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The Best Stovetop Kettles

Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and kettle bubble.

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Last Updated Sept. 1, 2022. Appears in America's Test Kitchen TV Season 19: The Perfect Cake

The Best Stovetop Kettles
Update, November 2021

After hearing complaints that our winning kettle from OXO splashed boiling water from its spout after each pour, we tested a new copy and confirmed that this was sometimes the case. We agree that this flaw can be at best messy and at worst dangerous, so we are demoting it. After testing six new kettles, our new winner is the Chantal Enamel-on-Steel Anniversary Teakettle Collection (2 QT.), which performed well and was sturdy, capacious, and easy to handle and clean. 


See Everything We Tested

What You Need To Know

Stovetop kettles are simple vessels for heating water. But anyone who’s had a bad one knows how irritating they can be. Poor kettles are apt to whistle too faintly or painfully loudly, rattle and clank on the burner, and be too cumbersome to hoist—or, conversely, too tiny to make a full-size pot of tea. Their handles can get too hot, they can make a splashy mess when pouring, and they can send steam up to scorch your hand. They rust or dent and get grungy living on the stove, where they’re on display for all to see. Still, we had faith that there were good, functional, durable kettles out there—we just had to find them.

To do so, we bought seveeral kettles in a variety of materials, from stainless steel to enamel-coated steel to borosilicate glass, with capacities ranging from 0.84 to 3 quarts. We put every model through a gamut of tests, evaluating how easy it was to fill and lift, as well as how long it took to reach a boil. We boiled water in each kettle multiple times, at both its maximum and minimum capacities, and had a variety of testers pour out hot water into a single mug, trays of teacups, a 1.5-quart teapot, and a filter cone to make pour-over coffee, evaluating how difficult or easy it was to control the pouring. We also got each kettle dirty and banged it around before rating it on ease of cleaning and durability.

Our first discovery was that the practical capacity of some of the kettles was much smaller than advertised: When we filled them to their stated capacities, the water went right up to the brim, causing overflow at the boil. The worst offender held almost a quart less than advertised. Rule of thumb: Most kettles should be filled to just under the interior spout opening.

While the majority of the kettles were easy to fill, with wide openings and good interior visibility, a few were cramped and dark, making it difficult to judge when they were full. The worst had a black enamel interior; we had to pull out a flashlight, or even stick a finger in, just to be sure the water was below the spout. What’s more, this kettle’s opening had a low, fixed handle curving over it that made it hard to access.

Once boiling, the whistling kettles were a boon, but only if we could hear the whistle from the next room. One was so quiet that you had to guess if it was making noise from barely 3 feet away. We found two styles: whistles that you can disable and ones that you can’t. We preferred the two kettles that let you turn off the whistle if you want it to boil silently.

Most of our lineup boiled a full kettle of water in a reasonable time, roughly 8 to 11 minutes, but there were a few outliers that were much slower due to ...

Everything We Tested

Good : 3 stars out of 3.Fair : 2 stars out of 3.Poor : 1 stars out of 3.
*All products reviewed by America’s Test Kitchen are independently chosen, researched, and reviewed by our editors. We buy products for testing at retail locations and do not accept unsolicited samples for testing. We list suggested sources for recommended products as a convenience to our readers but do not endorse specific retailers. When you choose to purchase our editorial recommendations from the links we provide, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices are subject to change.
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The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.

Lisa McManus

Lisa McManus

Lisa is an executive editor for ATK Reviews, cohost of Gear Heads on YouTube, and gadget expert on TV's America's Test Kitchen.

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