Best baking tray 2023: Our favourite non-stick baking trays, tins and dishes for cookies, cakes, roasting and more
Upgrade your tired old baking trays with a quality piece of kit that will last for years
A decent baking tin can completely transform the way you bake and roast, provided you pick the right tray for the job. However, the best baking tray isn’t always the biggest or the most expensive, and you can pick up some fantastic options for under £20 in our roundup below.
You might not have put much thought into buying a baking tray before. But the shape, material and intended use all play a role in achieving that perfect bake, as well as ensuring the tray stays in good condition for years to come.
Whether you’re looking for an everyday roaster, a tray for cookies or even a Yorkshire pudding tin, we’ve tested and reviewed some of the best baking trays you can buy right now.
If you want to get clued-up on how to choose the right baking tray for the job, our buying guide below has some tips and advice. Alternatively, skip this to find our top picks further down the page.
Best baking tray: At a glance
- Best multipack baking tray: Tala Performance set of three | Buy now
- Best shallow baking tray: KitchenAid 49cm Non-Stick Baking Sheet | Buy now
- Best baking tray for cookies: Judge Non-Stick Baking Sheet | Buy now
- Best baking tray for brownies: Lakeland Brownie Tin | Buy now
- Best ceramic baking tray: La Creuset Stoneware oven dish | Buy now
How to choose the best baking tray for you
How much should I spend on a baking tray?
A high price doesn’t necessarily equate to a better product when it comes to baking trays. While buying a sheet under £10 might mean you have to replace it more often, you also don’t need to spend £40 or more to get something decent.
All of the baking trays on our list cost between £10 to £40 and will see you through plenty of bakes and roasts, as long as you treat them right. It’s best to spend less on something that gets light, regular use and fork out more money for heavy-duty cooking tasks such as roasting joints of meat.
Which baking tray material is best?
Baking trays and dishes typically come in a variety of materials. The type you choose will largely depend on the cooking task at hand, but may also be personal preference. These are some of the most common types of baking tray:
Metal – Metal baking trays, either aluminium or steel, are the most familiar style of tray you can buy. They’re generally lightweight, non-stick and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. This makes them ideal for plenty of everyday tasks such as cooking oven food, baking cookies or roasting vegetables.
Glass – Glass baking dishes are good at conducting and holding heat. They tend to be heavier than metal trays and are generally deeper since they are predominantly used for heavy-duty cooking like roasting meats, potatoes or casseroles.
Ceramic/stoneware – Ceramic bakeware is similar to glass as it’s also a good conductor and retains heat. Much like glass, these baking dishes tend to be heavier and deeper, making them ideal for long and slow roasting. There’s no great benefit to choosing ceramic over glass or vice versa, other than personal taste.
Is there anything else I need to consider?
When choosing a metal baking tray or sheet, always look for something that has a good non-stick coating. Even if you use baking paper to cook, a decent level of non-stick will make your tray easier to clean and protect against scratches and scrapes.
Hard anodised bakeware will also protect your tray from surface damage and can even be used with metal utensils, as it’s more durable than classic non-stick. Anodised bakeware also won’t peel over time and should stay as good as new, providing you treat it with care.
Most baking trays are dishwasher-safe, but we would always recommend hand-washing with a non-scratch sponge to prolong the life of your tray.
How we test baking trays
We test all the baking trays on our list in our home ovens, using them for a number of everyday baking and roasting tasks. During these tests, we assess a tray’s performance in various areas. We look at the overall capacity of the tray, how well it fits in a standard UK oven and whether or not it’s easy to grip with oven gloves and move around. We also take into consideration what each tray is made from and how robust the material is – checking, for example, if it tends to bend when exposed to very high levels of heat. After repeated uses, we can see whether the tray’s non-stick coating, if it has one, is effective. We also note if the tray is reasonably easy to clean and store. With all these factors in mind, our final consideration is whether the baking tray represents good value for money relative to its performance.
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The best baking trays to buy in 2023
1. KitchenAid 39cm Non-Stick Baking Sheet: Best shallow baking tray
Price: £22 | Buy now from Argos
KitchenAid might be best known for its range of kitchen appliances but it also stocks an impressive range of quality bakeware in its repertoire. Its latest lineup includes this non-stick aluminised steel baking tray, which is ideal for around two to three portions of chips, family tray bakes, and more.
The non-stick coating is highly effective, which means you shouldn’t need any oil for most baking tasks, and its thick build retains heat well for an impressively even bake. KitchenAid’s baking tray is heat-safe up to 240°C and it’s easy to remove from the oven thanks to the lipped handles on either side. If you’re in a hurry, you can pop it in the dishwasher after use for hassle-free cleaning, although KitchenAid recommends hand-washing with a non-abrasive sponge.
Key details – Size (LWD): 39 x 25.5 x 3.5cm; Weight: Not stated; Material: Stainless steel; Dishwasher safe: Yes; Guarantee: Lifetime (manufacturing defects), 2yr (non-stick)
2. Judge Non-Stick Baking Sheet: Best baking sheet for cookies
Price: £16 | Buy now from Amazon
In order to bake the perfect cookies, you ought to start out with a super-thin, non-stick baking sheet like this one from Judge. The thin base helps reduce heat-up and cool-down times, which is ideal for baking biscuits, cookies and puff pastry, while the lipless sides ensure you can slide delicate bakes off the tray without risking a break or altering their shape.
Its two-layer non-stick coating is oven safe up to 210°C and, in testing, we were able to bake flatbreads and cookies on the tray without the use of baking paper. You may want to use parchment when cooking sticky items though, since caramelised sugars will always stick. It’s also a really great size for the price: you can fit around 15 small cookies on the sheet, which is more than enough for a hungry family or a small get-together.
Key details – Size (LWD): 35.5 x 28.5 x 2cm; Weight: 689g; Material: Carbon steel; Dishwasher safe: Yes; Guarantee: 5yr
3. Tala Performance set of three: Best multipack baking tray set
Price: £15 | Buy now from Amazon
If you’re looking to expand your armoury of everyday baking trays, a multipack is the most cost-effective way of doing so. Not only is this set of three baking trays from Tala exceptional value, but they’re really great quality, too. Made from heavy carbon steel and coated with a double layer of non-stick, these baking tins shouldn’t warp either, even with prolonged use.
They’re a little on the shallow side, though, so are much better suited for oven chips and sauceless dishes. However, they’re oven-safe up to 240°C and have an impressively large surface area – ideal if you’re feeding a crowd.
Key details – Size (LWD): 34.5 x 24.4 x 2cm (tray 1), 25 x 18 x 2cm (trays 2 and 3); Weight: 1.93kg (collective); Material: Carbon steel; Dishwasher safe: Yes; Guarantee: 10yr
4. Circulon Ultimum 4 Hole Yorkshire Pudding Tin: Best Yorkshire pudding tin
Price: £16 | Buy now from Lakeland
Sometimes a special job requires a special baking tray, and this Yorkshire pudding tin is a must for perfectly cooked puds. The thin base helps heat the tray up quickly, so as soon as the batter hits the pan, it begins to crisp. Better still, a triple-layer non-stick coating ensures Yorkshire puddings slide out with ease, without leaving any messy residue behind.
In testing, puddings cooked quickly and easily and, as long as you don’t overfill each cup, your puds should stay in place and won’t stick together. The tray is easy to clean too, both by hand and in the dishwasher. More impressively still, this pan has a lifetime guarantee both for manufacturing defects and its non-stick coating.
Key details – Size (LWD): 29 x 24.5 x 1.5cm; Weight: Not stated; Material: Carbon steel; Dishwasher safe: Yes; Guarantee: Lifetime
5. Lakeland Brownie Tin: Best baking tray for brownies and traybakes
Price: £11 | Buy now from Lakeland
Everyone loves a traybake and with the right bit of kit, you can make outstanding brownies, blondies, flapjacks and millionaire’s shortbread with very little effort. This deep carbon-steel baking tray from Lakeland is custom-made for this style of batch-baking, with a double layer of non-stick and portion markers around the lip of the tin for 20 perfectly uniform, bite-sized servings.
It’s oven-safe up to 240°C and should suit most traybake recipes due to its standard size. In testing, the non-stick coating did its job well and most bakes released easily from the tin, though we’d still suggest using parchment paper for stickier desserts. This is a top-value baking tray that won’t buckle or flake.
Key details – Size (LWD): 25 x 20 x 3.5cm (inside); Weight: Not stated; Material: Carbon steel; Dishwasher safe: Yes; Guarantee: 3yr
6. Le Creuset Stoneware oven dish: Best ceramic baking dish
Price: From £28 | Buy now from John Lewis
When it comes to ceramic baking dishes, this classic glazed option from Le Creuset is one of the very best. It comes in a gorgeous range of colours, as well as three different sizes, and is the ultimate dish for roasting meats, baking lasagna or even confiting.
Not only is it versatile, but the material retains heat incredibly well, too, making it an ideal choice for serving group dishes at the dinner table. It’s oven-safe up to 260°C and also suitable for freezing. The only real downside is the price, which is no surprise since nothing Le Creuset makes comes cheap, but it does have a lifetime guarantee. You might be paying for the name, but it’s still a high-quality, robust dish that will see you through decades of baking without chipping or scratching.
Key details – Size (LWD): 24.7 x 15.5 x 8.1cm (1.1L), 32.7 x 20.3 x 8.9cm (2.3L), 39 x 25.4 x 9.1 (3.9L); Weight: 960g, 1.5kg, 2.3kg Material: Ceramic stoneware; Dishwasher safe: Yes; Guarantee: Lifetime
7. Tala Performance Roaster with Rack: Best baking tray for healthy roasting
Price: £39 | Buy now from Tala
This two-piece roaster is ideal for cooking and resting meat due to its handy removable rack. The curved shape of the rack accommodates most joints and sits slightly raised, siphoning fat to the dish below. Handles on either side make lifting the rack easy too.
Like Tala’s Performance baking trays reviewed above, the roasting dish is oven safe up to 240°C and is made from thick carbon steel, coated with a double layer of quality non-stick. So whether you’re roasting potatoes or cooking up a leg of lamb, you won’t find yourself scraping bits off the pan afterwards.
It’s incredibly easy to clean and is dishwasher safe, too. However, hand-washing is definitely recommended to prevent the non-stick from flaking further down the line.
Key details – Size (LWD): 34.5 x 30 x 6.5cm; Weight: 950g; Material: Carbon steel; Dishwasher safe: Yes; Guarantee: 10yr
