Our Guide to Cookware

We've organized the most commonly used items people use to address the Core function below, with example images, characteristics, features, etc.

We strongly recommend first reading our info on stoves since cookware is heavily impacted by what you're cooking with.

NOTE: Here we refer to cookware as pots & pans. Smaller items that we also carry but that have fewer decision factors are quickly reviewed in the What We Carry section.

Cooking technique		Using hot coals or a campfire	Using a portable stove
			Regular stove (like a portable kitchen stove)	Wood burning stove	Liquid fuel stove	Canister stove	Alcohol stove	Tablet stove
Cookware		Cookware has to tolerate directly sitting on hot coals or in a flame*	Use regular cookware you'd use in the kitchen	May be able to use regular cookware or small cookware (description at right), depending on stove size		Cookware needs to be smaller since the stove top surface is smaller (a heavy, hot pot can tip over!)
Example images				See note above
Effect on other factors	Price Per piece	$20-200	$10-100			$10-70
	Capacity For pots	Heavier & larger (1-10L)				Smaller (~500mL to 2L)
	Material	Cast iron Ceramic Porcelain	Any			Aluminum Stainless steel Titanium
	Weight & Size	Heavier & larger				Lighter & smaller
		Depends more on material, see section below
	Rationale	No size restrictions imposed by stove = less technical				Size restrictions imposed by stove = more technical
Why we do/don't carry it = we rent = we sell		We prefer ceramic to cast iron for cleaning purposes, but unfortunately these break too easily for us to reasonably rent	Standard for most outdoor uses in car camping. On our Catalog, this is indicated with 'for portable stove'	Same as regular or smaller cookware (at left & right)		Standard for most outdoor uses in backpacking. On our Catalog, this is indicated with 'for pocket stove'

*Regular cookware can get discolored or warped, or have handles that will melt

If you don't go very often, of course you're going to want to spend less money, but this often means real trade-offs in terms of the experience that you will have with the gear. Even if you do go often & are ready to invest in quality gear, having the upfront funds can be hard!

Now, it may seem like this price & quality trade-off is disappearing, because you can find a cheap version of almost anything for tens of dollars that still has good reviews (assuming the reviews are real). So you might be thinking: I'll just buy something cheap, and because the price is so low it doesn't matter if it's less featured or heavier or whatever compared to something higher end. When that breaks, I'll buy something cheap again, and so on. Just remember:

• What's better than cheap? FREE! And we have a gear library of items you can borrow for free!
• Many reviews are written after only a trial use or first use: We've seen entire review videos of gear done at home, which is very different than actually being outdoors! And reviews after the first use don't tell you about durability at all
• You're headed outdoors to relax and enjoy life! Saving money only to have a trip ruined due to quality issues will feel terrible. Our program to rent cookware is designed to help you avoid this trade-off: you get to rent high end, quality cookware for around the same price as buying cheap ones (sometimes even for less!)

For this item specifically, the price vs. quality trade-off issues center around performance & durability.

For the outdoors specifically, durability may be more important than in a home kitchen:

• Cooking outside is often done in smaller spaces & surfaces; it can be easier to drop coowkare
• Outdoor-specific utensils, especially ultralight ones, tend to be metal, so you need cookware that won't scratch (e.g., not non-stick)

For most people who have experience cooking at home, the only new lens with which to think about capacity is when you need smaller cookware imposed by small stoves.

For example, if several people are sharing a single, small backpacking stove that can only take cookware up to 2 liters maximum, you may need several "boils" to get enough hot water for everyone's coffee or backpacking meal. Is it OK then if people eat at different times? Or should you get more stoves? These are exactly the decisions that backpackers think about when planning a trip! Renting pots & pans can therefore help you figure out what works best for you.

As you can imagine, as capacity increases, so does price and weight & size.

If you're thru-hiking 20+ miles (32+km) per day, every advantage counts! In this case, size refers to compactness. You can carry more gear in the same size backpack if all of it is very compact, or for more weight savings, you can get a smaller size pack.

Note, even if you have a small 1.5 Liter pot in your home kitchen, backpacking specific pots are designed to be compact in a way kitchen cookware is not. For example, they're thinner (the stainless steel is usually single-ply, not sandwiching other materials that help heat conduction), and have handles that tuck "into" the pot. Renting a pot is only a few dollars, and worth trying out!

An in-depth discussion of the different materials used in cookware is beyond the scope of our protip. You could look at things such as heat retention vs heat conductivity, risk of material leaching into food & toxicity, and consider that with many cookware, the material isn't pure (e.g., copper, aluminum, and titanium cookware usually have other metals used as liners or as bases to complement functionality), or there are other treatments to cookware to improve it (e.g., anodized aluminum or enameled cast iron). That's why we will only quickly overview 8 materials as they generally are viewed (averaged across composition). Given the variances, the lists should not be viewed as rankings.

Here, we give you a list of questions to start thinking about other features. We hope our approach of savings these features for last gets you to more critically think about what you need & not get caught up in the hype of what's cool and over-spend your budget. Remember, we allow you to hire a cookware so feel free to try out various models with different features.

• Is there a handle?
• Does it come with a lid? If so is the lid transparent?
• How do the sides taper?