The 6 Best Cookie Sheets of 2024, Tested and Reviewed

Our Favorite

Based on our tests, we chose the Nordic Ware Naturals Baker's Half Sheet as our overall favorite because it offered perfect performance and easy handling. It’s an excellent combination of quality baking results, a reasonable price, and maneuverability.

The Tests

We assessed 19 baking sheets by baking cookies from prepared cookie dough and baking homemade potato wedges. With the former, they examined how much the cookies spread, how dark or crisp the bottoms were, and how simple it was to remove the cookies from the sheet. During the latter, we noted how easy or not it was to flip the wedges during cooking and then release them from the pan once finished. In a third test, they inspected whether or not the baking sheet warped in an oven heated to 475°F. Throughout these processes, we observed how easy it was to handle the baking sheet and then clean it by hand. Based on durability, performance, ease of cleaning, and value, we rated each pan from one to five, with five being the highest score.

Factors to Consider

Rimmed or Unrimmed

Generally, baking sheets fall into two categories — rimmed and unrimmed — with further variations in material and design features. While some professional bakers swear by unrimmed sheets for their superior air circulation and simple design, most home bakers will find rimmed baking sheets more practical. Thanks to their spillproof edges, rimmed baking sheets are serious multitaskers: Just as handy for roasting root veggies, toasting nuts, baking chicken, and supporting a deep dish pizza as they are for turning out perfect sheet cakes and chocolate chip cookies. Place a wire cooling rack inside one, and you have an easy-to-clean setup for draining fried foods and broiling cuts of meat, as well as cooling and frosting cupcakes and cookies. 

Whether you choose a rimmed model or an unrimmed one, a nonstick surface or a natural one, a good baking sheet should heat up efficiently and quickly without twisting or warping, yield baked goods that are even and tender, and clean up easily without sticking or scratching.

While the terms "baking sheet" and "cookie sheet" are often used interchangeably, there are considerable differences between the two. Baking sheets have rimmed edges and are usually about 13 by 18 inches — a dimension known as a half-sheet pan and fit perfectly on most oven racks with just enough room around the edges for even air circulation. The workhorses of a commercial kitchen, rimmed half sheets are suitable for baking cookies, pastries, shortbreads, sheet cakes, roasted vegetables, meat, and toasted nuts.

Cookie sheets feature flat edges with small lips on one or two sides that act as handles and assist with maneuvering and gripping. Their large, flat surface area accommodates big batches of cookies and allows for graceful pan rotation in the oven. But versatility is not their strong suit: Without four rimmed edges to contain spills and crumbs, many other tasks — from roasting olive oil-tossed veggies to toasting nuts or breadcrumbs — are out of their reach.

Material

What is the best type of cookie sheet? Uncoated aluminum is typically the top choice for professionals due to its durability, high-heat conductivity, and efficiency. Fast to heat up, aluminum is also quick to cool down, which helps prevent burns and reduces the wait time between getting batches in the oven if you are reusing the same pan. While it is primarily a cosmetic concern, aluminum's light color can be prone to staining; however, slipping a sheet of parchment or a silicone baking mat onto the pan before baking is a quick and easy way to expedite cleanup and prolong its life.

Thickness and Finish

Whichever type of pan you choose, other vital factors to consider are thickness and finish (natural or nonstick). A baking sheet's relative heft is something you can test fairly accurately by touch, but if you want to double-check the thickness, the specification to look for is "gauge." For instance, most of our favorite picks fell in the 10-18 gauge range. (Note that gauge is a retrogressive scale, meaning the higher numbers indicate lower thickness.) Gauge is important and not just because a sturdy pan feels good in the hand. Thinner pans are more likely to warp in high heat (which can lead to unevenly cooked or slumped results) and burn the underside of cookies before the tops can thoroughly brown.

Nonstick baking sheets can be convenient when it comes to cleanup, but they come with a few performance caveats. In general, because of their slickness, these sheets yield cookies that are flatter and more spread out, with smoother, less textured bottoms. Also, because nonstick pans usually have darker gray finishes, they're apt to bake batches more quickly than their lighter, natural aluminum counterparts. In other words, keep a close eye on the time when you're using them. 

Conversely, insulated cookie sheets, which work with a layer of air sandwiched between two sheets of metal, present some of the opposite issues. Because insulated sheets are slow to warm up, they can result in bake times that run considerably longer than recipes indicate. Their gentle heat conduction tends to produce cookies with edges and bottoms that are evenly browned but not particularly crunchy or crispy. Those properties may be just the ticket if you're working with delicate cookies, like meringues, which are at their best when slowly baked and pale.

Other Cookie Sheets We Tested

Strong Contenders

GreenPan Craft Sheet Pan (Sur La Table)
GreenPan makes some of our favorite nontoxic cookware, and this baking sheet has the same nonstick coating as its pots and pans. It baked crispy cookies with gooey centers, though some crumbs and grease residue remained. A few potatoes also stuck to the pan.

Vollrath Wear-Ever Cookie Sheet Pan (Amazon)
This cookie sheet feels sturdy but a bit heavy. And with just two short rims, it's not as easy to grip and carry as others we tested. We needed a spatula to release cookies from the pan, but cleaning it with just soap and water was easy.

King Arthur Cookie Sheet (King Arthur Baking Company)
This pan releases food very easily, with no crumbs left behind, thanks to a nontoxic, nonstick coating called Americoat. Its ridged surface helps with air flow and, therefore, even baking. It has just three rims, however, and we have mixed feelings about this. It's easy to hold, and the rimless side lets the cookies slide off the pan. But we had to be extra cautious to keep the hot oil from spilling over when we baked potato wedges.

Williams Sonoma Goldtouch Pro Nonstick Half Sheet (Williams Sonoma)
This is a beautiful pan that baked cookies and potato wedges to a nice, even color. It was easy to clean after baking cookies, but the oil left on after we baked potatoes took more work to scrub off. It's a heavier pan, but one real con is that it warped and never returned to its original state. At the least, warping didn't affect its performance.

OXO Good Grips Non-Stick Pro Half Sheet (Amazon)
In keeping with OXO's reputation for ergonomic designs, this pan was easy to move to and from the oven with its taller walls and rolled edges, despite feeling a bit heavy. Small ridges on its surface should improve the airflow, but we found the cookies a little too browned on the bottom. The pan's nonstick ceramic coating allowed food to release easily, and we barely had to scrub it to clean it.

What Didn't Make the List

Testing 19 baking sheets, some inevitably couldn't compete with others. The Wilton Perfect Results Mega Cookie Sheet (Target) seems like a good value for the size, but we found it too large to handle comfortably. It cooked food evenly and cleaned up easily, but it barely fit in the sink. It also warped in the oven. At a glance, the Goodcook Baking Sheet (Amazon) looks like a good value, but we recommend investing in a better, perhaps larger pan. It too warped in the oven, and grease stuck on it after we baked cookies. We didn't like the shallow rims, as it led to one of our oven mitts grazing the pan's hot, oily surface. Finally, Fat Daddio's Natural Aluminum Half Sheet Pan (Amazon) gave us so much trouble with oil sticking and staining that we had to knock it off our list, despite an otherwise good performance. Even scrubbing didn't help.

Our Expertise

Cindy Brzostowski is a freelance writer and avid home cook with previous experience in cookbook publishing. Her writing has been featured in Allrecipes, Blue Apron, The Kitchn, and EatingWell among other publications. To determine the best baking sheets, she used data and insights from Food & Wine editors who tested 19 of the most popular models on the market.

Expert food product reviewer Laura Denby also contributed to this article. Laura is a food writer and former professional chef with a degree in Culinary Arts from the Institute of Culinary Education. Her work can be found in Real Simple, FoodNetwork.com, Taste of Home, and more.