appetizer spreads, and even doubling as trays to wrangle oils and spices on your counter.
Are nonstick baking sheets better than aluminum ones?
For the same reasons we aren't enthusiastic about nonstick pans, we do not recommend nonstick baking sheets. Both PTFE-based (Teflon) and ceramic nonstick surfaces wear down with time, scratch easily, and degrade when exposed to high heat for long periods of time (like an oven). Also, sometimes a nonstick surface can hurt more than it can help. For example, when baking cookies, we found that nonstick coatings will cause dough to spread faster, resulting in flatter results.
The bottom line: We prefer to recommend cookware that lasts, and while aluminum baking sheets don’t last forever, they can at least be recycled. Coated baking sheets cannot be.
What’s the best material for a sheet pan?
Most chefs and culinary professionals say that heavy-gauge aluminum is the best material for a sheet pan. Aluminum heats up and cools down quickly, transferring heat to baked goods within seconds of entering a hot oven. It's also lightweight and inexpensive.
The alternative is stainless steel, which is significantly more expensive and is slower to conduct heat, which can potentially have an impact on overall cooking time. While experienced bakers may find that this is useful in certain cases (for fragile, heavily-enriched doughs and batters), virtually every recipe you’ll find using a sheet pan was developed on an aluminum one.
