To Find the 3 Best Pasta Bowls, We Cooked Boxes and Boxes of Spaghetti

Versatile, practical pasta bowls are new classics: You’ve probably eaten from one at a chic new restaurant, that hip café in your neighborhood, or your friend’s recent dinner party. Pasta bowls come in many sizes, shapes, and materials, but they’re generally identifiable by their wide, flat bases and gently curved sides—think of a cross between a plate and a bowl. Their shape makes them perfect for maneuvering saucy noodles (and pretty much everything else, including yogurt, salad, or pie à la mode). That’s why we wanted to update our review, by testing our past top picks and new contenders.  

Our goal was simple: finding shallow bowls that can stand up to daily use. They had to be easy to clean, easy to care for, scratch-resistant, and just plain lovely to eat out of. We made a heck of a lot of spaghetti, tossed it with tomato sauce, and ran 12 different pasta bowls through a series of tests.

The Tests

• Plate and Twirl Test: How easy is it to serve a portion of pasta on the dish, and how does it look once it’s there? What’s it like to eat out of the dish? That’s what this test was designed to find out: We portioned 4-ounce tangles of cooked, sauced spaghetti into each bowl (yes, we weighed) and set about eating it, twirling the pasta on a fork, lifting each forkful out of the bowl, and chasing rogue noodles to the edges of each dish to see how the bowl’s shape, size, and material informed the eating experience. 
• Temperature Test: Sometimes it seems like dinner is cold before it even hits the table. That’s especially bad news with pasta, where a poorly insulated dish can lead to seized sauces and stiff noodles. We used an instant-read thermometer to take the temperatures of pasta the moment it was plated and after 10 minutes to see which pasta bowl kept food warmest.
• Cleaning Test: To see how easy the bowls might be to clean up after a big pasta night, we let bowlfuls of pasta sit out at room temp for 3 hours, then washed them in the sink with a sponge and dish soap. Notably, all of the pasta bowls we tested are dishwasher safe.
• Cutlery Test: We sought to replicate daily wear and tear on the pasta bowls by scraping them five times each with a steak knife, assessing whether or not the bowls scratched and whether the scratches could be buffed out. 

What We Learned

What’s the Ideal Diameter for a Pasta Bowl?

The answer here is clear: Each of our three top picks has the same not-too-big, not-too-small diameter of 8.5 inches, which provides enough space for a hearty serving of pasta plus ample room for twirling and scooping—without dwarfing the meal or taking up a bunch of space on the table or in the cabinet.

Most Pasta Bowls Were Durable and Made to Last

Each of the 12 pasta bowls we tested for this review was dishwasher-safe (and microwave-safe, for that matter), and very few showed signs of scratching from cutlery (even when we really went at them with a steak knife). Those that did scratch showed only faint, pencil-like lines, and nearly all of them—with the exception of the scratches on the Sweese pasta bowls—buffed out with a little Bar Keepers Friend. 

The Bowl’s Base Size Didn't Affect Stability (Much)

The base of the bowls we tested ranged from 2.5 inches to 7.5 inches, with six of the 12 pasta bowls having a base between five and six inches. Because pasta bowls are generally wide and low, they tend to be stable. For reference, our top winner—the Le Creuset Stoneware Pasta Bowl—had a base of five inches. Our budget winner (the Y YHY Pasta Bowl) similarly had a base of 5.5 inches. Our splurge winner, Material The Open Bowl, had a slightly different shape than the others, with a narrower base (2.5 inches), but its diameter and depth kept the bowl steady.

…But Depth and Side Angle Mattered a Lot

The side height and inner curve are everything! Our three winners had moderately sloped sides and were reasonably deep (1.75 inches to 2 inches). Eating out of bowls with edges that sloped very gently, creating a shallower bowl—like the East Fork Coupe, the Made In Entrée Bowl, and the Corelle Vitrelle Lightweight Round Bowl—occasionally involved chasing noodles to the rims and risked tomato sauce spills. Meanwhile, bowls with straight-up-and-down sides (like the Hawkins Pasta Bowl and the Threshold Stoneware Tilley Bowl) were less conducive to twirling or scooping saucy pasta.   

A Heavier Bowl Was Better

The weight of the bowls did matter. One contender, the Corelle—the lightest, at just half a pound—slid around the table during the pasta-twirling test. This led us to believe that pasta bowls should be between one pound and 1.5 pounds for maximum stability and maximum ease of lifting from a shelf and carrying to the table. 

Glaze Texture Mattered (A Little!) in Overall Experience

The type of glaze on any dinnerware is mostly a sensory and aesthetic consideration. That said, several of the bowls we tested had glossy interiors and matte exteriors, perhaps to help prevent food from sticking during washing and to prevent scratches. Smooth matte glazes (like on the Our Place Dinner Bowls) scratched more easily than either smooth high-gloss or pebbly glazes. 

Most Bowls Kept Pasta Sufficiently Warm

There seemed to be little rhyme or reason as to why certain bowls retained heat better than others, despite material, weight, depth of the bowl, and the curve of the sides. Also, the best performing bowl—as far as temperature stability goes—saw a drop of 10.6°F after 10 minutes of sitting, while the least insulating bowl saw a drop of 25.4°F. Both pastas still “felt” warm to the touch, and most eaters probably wouldn’t notice this decrease while eating. Many of the bowls we tested (including two of our winners, the Le Creuset and Y YHY bowls) are indicated as oven-safe, so if you really want a warm-bowl experience, popping them in a low oven for a few minutes while you finish dinner will do the trick.

The Criteria: What to Look for In a Pasta Bowl 

Think like Goldilocks to find the best pasta bowl: Our just-right winners each had a somewhat narrow base (about five inches), a mid-sized diameter (between eight and nine inches), moderate depth (about 1.75 inches), and gently sloping sides. They were not too heavy, not too lightweight. The best pasta bowls are dishwasher- and microwave-safe since you’ll use them frequently—and for more than just pasta! The bowl’s glaze is a matter of personal taste, though smooth and glossy finishes were less prone to showing scratches and most likely to get sparklingly clean in the dishwasher. Finally, the best pasta dishes kept the temperature of the pasta fairly steady once served.

Our Favorite Pasta Bowls

The Best Pasta Bowl

Le Creuset Stoneware Pasta Bowls Set

$72 at Amazon View on Lecreuset.com

What we liked: This bowl was an ideal size and shape, with gently curved sides that made it particularly suited to everyday, every-meal use. The Le Creuset had a handsome row of shallow, textured ridges on the interior that kept sauce inside the bowl. The super glossy glaze comes in several timeless colors (though perhaps less trendy than the Hawkins New York Pasta Bowls) and makes the bowls easy to clean. You’ll hand these sturdy bowls down to your grandkids.

What we didn’t like: These heritage-brand bowls are classy and beautiful, but some shoppers might find the glossy stoneware less appealing or trendy than other matte-glazed models.

Key Specs

• Material: Stoneware
• Weight: 1.46 pounds
• Diameter: 8.5 inches 
• Depth: 1.75 inches
• Care: Freezer-, oven-, microwave-, broiler-, and dishwasher-safe

The Best Budget Pasta Bowl

Y YHY Pasta Bowls

$50 $26 at Amazon $38 at Walmart

What we liked: These lightweight, streamlined, and sleek bowls ticked all the boxes. They were almost the same size and shape as our overall winner, Le Creuset, but at a fraction of the price. The Y YHY comes in a few colors, though we liked the plain white best.

What we didn’t like: These bowls performed the worst on our temperature test, with a drop in over 25°F after 10 minutes. That being said, we found during testing that a bowl’s heat retention did not seem to matter as much as other specs—and even pasta in bowls that saw notable temperature drops still felt warm to the touch.

Key Specs

• Material: Bone china
• Weight: 1.06 pounds
• Diameter of bowl: 8.5 inches 
• Depth: 1.75 inches
• Care: Microwave-, dishwasher-, and oven-safe

The Best Splurge Pasta Bowl

Material The Open Bowl

View on Materialkitchen.com

What we liked: Material’s The Open Bowl has more of a coupe shape than other models we tested—a narrower base, with deeper but still softly sloping sides. They looked and felt truly elegant, with a slightly pebbly interior and an almost papery-feeling, unglazed exterior. It was one of the best-insulated bowls we tested (with a temperature drop of just 13.1°F over 10 minutes).

What we didn’t like: They’re expensive! Beyond that, the unglazed exteriors scratched slightly, but those scratches buffed out easily.

Key Specs

• Material: “Natural Korean clay blend”
• Weight: 1.31 pounds
• Diameter of bowl: 8.5 inches 
• Depth: 2 inches
• Care: Dishwasher- and microwave-safe

The Competition

Also Great

• Hawkins New York Pasta Bowls: The pasta bowls from this notable brand come in gorgeous colors. In fact, we named their dinnerware sets one of the best. Our editors had divided opinions on the straight sides of the bowl, but if you're not a fan of sloped edges, this is the bowl for you. We were all impressed with the scratch-resistant glaze.
• West Elm Kaloh Stoneware Pasta Bowls: We liked these quite a bit, though the edges were on the steep side. However, the pasta saw a higher-than-average temperature change (22.5°F) over 10 minutes, and tomato sauce stained the unglazed portion on the bottom of the bowl during the cleaning test.
• Crate & Barrel Aspen Rimmed Pasta Bowls: This bowl looked retro in a fun way. Our issue was the bowl’s narrow shape. Bulkier pasta ingredients like beans, asparagus, or shrimp, or thinner pasta sauces, might be harder to eat—and annoyingly easy to smudge around on the giant rim. 
• East Fork Coupe: Very pretty, but so pricey: It was the most expensive ($46 per bowl at time of publication), the heaviest (2.5 pounds!), and had the widest diameter (10.75 inches!) of any of the bowls we tested. 
• Made In Entrée Bowls: Like the East Fork pasta bowl, the Made In Entrée Bowl was so wide it almost felt like a shallow serving bowl, which made it seem too big for just pasta. However, we love the Made In dinnerware set (it's another winner in that review) and recommend this as an all-around, versatile bowl. 

Not Recommended

• Threshold Stoneware Tilley Bowls: Another entry in the wide, deep, and steep category, these bowls were affordable and sturdy-feeling but unremarkable.
• Our Place Dinner Bowls: The Dinner Bowls from Our Place were similarly wide and deep with severely sloping sides (90 degrees). These bowls also scratched easily, and even though the scratches could be buffed out with a bit of Bar Keepers Friend, who really wants to do that every night after dinner?
• Sweese Pasta Bowls: This bowl was very similar to the Y YHY Pasta Bowls—our budget winner—but less elegant-feeling in the hand, slightly more expensive, and more prone to scratching. 
• Corelle Vitrelle Lightweight Round Bowls: These bowls from Corelle performed well on each of the tests. They saw the smallest temperature change in the spaghetti after 10 minutes (just 10.6°F; the mean change was 17.92°F) and they were the least expensive option we tested. However, they left a lot to be desired in feel and looks; they were so lightweight that the bowl moved around the table as we ate out of it.

FAQs

What’s the best size for a pasta bowl?

Medium wide and medium deep! That is, between eight and nine inches across, and 1.75 to two inches deep, with moderately sloping sides.

What else can you use a pasta bowl for?

What can’t you use a pasta bowl for? This is an all-day piece of dishware: You’ll want it for smoothie bowls, oatmeal, salad, chili, polenta, beans, mashed potatoes with braised short ribs, big scoops of apple crisp—you name it.

What’s the difference between a pasta bowl and a soup bowl?

Pasta bowls tend to be shallower than soup bowls, with broader, flatter bottoms—space to swirl, twirl, and scoop. They also have edges to use for leverage, and they keep thick sauces from spilling over. Soup bowls, on the other hand, are deeper, with much narrower bases and higher sides. If you can sip it, grab a soup bowl; if you want to scoop it, go for a pasta bowl.

Why We’re the Experts

• Caroline Lange is a freelance writer who has spent more than 10 years working in food media.
• Caroline has tested recipes for acclaimed and award-winning cookbooks, and has also worked as a freelance recipe tester for a variety of publications, including the New York Times.
• For this review, Caroline tested 12 pasta bowls, evaluating them across various metrics.