Basket Case: What to Buy at Caraway, According to Our Editors

Welcome to Basket Case, wherein your trusty VICE editors scour the proverbial aisles of our favorite online retailers to bring you a smorgasbord of the absolute best things to buy. In this installment, we're decking out our kitchens with Caraway, the aesthetically beautiful and culinarily powerful cookware brand whose vibrant nonstick pans, dependable baking sheets, and expansive prep set have become indispensable to our cooking.

We live in a pretty weird time for kitchen gear. We expect our pots, pans, and knives to not only be top-of-the-line items functionally, but also to look beautiful and make us feel good about ourselves. For some, if a gadget isn’t big on TikTok, it’s not worth picking up; for others, snapping the ultimate Instagram cooking photo is the real goal of making food. Sadly, this has led to a lot of sparkly, flashy, yet overhyped new products. The flip side is that this era has yielded a few truly excellent brands that form the vanguard of what our editorial director once called the NWOVNC (New Wave of Very Nice Cookware). Coincidentally, that term was born in our recent review of the new stainless steel cookware set from Caraway, the aesthetically pleasing cookware brand we’re here to explore today. 

If we’re talkin’ about beautiful cooking gear in 2024, Caraway is one of the first brands that comes to mind. In the late 2010s, Caraway founder Jordan Nathan raised over $5 million to start a line of nonstick cookware that wouldn’t break down or release toxic fumes at high temperatures, like some nonstick pans do. The brand’s now-iconic nonstick cookware set dropped in 2019, and, today, home cooks across the country cosplay like they’re cooking dinner for Jimmy Stewart nightly. 

When it comes to Caraway, its products are legitimately really great—we’ve tested quite a few. Truly, Caraway’s pots, pans, knives, utensils, and bakeware are some of the most used items in my kitchen—not only because they look awesome, but because they’re often the best items for the job. The brand’s nonstick sauté pan cooks everything from mushrooms to bacon to fried rice with ease, and literally nothing ever sticks (on that note, cleaning is a breeze); my partner and I regularly bake or roast potatoes, chicken, and cookies, and Caraway’s baking sheets are totally ideal—it’s like there’s a magical seal on the surface that just makes food, you know, not stick. It rules.

Caraway now offers a lot of great stuff, so we’re here to highlight the best of the best and the tried-and-true picks our staff keeps on deck. Here’s where to start. 

When it comes to the best things to buy from Caraway, you’ve gotta start with the OG nonstick pots and pans. This ceramic-coated cookware is free of PFOA, PFAs, heavy metals, and hard anodization (aka bad junk you don’t want in your body or the atmosphere). It also comes in a bunch of stunning colors, from marigold and perracotta to the brand’s iconic cream. Getting the whole set—fry pan, sauce pan, sauté pan, and Dutch oven—will keep you boppin’ through virtually any meal you’re whipping together. 

If that’s too fancy of an investment, honestly just a single fry pan will still up your cooking game immensely; or, if you’re a stir-fry king or a pasta freak, the sauté pan will absolutely do it for you. If I had a dollar for every time I watched my partner throw together some quick but perfect over-easy eggs in one of these bad boys, I’d have enough money to… uh… buy more of these pans, probably. 

Stainless steel cookware is wonderful, but has a bit of a learning curve, as I outlined in my recent review of Caraway’s new set. As previously noted, this line is better at higher-temp cooking, and is definitely not nonstick—you’re gonna need some butter or oil to keep things vibing properly. Still, these pieces are free of bad chemicals, are hella easy to clean, and look totally stunning. Like, these are Michelin-starred-kitchen ready. 

Interested in going stainless, but don’t want to go super hard and buy the whole set? Honestly, with just one or two frying pans, you’re gonna be in high-heat heaven, whether you’re cookin’ weeknight chicken, latkes, seared pork chops, or just a grilled cheese sandwich; and the sauce pan will help you coax the most luxurious flavors and textures out of whatever sauce you’re whipping up (I recently made an all-timer gravy in this).

Caraway’s baking sheets are pretty much in daily use in my kitchen. For lunch, I’m always having some kind of roasted veggie or reheated leftover, and this baking sheet is my best friend. 

The Rectangle Pan, since it’s nonstick, is absolutely ideal for roasting mushrooms or making a whole pan of enchiladas. Once you try these, you’ll never go back to the trash baking sheet you’ve been using since college.

If you’re trying to overhaul your knife and prep tool situation (and you probably should, bro, since your chef’s knife could barely cut a peanut butter sandwich in half and we both know it), this is a great place to look. Caraway has curated a set that includes everything you need: a chef’s knife, prep knife, bread knife, and paring knife, as well as a wooden spoon, tongs, spatula, and more. It’s the ideal gift for the person in your life (again, maybe you) who is using knives from a knife block they bought at a department store in 1998, or at least a spatula so blunted that it can barely pick up a sunny-side-up egg without threatening to risk it all. Plus, this set simply looks extremely cool all together on your counter. 

If you’re not sold yet, know that I got my mother the prep set as a gift, and she texted me, “I LOVE my knives and wood utensils. It was a great gift for me and very much needed.” Now she’s a huge Caraway fan. So, if you don’t wind up with some Caraway in 2024, my mom will know and she will find you.

Buy all of these picks and more at Caraway.

The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals? Sign up for our newsletter.