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By Emily Johnson , Kendra Vaculin , and Wilder Davies
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Dutch ovens are essential pieces of cookware for every home cook. They are heavy, they are big, and depending on what you get, they can be the priciest piece in the kitchen. But the heavy-bottomed, lidded pot is a versatile kitchen workhorse that can do pretty much everything, like baking bread and simmering soups and stews, frying chicken, and cooking all manner of one-pot meals. Sure, most models don't come cheap, but if you pick the right one, it will easily last a lifetime. So which is the best bet? To find out, we tested Dutch ovens from 12 brands, ranging from classics like France’s Le Creuset and Staub to modern alternatives like Ikea, Misen, and Great Jones. Keep reading for our top picks; for the specifics of how we tested, keep scrolling.
When most people think Dutch ovens, they think Le Creuset. The French-made enameled cast-iron pots enjoy a sterling reputation for quality and longevity—and have the price tag to match. We’ve taken the Le Creuset to task over the past five years, and it has remained the standard-bearer for what a Dutch oven should be.
Le Creuset has passed every cook test we’ve put it through, producing well-crusted seared meat and evenly caramelized vegetables with nary a cold spot to be found. The lid fits well for a reliable moisture seal and is also easily set ajar. This provides a cook with reliable control over the evaporation level going on in the pot. Our stew came out of the oven with the ideal amount of evaporation and the ragù, with the lid set slightly ajar, cooked down to the perfect saucy thickness.
But how well the Le Creuset cooks isn’t what truly distinguishes it as a winner—most of the competitors we’ve tested are capable of delivering comparable results. It’s really due to the Le Creuset’s shape and design, which makes it the easiest cast-iron Dutch oven to handle and move around.
Le Creusets have been the lightest enameled cast-iron pots relative to their size; the 5.5-quart size weighs 11.35 lb. Only recently did Vermicular’s beat it by a few ounces. The wide loop handles are big and easy to hold with oven mitts or dishcloths without risk of burning your knuckles. Handle design is such an easy thing to replicate, yet so many other brands opt to make them smaller at the expense of comfortable handling.
Testing has also demonstrated the quality of Le Creuset’s enamel, which resists chipping both inside and out. The light-colored enameled cooking surface made it easy to see the level of browning as we cooked, which we think this is especially helpful for novice cooks. The interior enamel does grow dull and ruddy over time, but it’s merely cosmetic, and the careworn Le Creuset’s in the test kitchen still cook like they did fresh from the box. If you follow the care instructions, you’ll have a chip-free Dutch oven that will last literally for generations.
The lid of the Le Creuset isn’t exactly lightweight—cast iron never is—but it’s manageable, and the phenolic plastic knob doesn’t heat up nearly as fast as a metal one would on the stovetop. For super high-heat baking projects like bread you do need to replace the phenolic knob with a stainless steel one lest it melt.
The only real drawback of the Le Cresuet is its price—which for the 5.5 quart is currently $420. While they frequently go on sale, we know this price is prohibitive for a lot of people, even when taking the longevity argument into consideration. Many of the other contenders we tested will serve you well at the fraction of the price if you learn to accept them for their varied flaws (which we detail down below). The Le Creuset Dutch oven might technically be the best Dutch oven, but you don’t need the best Dutch oven to make succulent braises, hearty stews, and no-knead bread. If you love cooking, know you’ll use it often, and if it’s in your budget, we say the Le Creuset is worth the splurge. It'll last a lifetime and look good doing it.
Le Creuset Signature Enameled Cast-Iron 5.5-Quart Round Dutch Oven
The pot is inspired by Le Creuset but designed in California and manufactured in China. It has a light enameled interior, and a 10"-diameter cooking surface that imparts an even sear on meat and vegetables. Most importantly, it is available for $145—not cheap but a fraction of what a Le Creuset goes for.
The Milo’s handles are slightly smaller than the Le Creuset and it is a pound heavier than the Le Creuset of the same size, but these aren’t damning flaws. While some people have complained about chipping online, it isn’t near the frequency and extent that the Lodge Essential, a former budget pick has become known for. Is it perfect? No, but we think this is a satisfactory affordable alternative to the winner.
Milo 5.5-Quart Classic Dutch Oven
We tested Dutch ovens in the 6-quart range (except the Misen, which only comes as a 7-quart). Depending on the brand, sizes range from 3- to 9-quarts, but most offer one in the 5.5- to 6-quart range, which we find to be the most useful for everyday cooking. Enameled cast-iron Dutch ovens made up a bulk of the models we tested. For our tests in 2018 and 2019, we made a beef stew that requires a stint on the stovetop as well as in the oven; for the 2020 update, because we are trying to cut back on the amount of beef we cook, we went with a slow-cooked pork ragù instead, which would illustrate each model's searing and braising prowess. We also took special note of how easy or challenging it was to clean each Dutch and how they were to handle. In 2023, we repeated our searing and braising tests on a bigger batch of newcomers alongside the classics. We also added a steam test to observe how well the lids contained moisture when fully closed.
We seared meat and caramelized vegetables in each of the Dutch ovens to test their heat retention capabilities and the relative effectiveness of their cooking surfaces. We looked for a crisp, browned edge on each piece of meat, as well as even caramelization on the vegetables. Also, we limited our test to oven safe models.
Shape is a big variable when it comes to Dutch ovens. Some pots, like the Le Creuset, have relatively straight sides, while others, like the Lodge and the Dansk, are quite rounded in the corners. Rounded pots make stirring easier and keep food from sticking in the corners, but also provide less flat surface area at the bottom for searing. Every pot we tested was round except for the Ikea and Great Jones models, which are only available in oval shapes; we were curious how this would effect heat distribution and cooking.
We looked for large, grippable handles that made the pot easy to maneuver, on the stovetop as well as into and out of the oven. We also wanted a sturdy, snug-fitting lid—ideally with a knob that made it simple to remove.
We wanted to see how meat braised in the Dutch ovens. We were looking for even cooking, tender meat, and moisture retention, which included condensation on the lids and the amount of liquid left in the pot.
The pots had varying levels of scorching and residue on the bottom. Ideally, the pot should be easy to clean and have minimal scorching. It's best to stick to Hand washing with Dutch ovens, but being Dishwasher safe certainly doesn't hurt.
The Emile Henry is made of clay ceramic, and though we liked its look and feel, it cooks quite differently than a cast iron Dutch oven. It was difficult to get a good sear on the pieces of meat, and the stew hadn’t evaporated enough by the end of the recommended cook time. If you opt to use this for recipes intended for a cast iron Dutch oven, know that they aren’t quite the same thing and expect the cooking experience to be a little different.
The Marquette Castings pot is cast-iron, but its sear wasn’t as even as other pots and there was considerable scorching on the bottom. The top handle has sharp, pointy corners, making it unpleasant to grab.
The Dansk—made of enamel-coated steel rather than cast-iron—is also considerably lighter, weighing just 6 pounds. However, this pan had a scorched bottom by the end of our cooking process, and it was the most difficult to clean.
While Ikea’s Dutch oven arrived to our offices with several chips in its outside enamel, it performed extremely well for a $50 pot. It seared meat evenly and crisply, the braised meat was tender, and we were satisfied with the amount of evaporation. However, the pot is not enameled on the inside, making it harder to clean (pre seasoned or not, naked cast-iron requires more care and attention than enameled). The dark color of the cast-iron makes it more difficult to see the level of browning on the meat. Plus, the handles on the pot don’t have holes through the middle, making them hard to grab.
The Cuisinart pot produced lackluster results in the searing category, as the cooking surface had several cold spots, resulting in unevenly cooked pork.
Cuisinart Chef's Classic Enameled Cast Iron 5-Quart Round Covered Casserole
The Great Jones' Dutchess was the heaviest pan in the bunch, coming in at a whopping 15 pounds, and the only oval Dutch oven we tested. In comparison to round Dutch ovens, the ovular shape provided a lot of space for searing, but it stuck out a bit on either side over a round burner. It is though, one of the best looking options, the kind of cookware you want to leave out on the stove all the time. It makes for a good, sturdy mid-price option.
The Caraway Dutch oven is extremely lightweight. At 6.2 pounds with the lid on, it's less than half the weight of the Le Creuset model. We worried this would have an effect on cooking, but it really didn't. The pork got a nice sear, and the ragu cooked down to the right thickness. One thing we didn't love was the super nonstick nature of this ceramic pot. Nothing stuck, to the point that we built up no fond at all and there was nothing to deglaze, which made us feel like we were missing out on some flavor. This dutch oven is also part of the larger set, which includes a frying pan, lidded sauce pan, and lidded sauté pan.
Why we no longer recommend the Misen Dutch oven:
We really liked the Misen Dutch oven, so much so that we had picked it as our budget pick last year. However, for some baffling reason they no longer sell it with the regular center-knob lid, instead only offering the grill pan and the silicone lid, both of which have their uses, but do not satisfy as substitute for a normal lid. Because of this, we no longer recommend buying this Dutch oven. When using the grill pan as a lid it is very difficult to quickly check on the contents of the pot when inside a hot oven. To do so you have to get both arms in there, which is uncomfortable and feels hazardous. The silicone lid can provide a tight moisture seal, but it does not absorb/radiate heat like cast iron, and thus is incapable of creating the same cooking environment that many Dutch oven recipes rely on. Still we’ve preserved what we liked about below it in the event that they bring back the regular lid.
This Dutch oven was the deepest we’ve tested. This is largely due it only being available with a 7-quart capacity, a quart more than many of the other brands, whose offerings top out in the 5.5-6–quart range. Regardless, we found this be an asset for deep frying, as it accommodated a lot of oil with a couple inches to spare, or as a sturdier stock pot. For comparison, a 7-quart Le Creuset opts for wider and shallower dimensions, which is better for searing big batches of meat. The Misen did a splendid job browning up pork shoulder with even heat distribution throughout.
Long-term testing has revealed that the enamel coating is not quite as durable as it claimed to be, with a couple chips developing on the edges of the lid. Also, while the Misen Dutch oven comes with a lifetime warranty, a lifetime warranty is only good if the company sticks around, and some recent issues we’ve had with product sourcing and drastic changes to the company’s product lineup has left us with a few questions on that front.
The well-known English pottery company is best known for dinner and serveware, but they also have a modest collection of enameled cast iron cookware, including this Dutch oven. Our main gripe with this Dutch oven was with the handles. They are the smallest out of all the ovens we tested, meaning they have less space for you to grab and they heat up quite a bit. If that won’t bother you, it’s a satisfactory Dutch oven available at a mid-range price point.
Denby Halo Cast Iron Round Casserole
Vermicular products are beautiful and thoughtfully-designed—our colleague Emily Farris is a die-hard fan of their lightweight enameled cast iron skillet. Their “oven pot” is a spin off of their flagship musui komodo, but in function is a classic enameled cast iron pot. At 10.8 lbs, it is also the lightest Dutch oven available in this size range, though, to be fair, many of its competitors are just a pound or two heavier, which leaves them at quite a manageable weight. While the Vermicular has many idiosyncratic design features that make it unique, none of them resulted in any observable difference during testing. The rim—left unfinished for a “precision seal” and therefore more susceptible to rust—was not observably better at sealing in moisture than the Le Creuset and Staub, which do have an enamel coating to prevent rusting. The ridged cooking surface made no significant impact when searing and braising pork shoulder. The side handles on the lid were the most significant shortcoming. They were basically irrelevant for any stove top cooking, and were more of a hindrance when removing the Dutch oven from the oven. We really wanted to like this one, but ultimately the unique design just didn’t pay off.
KitchenAid’s recent foray into stove top cookware has been curious to say the least. You won’t find this product anywhere on KitchenAid’s website, but it is available through their official Amazon store.
Anyway, if you thought the Misen or Great Jones Dutch ovens are heavy, this fella has them beat by 5 lbs. Yes, this 6 quart Dutch oven weighs 20 pounds, and that’s before there’s any food in it. Weirdly, a lot of the weight is also in the lid. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to cook stew in a hollowed-out boulder, this is the pot for you. One could argue that the thicker walls means this pot can retain more thermal energy—this is true—but we’re slow cooking dinner here, not smelting gold. That said, it is really pretty, and everybody loved the pistachio color.
KitchenAid 6-Quart Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven
As another sub-$100 contender, we really rooted for this one. At first pass it was a great alternative to the Le Creuset in look, but it has a notably different shape. It has taller sides, which make it great for deep frying, but at the expense of a slightly smaller cooking surface. It’s also pretty light, at around 11 pounds. Unfortunately the sear test revealed a cold spot that persisted regardless of its position on the flame, and resulted in some sticking and uneven cooking. In the grand scheme of things, a cold spot is a small nuisance that any cook can easily adapt to—but it’s the sort of thing that distinguishes the perfectly adequate from the top tier.
Tramontina Enameled Cast Iron 5.5-Quart Covered Round Dutch Oven
The enameled cast iron version of Our Place’s “Perfect Pot” is certainly an upgrade in terms of longevity and performance in comparison to the original ceramic nonstick design. We’ve been lukewarm about Our Place products in the past—mostly due to their premium prices for ceramic nonstick cookware that only lasts a couple years—but this pot held its own against the competition, and at $175 is relatively affordable. It seared meat evenly and retained moisture well, producing luscious and tender pulled pork. Ultimately, a few things held it back from winner status. Many on staff weren’t crazy about how tall and bulbous the lid was and felt that might hinder storage, (the lid does sit comfortably inverted in the pot, but if you’re the type who likes to display their cookware, keep this in mind). Like the Staub, it has a dark enamel interior, which hides scuffs and discoloration, but makes it harder to see fond development or burning spots. Also, the model we received did have two chips in the enamel fresh out the box. Since Our Place offers a warranty that covers this we gave them the benefit of the doubt, but it leave us questioning production oversight and the veracity of it’s proclaimed “heirloom” quality. In our mind Perfectly Fine Pot is a more apt moniker.
Italic’s whole business is based on the conceit that they are offering direct-to-consumer pricing on products sourced from manufacturers that produce goods for recognizable, high-end brands. But here’s something worth knowing about commercial manufacturing: Factories produce products that vary widely in quality in order to target different sectors of the market. So, just because a manufacturer makes high-quality goods, doesn’t mean that everything they make is of equal quality.
Which brings us to the Italic Dutch oven. According to the product page, their Dutch oven is made by a manufacturer that previously worked with Staub and Zwilling. On what exactly? softly implying that their Dutch oven is of equal quality to that made by Staub. They even go so far as to put the $420 price tag of a Staub Dutch oven next to the $120 price, to illustrate how much money your are saving by getting their product instead.
So is the Italic Blackstone Dutch Oven on par with the Staub? Well based on the design and overall performance, it is not. Let’s start positive. It has a light enamel interior—something Staub Dutch ovens famously do not have. That’s a good thing, since we generally prefer light enamel interiors, but it speaks to the arbitrary nature of the comparison they draw. Beyond that though, the performance of the Dutch oven itself was disappointing. The thin lid did a poor job maintaining moisture, releasing more steam while completely closed compared to every other Dutch oven we tested. It didn’t even fit neatly on the pot. Despite this thin lid, it still managed to be heavier than the same sized pot from Staub by roughly a pound.
While it’s still a serviceable piece of cookware, we think they are vastly overstating the value of the product they are selling, and that left a bad taste in our mouths.
Blackstone Cast Iron Dutch Oven
While the Lodge enameled cast iron Dutch oven performed well in initial cooking tests, it failed in regard to longevity. The Dutch oven has developed a reputation for chipping over time, which we’ve experienced first-hand. There also seem to be some issues with manufacturing consistency, with cold spots being a common complaint. Until very recently, Lodge didn’t make any enameled cast iron products in their Tennessee foundry. Instead, they work with independent manufacturers in China to offer the product at the budget price point they’re consumers expect from them. Some consumers have pointed out that the Lodge Dutch oven and the Amazon Essentials Dutch oven are suspiciously similar, and might point to this product being an inexpensive generic model produced by manufacturers for any brand or retailer to license and sell as their own. Lodge debuted a new American-made enamel Dutch oven line this year (we weren’t able test it in time for this update) that carries a $300 price tag—more in line with that of a Le Creuset or Staub.
We point this out merely to bring attention to the halo effect the Lodge name might impart on their budget Dutch oven. We don’t love recommending things that don’t last, and thus wouldn’t recommend this product.\
6-Quart Enamel Cast Iron Dutch Oven
Staub cast iron is Le Creuset’s primary rival, and while it puts up a good fight, when forced to make a call, there are a few things about the Le Creuset that we prefer. In our first year, our tester observed some inconsistent browning during the sear test. However, since we added more controls to our testing recent years, retesting has repeatedly demonstrated that Staub Dutch ovens offer even surface heating, durability, moisture retention and an overall quality in cooking experience on par with Le Creuset. The lid has its iconic outer ridge and interior basting divots (which pretty much every Dutch oven, except Le Creuset, features these days) which distribute condensation across the cooking surface rather than down the sides of the pot during cooking. A great idea, if we—or pretty much every other testing site, really— were able to observe an impact this design has on anything we’ve cooked. So far, we haven’t.
The main reason we don’t give Staub the top spot is because the dark matte interior is not as user-friendly for novice cooks. It’s more difficult to visually monitor cooking and watch out for burning and doneness. For those who’ve honed their cooking instincts, this isn’t a huge deal, and there are also many people out there who prefer a dark interior because look scuffed and ruddy after extended use like light enameled interiors inevitably do. But for the sake of picking “the best,” for us, function is more important than aesthetics.
Staub 5.5-Quart Round Dutch Oven
Whether you want to invest in an expensive Dutch oven or opt for a more economical option, make sure you buy one that’s made of enameled cast iron. It will brown and braise more effectively and perform admirably on both the stovetop and the oven. For a classic Dutch oven that will last a lifetime, choose Le Creuset. For a more affordable choice, go with Milo by Kana.
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