After a Year of Testing, I Found the Best Oven Mitts
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I’m not afraid to use my oven’s entire temperature range: I regularly bake sourdough loaves for my morning toast, serve homemade pizzas for friends whenever I’m hosting, and broil meats for that lastumph.All this to say — when I preheat my oven, it’susuallyto 500 degrees Fahrenheit, and I need to protect my hands from scorchingsheet pansandDutch ovensaccordingly. While many professional chefs will tell you a dish cloth will do, I’ve found they can be too damp to insulate the heat or are simply not strong enough to withstand hot temperatures for extended periods of time. As such, I always use an oven mitt (or two) when I’m taking something out of the oven.
Still, not all oven mitts are made equally. There are options to match just about every aesthetic — fromruffled gingham onestoMarimekko’s classic floral print— but I’ve found that in general, the cuter the mitt, the more likely it’s destined for display, not use. To find out which popular oven mitts actually deserve a spot in your kitchen, I chatted with several recipe developers, cookbook authors, and cooking-class instructors about the oven mitts they use themselves. Then I put their favorites to the test — using them as I cooked fondant au chocolat, Parker House rolls, and tarte au citron — and compared them to a few I handpicked over the past year to find out which ones perform the best.
I always rely on Crate & Barrel’s oven mitt first …
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If I could only keep one pair of oven mitts in my collection, it would be this one from Crate & Barrel. It’s oven safe up to 500 (the bare minimum, in my opinion) and long enough (at 15 inches) to protect most of my forearm. The exterior is a clean mix of cotton canvas on the arms and a grippy swatch of silicone at the hands that’s malleable enough for grabbing handles and pans. Inside, there’s a terry-cloth lining (rather than cotton or polyester) that feels soothing to my hands, which can become dry and sensitive to certain fabrics after extensive washing while cooking and cleaning.
These features alone would be enough to give the oven mitts prime real estate in my kitchen, but they’re fashioned with a hidden magnet that allows me to hang them on my fridge, freeing up storage space and making them easy to grab mid-cooking. But don’t just take my word for it: Fashion designer and cookbook authorPeter Somis a fan, too. He’s been using them for five years and loves that they look nice and cover about half of his forearm. “I’m kind of a scaredy cat. Nobody likes getting burned, but I like having full coverage,” he says.
… but I use these ovengloveswhen I need the most dexterity
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I credit private chef and culinary-content creatorKaren Rosenbloomfor putting oven gloves on my radar, which “allow for more precision and movement in the kitchen,” she says. While she usesa heavy-duty pair from Pyroguardthat her dad showed her, she thinks these ones from Sur La Table are a nicer-looking alternative. Since they arrived, I’ve found myself using them whenever I want to ensure, say, a freshly baked cake doesn’t get dented by a bulky oven mitt. It’s also helpful when tending to pots with hot handles.
Gir’s are a more affordable terry-lined option
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If you don’t mind losing the magnet, the Gir mitts are a more affordable alternative to my favorite Crate & Barrel mitts. They’re easy to use thanks to a flexible silicone exterior and lined with a similarly pleasing terry-cloth interior. Recipe developer and food creatorChristine Hanuses them when she needs function and utility. Compared to the Dusen Dusen and Marimekko mitts she chooses when photographing food, she says, “When you are pulling things in and out of the oven, you can hold on to things firmly, more securely” with these mitts.
Our Place makes a nice-looking magnetic option, too
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The difference between the Our Place and Crate & Barrel mitts comes down to aesthetics and lining; they’re similarly grippy, flexible, and magnetic. However, if you prefer the feeling of more uniform cotton-twill lining (compared to soft terry) and the look of sculptural curves on silicone (compared to a more utilitarian grid-like pattern), the Our Place mitts are for you.
If you’re on a budget, KitchenAid will do
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KitchenAid’s oven mitts sit at the intersection of utility and affordability. Neither the ribbed mitt nor the Asteroid mitt have particularly memorable design features, but they’re available in a slew of colors, from “matcha green” to “dried rose,” so you can find a pair to match your kitchen décor. Compared to some of the more expensive oven mitts I tried, these are slightly shorter at 13 inches and have a polyester lining (rather than a pricier cotton or terry lining) that still feels soft and smooth to the touch.
Unless you’re staunchly anti-siliconeandon a budget, I’d recommend getting the ribbed version since it’s heat resistant up to 500 (compared to the Asteroid version, which is only heat resistant up to 302). I’ve used the Asteroid mitts to lift a Dutch oven that’s been preheating at 500 without issue, but I wouldn’t recommend buying the Asteroid version if you’re planning to do that regularly as I could feel some of the heat through the glove. By design, the Asteroid mitts are more flexible thanks to their cotton exterior, but the ribbing on the silicone mitts makes them the most flexible of all the silicone mitts I tested.
Go for these All-Clad mitts if you’re anti-silicone
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These oven mitts aren’ttechnicallysilicone free, but they’re more malleable than the other silicone options I tried because the silicone is limited to grippy strips rather than an encasement. While it’s as flexible as the ribbed mitt above, I found myself preferring this one because of its soft, cotton lining and more pleasing appearance — at least in my opinion. These are the ones I grab for reinforcement when both my boyfriend and I are cooking and we need a spare pair to supplement the Crate & Barrel mitts that live on our fridge. Similar to the KitchenAid mitts, these are available in a bunch of fun colors, too, like a pale green called “fennel” and a deep red called “chili.”
If you want a patterned mitt, go for one of these
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As a lover of stripes and florals, I get the appeal of a patterned oven mitt. These options from Dusen Dusen and Staff will protect your hands from heat up to 400 and 446 degrees, respectively, while adding a little life to your kitchen counter. I prefer the Staff mitt, which is grippy, perfectly malleable, and lined with soft cotton, but the Dusen Dusen mitt fits my design preferences more. Still, it was too bulky and inflexible to grab narrow sheet pans and small pot handles with precision.
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