Glass, Stoneware or Porcelain? The Best Soup Bowls for Your Table

A soup bowl has an easy job until the soup is very hot. Then it has to keep broth from slopping over the edge on the way to the table, give a spoon room to work, and not burn the hand that carries it. A bowl that is too shallow spills. One that is too small means a second trip to the pot.

A restaurant chooses its bowls by portion size, how they stack and how they hold up to heat and washing. The same questions pick the best soup bowls for a home table. Decide first whether soup is your starter or your dinner, because that one answer rules out half the bowls on the shelf.

Julia’s earns a commission on purchases made through links on this page, at no cost to you. Recommendations are based on what a restaurant kitchen looks for, product specifications and what each maker states.

Quick verdict: which soup bowl to buy

Below are seven bowls in glass, ceramic, stoneware and porcelain, each with one honest reason to skip it.

Five soup bowls side by side

Five standout picks, one for each kind of buyer, with the details each maker or listing states. All seven bowls are reviewed in full below.

Our picks for the best soup bowls

We start with the everyday bowls, then move to handles and stoneware, and finish with the smaller and more formal pieces.

How to choose a soup bowl

Decide on the portion

A starter needs about 10 to 14 ounces. A meal needs 20 ounces or more, and noodles or ramen need more again, because the bowl should never be full to the rim. Remember that a listed capacity is usually filled to the top, so the amount you can carry is less.

Choose a shape for the soup

Deep bowls keep broth hot and suit noodles, chili and stew. Wide, rimmed bowls show off a garnish and cool a thin soup faster. A rim gives you somewhere to rest a spoon or a piece of bread.

Think about weight and heat

Stoneware holds heat but is heavy, especially once it is full. Vitrelle glass is light and does not keep soup hot for as long. Porcelain sits between them. If children or older relatives carry their own bowls, weight matters more than looks.

Decide if you need handles

Handles are worth it when the bowl goes into the oven or microwave and comes out too hot to hold. If you ladle soup from a pot at the stove, you may never need them. Handled bowls also take up more room in the cabinet and the dishwasher.

Ask about the glaze

Soup is hot and often acidic, and it sits on the glaze for the whole meal, so we looked for a statement from each maker. Fiesta and Juliska state lead-free on their listings. Staub and Villeroy & Boch give brand statements. Le Creuset and Pfaltzgraff give compliance statements, and Corelle is glass that the maker says it tests. The FDA’s guidance on the term lead free explains how the agency treats that wording. These statements cover current products, so they say nothing about old or secondhand dishes.

Serving soup so it stays hot

The easiest way to get hot soup to the table is to warm the bowl first. Fill it with hot tap water for a minute, tip it out, and dry it before you ladle. A cold stoneware bowl pulls a surprising amount of heat out of a thin broth. Do not warm a bowl in the oven unless its listing or care card says you can.

Ladle to just under the rim, not to it, and keep the pot close to the table when you can. For the pot itself, see our soup pot reviews.

How we chose these seven soup bowls

We looked at what a working kitchen looks at in a bowl: portion size, shape, heat, what touches the food and who makes it. We have not used these products ourselves. Each pick rests on the Amazon listing and the maker’s own statements. We did not compare outside reviews for this guide, so nothing here is based on another publication’s results, and we note where a listing is thin.

Because these are food-contact dishes, we kept to established makers and left out the many sets from Amazon-first sellers. Each pick was in stock when we wrote this. We checked the CPSC recall database for each maker and found no recall naming these bowls.

Soup bowl questions, answered

What size is a good soup bowl?

For a meal, look for 20 ounces or more. Corelle’s holds 28 and Le Creuset’s holds 22. For a starter, 10 to 14 ounces is enough, as with the Fiesta and Staub bowls.

Are soup bowls with handles better?

They are better for food that goes under the broiler or into the oven, such as French onion soup or baked chili. For soup ladled at the stove, handles add little. Juliska’s handled bowl is rated to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

What is the difference between a soup bowl and a soup plate?

A soup bowl is deep, and a soup plate is wide and shallow with a rim. Soup plates suit a formal first course. Bowls suit a full meal and are harder to spill.

Can you microwave soup bowls?

All seven picks here are listed as microwave safe. Handles and rims can still get hot, so use a towel when you take one out.

Which soup bowls are safe in the oven?

Juliska is rated to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, Corelle to 350 on its six-bowl listing, and Fiesta and Le Creuset are listed as oven safe without a limit on these listings. The Staub, Villeroy & Boch and Pfaltzgraff listings do not state oven use, so keep those to the table.

The soup bowls we would put on the table

Start with the Corelle set if you want one bowl for every day. Add a few Fiesta rimmed bowls for a first course, or the Juliska bowl for anything baked. For other shapes, see our pasta bowls and bowl sets, or our dinnerware sets if you are replacing everything. And if you would rather let someone else make the soup, see the Julia’s menu and call to order at (346) 546-8283.