The 6 Best Nontoxic Cookware Sets for Clean Cooking

Ceramic nonstick is more or less starting to take the place of PFAS-derived coatings. It’s an easy to clean pan that has all the benefits of nonstick coating, but without rubbing off potentially harmful residue into the food you’re cooking. GreenPan has been around since the start of this whole revolution, offering nontoxic cookware that’s easy to use and maintain.

GreenPan is all about making clean cooking affordable. For the price, you get a lot. 11 pieces in total, with seven dishwasher-safe pots and pans and four lids. For the frying pans you get three pan protectors which prevents scratching during storage—allowing you to stack with ease.

As with all things you own, don’t try to chip them or scratch them. These are built tough enough, but there are more resistant cookware sets out there. If that’s a major worry, there’s more options for you onward.

Caraway is another brand that specializes in nonstick ceramic cookware. Its stuff is just as good as GreenPan, but when it comes to buying sets I always give the edge to Caraway for how much thought is put into the storage of the items. Your pots and pans live most of their lives in your drawers.

This set comes with four magnetic pan organizers for inside the cabinet, as well as a canvas bag for hanging up the lids. Including a frying pan, a sautée pan, a sauce pot, and a dutch oven (and three lids for the pot set), this is the essentials and nothing more. You’re going to be displaying those lids so you might as well take your time and choose your favorite color. It will take a while, they’re all fantastic. I’m partial to navy always, but the white and black each rock golden handles that are irresistible.

Hexclad does things a little different. Using the brand-defining hexagonal pattern, HexClad uses both nontoxic nonstick ceramic coating and stainless steel to provide the best of both worlds. Each of these pots is durable, safe, and easy to clean—and all of them have lids. The largest is perfect for one pot meals. The set even comes with two titanium trivets to hold your hot pots.

If you want pure nontoxic simplicity, it doesn’t get more authentic than stainless steel. A lot of people will tell you to not even truck with ceramic or hybrid solutions and go straight stainless steel or cast iron. It’s hard to argue. Clad stainless steel, when used properly, can function as well as your nonstick. It takes some learning, but people have been doing it for a century—you can figure it out. Sometimes you just need to take a real “if it ain’t broke” mentality with these kinds of things.

This is a basic three piece fry pan set from Made In, one of the brands that is all over my kitchen at home. They feel good to use, not heavy with great handle feel. There’s lids, just three consecutively larger pans that can stack into one another to store compact. See? Simple.

The other old-school material we endorse is cast iron. When it comes to enameled cast iron (like in dutch ovens), there’s good and then there’s Le Creuset. Rarely do brands live up to such epic reputations, but I can personally vouch and say the single best piece of cookware I own is from Le Creuset.

This set includes a skillet, a dutch oven, a sauce-pot, and lids for the two pots. It’s not going to replace a whole kitchen, but this is about quality over quantity. These three pieces of cookware are all cast iron on the inside and beautiful on the outside, perfect for serving.

Lastly, a little something for the bakers at home. We (and yes, I fashion myself a bit of a good home baker) deserve nontoxic cookware that’s easy to use. This Our Place set means no more banana breads getting stuck to the bottom of the pan, no more pizza disasters, none of that mess. It’s all made nonstick without any PFAS or bogus.

It also comes with two Always Pans and two Perfect Pots (one regular and one mini of each). It’s a massive set, so if you’re looking to completely replace your whole kitchen this is ultimately where you would get the most value.