This Mixing Bowl Has Replaced All Others in My Kitchen — I Already Have Three

Michelle Tchea
Michelle Tchea
Michelle Tchea is the owner of Chefs Collective and the author of 5-bestselling books on food and travel. Her work and recipes can be found in travel and lifestyle magazines. She has an obsession with artisan bakeries and loves nifty kitchen tools and appliances. A keen…read more
updated May 25, 2023
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Overhead photo of someone mixing egg into batter with a hand mixer. Extra eggs in bowl in the background
Credit: Photo: Joe Lingeman; Food Styling: Jesse Szewczyk

I am not a “kitchen gadget” kind of person. I’m a little old-school in the kitchen — I still chop garlic with a knife (no garlic crusher here!), and I don’t have a mandoline, but rather rely on my sometimes-questionable self-taught knife skills to thinly slice all my vegetables. Even though I don’t splurge on fun kitchen gadgets, I do love investing in durable, reliable gear that I can use for years — namely, the humble mixing bowl.

When I first started cooking with my mom as a teenager, I remember her telling me that I should have a different bowl for raw meat and not use the salad bowl for offal, for example, for fear of cross-contamination. I guess my mom’s love for mixing bowls has ultimately been passed on to me because I have a decent number of them in my very tiny apartment kitchen. Always looking for the elusive and perfect mixing bowl for every occasion (yes, it’s a thing!), I think I’ve inadvertently stumbled on my favorite mixing bowl of all time: the Emile Henry Mixing Bowl.

What’s So Great About Emile Henry’s Mixing Bowls?

I am a huge fan of Emile Henry. Their products are durable, reliable, and thoughtfully designed, so I’m not surprised that the French brand also makes the mixing bowl of my dreams.

The Emile Henry mixing bowl is much more functional than all the other mixing bowls I’ve had and used. It’s made with the same material used in most signature Emile Henry items — ceramic — so it’s super durable and can go into the oven. The ceramic makes it scratch-resistant, so you can use a metal whisk and toss it into the dishwasher, too. The weight of the bowl also allows it to sit firmly and securely on your kitchen bench, which means you can easily whisk with one hand and turn the page of your favorite cookbook with the other without having to hold the bowl down.

The mixing bowl also has some great added features, like a tiny pour spout, which allows you to easily dole out runny mixes (hello, crepes!). The spout works wonders when I’m making my Chinese New Year sticky rice cakes, too — absolutely no spillage.

The bowl also has a handle. I can’t say I’ve seen many mixing bowls with handles, and I always get so frustrated when I see bakers on TV trying to hold their hefty mixing bowl at an awkward angle while also trying to pour their cake mixture into a baking tin. I used to use a Pyrex jug for all my runnier mixes, but the handle doesn’t have the ease and finesse that the Emile Henry bowl offers, so I’ve completely ditched my glass jugs and no-handle mixing bowls.

How Many Sizes Are There?

The Emile Henry mixing bowl comes in three sizes. The large one that I have is quite big and hefty. I purchased this one because I thought it’d be a good bowl for proofing bread. I tend to add a lot of yeast to my bread, and I hate when the dough rises so high that it sticks to my plastic wrap (which can hinder the growth of the bread). In this bowl, the dough never reaches the plastic wrap, resulting in near-perfect bakes (most of the time!). 

The medium- and small-sized mixing bowls are my most-used items in the kitchen. I use the medium mixing bowl for anything involving raw meat, especially when I make Chinese dumplings. It has enough room for me to mix and marinate my dumpling filling; there’s plenty of room to hold the whole head of shredded Chinese cabbage too (I make a large batch of dumplings at a time and freeze them). The smaller-sized mixing bowl is particularly useful for whipping up salad dressings or even beating an easy egg omelet together.

After getting all three sizes of Emile Henry’s ceramic mixing bowl, I’m tempted to stock up on a few more given how useful they’ve been in my kitchen. But even if I didn’t, I hope this puts an end to my mixing bowl purchases — unless, of course, the French brand releases another one that is better, but I’m not sure they can top this one — c’est parfait.

Buy: Emile Henry Mixing Bowl, starting at $70