Le Creuset Dutch ovens have nice wide handles that are easy to grip with oven mitts. They are lighter than most other enameled cast-iron Dutch ovens available today. The 5.5-quart Dutch oven from Le Creuset weighs in at a little over 11 pounds. They have a light-colored interior, which allows you to visually monitor your food as it cooks. This is most useful when using high heat or developing a fond to make sure things aren’t burning.

Staub Dutch ovens (or cocottes, as the brand prefers to call them) are slightly heavier than Le Creusets—the 5.5-quart Staub had about a pound on the Le Creuset—but are still lighter than most other similarly sized Dutch ovens.

The Staub cocottes feature a matte black enamel interior in contrast to Le Creuset’s glossy off-white. Both interiors are nonstick-ish (they’ll never be quite as nonstick as a well-seasoned, uncoated cast-iron skillet), but the Staub’s black interior hides stains and signs of wear in a way that the interior of a Le Creuset can’t. The drawback of the Staub’s black enamel is that it can be harder to tell when things are sticking to the bottom of your pan or burning. For people comfortable in the kitchen this isn’t a huge deal, but for beginners who haven’t honed their cooking instincts, a dark interior may be less user-friendly.

The underside of Staub lids have “self-basting divots” for redistributing condensation during the cooking process. Le Creuset lids do not. In our testing we’ve yet to observe any noticeable impact these divots have had on the outcome of a dish.

Both pots, though, have very high-quality enamel coatings that resist chipping and limited lifetime warranties. I’ve seen their durability up close in my own head-to-head tests over the years and in continual use of both Le Creuset and Staub in the Bon Appétit test kitchen. Many of the more affordable Dutch ovens—particularly the true budget models from Lodge Essentials and Amazon Basics— tend to chip after a couple of years.

Beyond the color of their interiors, the other big difference between Staub and Le Creuset is their lids. A Le Creuset lid has a simple sloping curve that allows condensation to circulate down the inside edges of the pot. Newer Le Creuset lids have metal knobs that can withstand temperatures up to 500°, but you may come across an older one with a phenolic resin knob (plastic, basically), which is only ovensafe up to 390°, at which point it will start to melt.

The Staub lid has a metal knob and looks sort of like a hubcap. It has a central impression surrounded by an upraised outer ridge. According to Staub, the unique design has a functional purpose. The shape of the lid, along with several “self-basting” bumps on the underside is supposed to create top-down circulation of moisture that will keep liquid from escaping between the seam of the lid and the pot itself. This design feature has been replicated by many new Dutch ovens, however we’ve yet to notice any actual impact on the outcome of a dish.

So which should I get? Staub or Le Creuset?

In terms of performance, these two brands are more similar than they are different. So the choice between Staub and Le Creuset really comes down to personal preference around look and feel. I prefer Le Creuset due to its slightly lighter weight and beginner-friendly light interior, whereas my colleague and fellow Dutch oven tester Emily Farris prefers Staub for the sear it imparts on meat. They’re expensive pieces of cookware, but they’ll never need replacing if you take good care of them (hand-washing only, please), and they’ll never disappoint.

The Staub Round Cocotte is our top pick when it comes to Dutch ovens. While it performed similarly to the one from Le Creuset, commerce writer Emily Farris gave the Staub the edge because of its dark textured enamel interior, which is less prone to showing discoloration. She also felt the textured surface allowed food to release more easily.

Read more about our favorite Dutch ovens.

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The best carbon steel skillet: Merten & Storck Carbon Steel Frying Pan

Carbon steel is sort of the Goldilocks of the cookware space because it affords you the nonstick qualities and lightweight feel of a coated nonstick pan and the durability of a cast-iron or stainless-steel skillet. The key caveat is that in order to achieve said nonstick qualities, you’ll need to spend some time properly seasoning your new pan. But with a bit of work at the outset and occasional maintenance, you’ll be rewarded with an heirloom-worthy piece of cookware that has a well-earned, nonstick patina.

If we had to recommend a pan to start you on your carbon steel journey, we’d undoubtedly pick the 10-inch model from Merten & Storck. At $50 at the time of publication, it comes pre-seasoned and ready to go, saving you the trouble of multiple rounds of initial seasoning. Our testers were wowed by how nonstick its surface was out of the box, noting that “a fried egg slid right off with the ease of Teflon.” It may not be the prettiest of pans, but it’s a workhorse that’ll make you forget all about those PTFE-coated nonstick pans of yore.

Read more about our favorite carbon steel pans.

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The best nontoxic rice cooker: GreenPan Bistro 8-Cup Rice Cooker

The vast majority of rice cookers on the market today—including all of the top performers in our product test—feature a PTFE-coated inner pot. Given how sticky rice tends to be, this is a feature that’s certainly nice to have in a rice cooker. In our minds, the more stable heating element and less significant amount of friction the inner pot of one of these cookers is exposed to as opposed to, say, a skillet, makes us less concerned about the PTFE coating wearing down and chipping off. That said, if you’re looking for an alternative, GreenPan makes a ceramic nonstick-coated rice cooker that fared well in the Epicurious product test. There are also a few models that feature a stainless-steel pot, like this 2.5-cup model from Aroma.

Read more about our favorite rice cookers.

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The best nonstick waffle iron: Presto Flipside

Waffle irons also frequently feature a nonstick coating, and again, this makes a lot of sense given the sticky nature of the batter. Luckily, one of our favorite, product test–winning models happens to feature a ceramic nonstick interior. As with the rice cooker, because a waffle iron isn’t subject to the same amount of scraping or daily wear as a pan, the ceramic should hold onto its nonstick properties for longer.

Read more about our favorite waffle makers.

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The best nontoxic sheet pans: Nordic Ware Naturals

As a general rule, we don’t tend to recommend any bakeware or sheet pans with nonstick coatings of any sort. If you’re baking a seasonal loaf cake or making a batch of muffins, it’s always best to use a combination of oil or butter and parchment to ensure you’ll be able to easily lift your bakes out of their vessel when the time comes. As for baking sheets, our favorite uncoated aluminum pans from Nordic Ware are remarkably easy to clean with just a sponge and soapy water, even when you use them without any parchment or aluminum foil.