The Best Baking Sheets to Look for When Stocking Your Kitchen

There are many winning qualities of a rimless baking sheet. However, most home cooks will get more use out of the rimmed sort. With spill-proof walls, this variety enables you to create many dishes. You can seamlessly roast vegetables or toast nuts. You can bake any sort of protein or make sheet cakes. You can even turn out an impressive deep-dish pizza.

Raised edges also make the best rimmed baking sheets great tools for collecting drips. Place a cooling rack within a rimmed baking pan. Now you’ve made yourself a gadget for draining fried foods. This can also be used for 360-degree air circulation. The sides assist in cooling cakes, cookies and bread loaves, avoiding that dreaded soggy bottom. You can even insert a cooling rack into a rimmed baking sheet while roasting. This ensures even cooking.

Rimmed baking sheets are typically sized 12 or 13 inches by 18 inches. These “half-sheet” pans fit perfectly into most ovens, which are often 22 inches wide. They leave just enough room around the sheet for optimal air circulation. Spending lots of time cooking with a toaster oven? A quarter-sheet pan is a great option.

Within this category, we believe the best baking pans are 9 to 13 inches. “Full sheet” pans don’t fit in home ovens and are designed for commercial use. Some home ovens can fit the extra large quarter sheet pans.

Jelly roll pans are also popular rimmed options. They're named for their intended use of making jelly roll cakes. They are just slightly smaller rimmed baking sheets with rolled edges (10 or 11 by 15 inches). They are great for baked goods that hit the rim of the sheet, like bars and shortbread.

Rimless baking sheets are not quite as versatile. However, known as the best cookie sheets, they are incredible workhorses. Their size and smooth edges make them ideal for batching vast quantities of cookies. These are great for anything that will not seep too much juice, fat, oil or butter. They're also great for anything that needs a bit of breathing room. An example is an oven-baked fritter.

If you have an oven that has inconsistent heat spots, they're a great option. They’re quite easy to handle and rotate quickly mid-bake. The best rimless sheets allow you to quickly slide cookies onto a cooling rack. They help to minimize post-oven residual baking. This is one of the top reasons to keep one on hand.

A baking sheet’s weight is extremely important. Thickness, or “gauge,” will be noted on a baking sheet’s packaging. The gauge scale is regressive. This means the higher the numbers go, the lower the thickness of a pan’s material. We say the best baking pans fall within the 10- to 18-gauge range. This means we are recommending 10-gauge pans (about 0.102 inch) as the thickest options you should reach for. And the 18-gauge (about 0.0403 inch thick) as the thinnest.

The best cookie sheets should have a lower gauge. They are at greater risk for warping due to the lack of supporting rim. Of course, we love the feel of a sturdy pan in our hands. But staving off warping is more important. The thinner a pan, the more likely it's to bend out of shape when exposed to extreme heat. This warping leads to unevenly cooked, burned or misshapen goods. That is results we certainly want to keep at bay. For cookie sheets, your best bet is to go for 10- to 12-gauge.

Baking sheets of varying gauge come in a wide spectrum of materials. Below are your stand-out options.

Untreated aluminum is the most widely available option for baking sheets. This is thanks to its price, durability and heat conductivity. It gets hot, and fast! The best baking sheets made of aluminum heat evenly. Then they cool with great speed to help you avoid burnt results. This quality also increases speed when you’re batch cooking. It's easy to use the same pan over and over.

Aluminum’s drawbacks are not remarkable. The material does have the capacity to stain. At times, things can stick to it, demanding of a bit of effort in removal. In the worst cases, minor burning can occur with too much pan contact. A preventative feature some baking sheets offer is a micro-texture. This bumpy texture increases airflow under your baked goods. The bumps offset surface area contact, leading to less burning.

Aluminum is also a reactive material. It is prone to imparting a metallic taste onto acidic foods. Preventing these blights is not insurmountable, though. Try lining your aluminum baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. They can speed up cleaning and avoid burns. They also maintain the flavor and aesthetic integrity of your baked goods. Covering your sheet when baking also lengthens its lifespan.

Other uncoated options include steel and tri-ply. Steel heats unevenly, meaning your sheet’s contents cook to different degrees based on its oven placement. Because of this, we don’t consider steel the cream of the crop. Stainless steel is beautifully shiny, durable and nonreactive. So we understand if you have an affinity for it. Stainless steel won’t rust, stain or oxidize. This makes it safe for use with acidic foods. They’re also dishwasher safe!

Tri-ply baking sheets are made up of an aluminum core sandwiched between stainless steel. This construction makes use of aluminum’s efficient conductivity. At the same time, it gives the home cook a nonreactive surface to bake on. Because of the layering, these baking sheets are quite expensive. It is also important to bear in mind that tri-ply baking sheets retain heat longer. You run the risk of over-baking after you pull your haul from the oven. In all honesty, tri-ply is best reserved for your roasting pan.

Nonstick makes for easy cleanup and enables low-effort cookie sliding. However, the slick surface tends to produce cookies that are more spread out. It can keep you from developing a textured and browned base to any food item. The dark coating of a nonstick baking sheet will cook batches more quickly. This leads to a crunchy cookie. For some home cooks, this could be viewed as a perk. For most, having to keep such a watchful eye on a bake is a nuisance. Another important point to keep in mind is that nonstick pans are not going to last you a lifetime. Inevitably, they scratch. Their finish wears off and you'll need to replace them.

An alternative to a coated nonstick pan is an insulted baking sheet. This sandwiches a layer of air between two sheets of metal. These take longer to warm up and can draw out bake times. But their steady heat yields impressive, evenly browned results. No worrying about items that are overly brittle. Seasoned bakers love insulated pans for delicate cookies like meringues.

Finally, we come to care. To ensure your baking sheet lives its longest life possible, we recommend sticking to hand washing. Use either a nylon pad or something softer. Avoid the dishwasher. Your baking sheets will be exposed to drying detergent and heat. This can lead to discoloration. Likewise, avoid abrasive scrub pads if you can help it. This is particularly important for aluminum pans. Nonstick versions are a bit more forgiving. If things get really tough, you can reach for a non-abrasive cleaner. Remember, baking on parchment or a silicone mat will help you side-step stubborn messes.

• You can prep for a big cooking project on a baking sheet. It will keep things more orderly. This hack allows you to move a slew of bowls and ingredients around at once. This is also great if you’re bringing things from a kitchen to an outdoor setting.
• Baking sheets are a great resting place for your just-off-the-grill burgers and hot dogs.
• Baking pans are amazing drawer and shelf organizers.
• Missing a plant tray? Place a baking sheet under your troublesome pot and your drip woes are gone.
• Baking sheets are useful for freezing fruit. For this hack, spread your fruit out on a sheet in your freezer in a single layer. Once they’ve hardened (conveniently not sticking to one another), they can go into a sealable plastic bag.
• If your cutting boards are just a hair too small, placing a baking sheet below them helps collect any overspill.