Best Stockpots (2024), Reviewed by Our Experts

The Made In stockpot also happens to be cheaper than the All-Clad, leaving you with more cash for expensive mushrooms or fancy beef to use in your soups and stews.

Dimensions: 14.5”x10.75”x 5.5” Inches
Material: Stainless steel
Size: 8 quarts
Weight: 4.5 lbs

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If you need a stockpot that’s big and cheap: Vigor SS1 Series 20 Qt. Heavy-Duty Stainless Steel Aluminum-Clad StockPot with Cover

The Good: Cheap, but still stainless steel

The Bad: Welded construction

While 8- and 12-quart stockpots are big enough to handle most of the cooking tasks you’ll tackle at home, there are times when a much larger stockpot is in order. For the rare occasion when you really need a large capacity stockpot—making turkey stock for Thanksgiving, or feeding your daughter’s soccer team—you can get away with something less expensive than an All-Clad or a Made In.

Hana says she’s comfortable with grabbing whichever budget-friendly option is kicking around at the restaurant supply store with just a couple considerations: “My opinion is that it has to be thick enough on the bottom to withstand hours-long cooking but not so heavy that it would be impossible to maneuver, which is why a restaurant-grade no-name is nice here.”

This Vigor stockpot costs less than $100 and still features a stainless steel exterior to avoid leaching metallic flavor into your broth.

It does have welded handles and an attached bottom, so it isn’t something you’d want to subject to years of rigorous daily use, but for really big batch cooking that only happens a couple times a year, this sort of stockpot is a piece of cookware that will get the job done.

If you’re looking for a budget stockpot in an everyday size, note that Vigor does also make a cheap 8-quart stockpot. Still, we’d urge you to consider the All-Clad or Made In pots instead, because you’ll be likely to use an 8-quart pot often enough that the Vigor will wear out and need replacing, unlike the pricier models.

Dimensions: 12.37”x 12”x 10.5” Inches
Material: Stainless steel
Size: 20 quarts
Weight: 10 lbs

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How we chose the best stockpots

The side-by-side product testing that our colleagues at Epicurious conducted informed our recommendations here. Epicurious testers compared the performance of seven different stockpots by cooking chicken stock, boiling pasta, and preparing a batch of beans. We also spoke with culinary professionals to learn about their long-term experiences using stockpots. Bon Appétit’s deputy food editor Hana Asbrink, who ate miyeokguk, Korean seaweed soup, every day for over a year after giving birth to her daughter, contributed her thoughts. We also spoke with Renee Erickson, a James Beard Award-Winning chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author; Tyler Malek, pastry chef and co-founder of Salt & Straw; and Angelo Sosa, chef at Kembara and Tía Carmen in Phoenix, Arizona.

What can you cook in a stockpot?

There is no better pot for making stock than a stockpot. You want something big to handle a whole turkey carcass for leftover Thanksgiving stock, or the myriad of aromatics, chiles, and chicken parts that amp up this sinus-clearing spicy chicken stock.

But a stock pot isn’t just for soup lovers. You can use a stockpot in almost any recipe that calls for a large, heavy bottomed pot or Dutch oven (except for maybe this bread recipe…). Try a comforting navy bean and escarole stew, these rich and jammy red wine braised short ribs, and this no-sweat chicken adobo. Use it for cooking long pasta like fettuccine or bucatini. Finally, if you’re into giving homemade edible gifts and want to whip up large batches of caramel, almond brittle, or jam to give to friends, follow Malek’s lead. The Salt & Straw co-founder says he relies almost exclusively on stockpots when he’s making toppings and mix-ins on a large scale for his ice creams.

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Wilder Davies has tested and written about cookware for over 4 years, and has jacked up his electric bill while making homemade stock on multiple occasions.