My Honest Review of Caraway Cookware After Using it For 5+ Years

You have probably seen Caraway cookware all over your Instagram and TikTok pages either in ads or even your friends’ posts. The brand has certainly taken over my social media feeds in recent years with pots and pans in gorgeous colors and clean silhouettes — the cookware is just so pretty!

Of course, you can’t (and shouldn’t!) buy everything you see online, so we tested the brand for ourselves. Spoiler alert: I’ve been using Caraway’s signature pans for more than five years, and they’re still just as nonstick as they were on day one.

Caraway made a splash in fall 2019 with cookware in fun colors and with clean lines — and as well as for its tagline: “Non-Toxic Cookware Made Modern.” It claimed to offer a better kind of cookware both for home cooks and the environment because it used ceramic enamel rather than Teflon or another harmful “forever chemical” to achieve a nonstick surface. 

Caraway has since expanded its cookware collection to include stainless steel and enameled cast iron, and has also developed bakeware, accessories, and even mini versions of its best-selling cookware — all of which multiple editors here at The Kitchn have tested, reviewed, and loved.

There’s a lot to like about Caraway cookware, and I go into that in detail below. But for the TL;DR, my favorite features are:

Caraway isn’t the only ceramic-coated cookware on the market — far from it. But it’s definitely one of the more popular brands I’ve seen recently. I tested the best-selling Cookware Set to try out multiple pieces of cookware that would best represent the brand, and here’s what I thought.

I’ve never loved the idea of buying cookware sets because there are usually too many pieces I never use, but Caraway’s was well-curated, and I found myself using each item regularly. With Caraway’s Cookware Set, you’ll get the following:

This set includes a few useful accessories, too, including a canvas lid holder with rivets so you can hang it on the back of a cabinet door or wall, and a magnetic rack so you can neatly store the pans on their sides in a drawer or on your kitchen counter.

The set comes in a bunch of fun colors (Cream, Navy, Gray, Sage, Marigold, Iconics Black, and Iconics White). That said, you can’t go wrong with Perracotta, the brand’s signature pink-forward terracotta color.

The set arrived in a slim cardboard box, and each piece was nestled into slots within the cardboard, so there was no need for a bunch of Styrofoam or plastic to keep them from banging around. It was nice to be able to just recycle one box and not cringe at wasteful packaging.

The first thing I cooked was a fried egg in the smaller sauté pan (which is quite generously sized). I was immediately impressed by the super-slippery nonstick ceramic surface. I then spent the next few weeks cooking omelets, scrambled eggs, more fried eggs, and even dosas. I used very little oil each time, and everything just slipped right out with no sticking.

I turned to the larger pan for sautéing all sorts of veggies for dinner — mushrooms, asparagus, green beans, and more. The veggies got great color and nothing stuck, and I came to love that the pan is deep enough to hold a ton of ingredients. This larger pan is also a dream for tofu.

I’ve cooked small batches of rice in the saucepan with no sticking, and I’ve also used the Dutch oven to make a really thick bean soup. Even when I forgot to stir the dense soup, the beans never stuck to the bottom. And because the pans are so nonstick, cleanup has been ridiculously easy.

The pans are made of aluminum with stainless steel bottoms and handles, so they have really even heat distribution. I didn’t experience any hot spots, and the foods cooked evenly. The light gray (and subtly sparkly) interior makes it easy to see how things are progressing during cooking.

These pans have been a joy to cook with these last few years — they’re lightweight; responsive to temperature changes; truly nonstick; compatible with induction, gas, and electric cooktops; oven-safe to 550 degrees; and they heat evenly. And they look great, too.

I haven’t noticed any big issues with durability. The ceramic nonstick coating is still going strong, though I’m careful not to go above medium heat, I avoid metal utensils, and I always wash pieces by hand. These are all things I do with all my nonstick cookware.

All in all, I’m beyond pleased with my Caraway set and will keep reaching for these pieces for years to come.

Currently, Caraway is not running a sale, but there’s free shipping on orders more than $90. We’ll update this story during Caraway’s next sale.

If it’s not obvious by now, I’m a big fan of Caraway’s cookware. Multiple editors at The Kitchn love the brand as well and, collectively, we’ve tested almost everything from Caraway. Below, a quick look at other products we’ve reviewed. For more, we’ve got a full list of editor-favorites here to inspire your next shopping spree.

Have you tried Caraway? Do you have nonstick cookware you love?