The 9 Best Pie Weights of 2025, Tested and Reviewed

Pie weights are essential for properly blind baking a pie shell. The weight should be evenly disrupted across the pie shells to hold the dough in place while it sets in the oven, preventing bubbly bottoms and slumped sides. While there are many alternatives to traditional pie weights (dry beans and granulated sugar are popular choices—more on both below), pie weights are a baking tool you can buy once and keep for life. If you’ve got a reliable set of pie weights on hand, there’s no wondering if you’ve got enough dry beans in your cabinet or what to do with the toasted sugar.

While I have my own complicated relationship with pie weights as a professional baker, it recently became time for me to replace the set I lost in a move three years ago. (Read: My pie weights spilled out of their box and all over our moving container.) So, on a hunt for my new pie weights and your new pie weights, I tested nine popular sets, alongside granulated sugar and dry beans as controls. I chose two winners that are truly the best solution for blind baking pies without taking up too much pantry space. 

The Winners, at a Glance

Of all the ceramic pie weights I tested, these had just the right amount of beads for filling a nine- to 11-inch pie shell. While you could buy multiples of other sets (or divide bigger sets), these also had a storage container that made them a perfect one-time purchase that can be maintained easily for plenty of future uses. 

While I tested these pie weights with a smaller set (just eight ounces) they performed as well as the winning weights in terms of even crispness on the pie bottoms with no denting or dimpling. My only caveat? I wish I had two of these half-pound sets or had purchased Mrs. Anderson’s larger set, which has one and a half pounds of beads. Both sets come with thick plastic containers with tight-fitting lids for storage. 

Serious Eats’ former baking editor Stella Parks championed this cheap and effective alternative to pie weights and it works incredibly well. Aim for using about two pounds of sugar for a nine-inch shell. You can reuse the sugar for blind baking about three times before it turns golden, and it can then be used in baking recipes. If keeping this much sugar on hand for blind baking is cumbersome, consider investing in ceramic bead pie weights. 

The Tests

• Blind Bake Pie Test: I used store-bought pie dough to line nine-inch stainless steel pie pans with dough. Before baking, I crimped the pie’s edges and docked their bottoms with a fork. I lined each pie pan with heavy-duty aluminum foil and filled it with a different pie weight. I baked each pie shell on a sheet pan for 20 minutes at 375˚F, then allowed it to cool for 10 minutes with the pie weights in place. After cooling, I removed the foil and pie weights. I recorded the ease of removal and how each pie crust had blind baked in the oven. 
• Control Tests: As with the other pie weights, both beans and sugar were used as control tests. For the beans test, I used two pounds of dried red kidney beans. For the sugar test, I used two and a half pounds of granulated sugar. 
• General Use and Care Tests: Before use, I washed and dried any pie weights that required washing, primarily the ceramic beads. After testing, I washed, dried, and stored each pie weight, noting how easy or hard each of these tasks was. 

What We Learned

Weight Mattered More Than Material

Even weight distribution is key to blind baking—too much weight can cause dimpling in the dough or lead to underbaked areas, while too little weight leads to bubbling and slumping. So having enough of whatever material (weights, beans, or sugar) in an empty pie shell ultimately makes for fewer bubbles, less side slumping, and more even browning. The best pie weight sets weigh between 1.2 and two pounds in total. For example, BC Precision Slingshot Ammo Balls made of carbon steel seem ideal for blind baking but they left the tested pie crust unbaked and heavily dimpled. 

But Ceramic Pie Weights Outperformed Metal

Ceramic pie weights, like the FurRain Ceramic Pie Weights and Mrs. Anderson’s Baking Ceramic Pie Weights, and the granulated sugar control had the most evenly baked crusts of all the different pie weights, while some stainless steel and aluminum weights in similar weight classes came out of the oven with wet, unbaked bottoms. The Jefferson Street Ceramics Clay Pie Weights and Matfer Bourgeat Baking Beans pie weights were particularly bad offenders; both had promising materials (clay and aluminum, respectively) but the tested pie shells were dimpled and underbaked.

Another reason to love ceramic beads? They cool and dry quickly. Cooling quickly means that you can get them back into their storage container faster after washing. As for washing, all beads take about the same time to wash—use a colander to dunk them in hot soapy water, drain, and rinse—but the ceramic beads dry faster than steel or aluminum. This was true of ceramic sets that had more volume but smaller beads, like Jefferson Street Ceramics Clay Pie Weights, as well as the smaller set with bigger beads like Mrs. Anderson’s Baking Ceramic Pie Weights and FurRain Ceramic Pie Weights

Storage Was an Important Consideration 

Having lost my own pie weights a few years ago during the aforementioned moving disaster, I can speak to the need for a reliable pie weights storage solution. If you want to have your pie weights on hand for many years without losing them, look for a set with a container made of sturdy plastic with a tight-fitting lid. Avoid glass jars (they break!) or bags, which can come loose in your cabinet. Although pretty, the mesh bag of Jefferson Street Ceramics Clay Pie Weights was hard to refill and the string was not secure enough to keep the beads in when it was inevitably loosened. I liked the thick plastic containers with tight-fitting lids of FurRain Ceramic Pie Weights and Mrs. Anderson’s Baking Ceramic Pie Weights. 

The Criteria: What to Look for In a Pie Weights

Look for a set of ceramic pie weights in the 1.2 to 2.5-pound range. You can buy multiple sets of one brand if that works for your budget and storage. A sturdy storage container made from thick plastic with a secure lid is a must for making your pie weights useful for years to come. 

Our Favorite Pie Weights

What we liked: Weighing in at just-enough 1.2 pounds of ceramic beads, one set of these pie weights evenly distributed themselves across the pie plate and filled it about halfway. This means if you’re baking with a nine-inch pie pan, you won’t have any bubbly bottoms or slumped sides. Plus, the ceramic construction ensures the bottom will bake evenly as they have enough weight and volume while also insulating the pie crust during baking. These were easy to wash in warm soapy water and they dried quickly. 

What we didn’t like: Do follow the manufacturer’s directions to wash and dry these before use, because they came out of the package dusty! While the storage container is great for, um, storage, it can be hard to move used pie weights from the foil back to the container because of its narrow opening. 

Key Specs

• Material: Ceramic 
• Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Storage container: Heavy-duty plastic with a tight-fitting lid

What we liked: Like my other winning set, these beads are sufficiently weighty. They produced a beautifully parbaked pie crust on the bottom. Like the FurRain beads, they store nicely. I tested with an eight-ounce package but a 1.5-pound container would likely have been tied neck-and-neck with our winner. 

What we didn’t like: A single set is less than $10, making this an affordable option, but at eight ounces, there is not enough volume to hold the pie crust’s side up while baking. That means there was some shrinking and slumping along the sides. An easy solution would be buying multiple eight-ounce sets or buying Mrs. Anderson’s 1.5-pound set of the same beads. 

• Material: Ceramic 
• Weight: 8 ounces
• Storage container: Heavy-duty plastic with a tight-fitting lid

What we liked: Sugar is cheap and readily available! Plus, after a few uses it will turn golden and caramelized, making it delicious for baking. 

What we didn’t like: It will spill a bit as you transfer it in and out of the container and pie shell, plus you’ve got to figure out a storage solution that works for you.  A wide-mouth glass storage jar is ideal for holding the sugar between uses and a canning funnel will help you move the sugar from pie to jar, once cooled. 

Key Specs

• Material: Sugar  
• Weight: Use 2 pounds per pie shell 
• Storage container: Use a zip-top bag or jar with a tight-fitting lid between uses 

The Competition

• Jefferson Street Ceramics Clay Pie Weights: I wanted to love these wonky, imperfect pie weights and would love to test them again, dividing the 2.4 pounds between two shells. I also hated the mesh storage bag because it was hard to refill and spilled when knocked over. 
• Williams Sonoma Pie Weights Jar: Similar to Mrs. Anderson’s, these could be great if you bought two or three sets. The glass storage jar stressed me out because it felt both tiny and highly breakable. 
• Chicago Metallic Pie Weight: This unique weight did a decent job of ensuring a baked bottom thanks to the stainless steel middle, but there was some cracking on the sides where silicone flaps struggled to keep the crust in place. 
• Matfer Bourgeat Baking Beans: I really wanted to like these cool aluminum beans and think they could work in a different portion with fewer beans in the pie shell.  
• Hannah’s Baking Pie Weights Chain: This stainless steel chain actually did a great job preventing bubbles on the bottom of the pan and baked evenly, but with no side support there was lots of slumping. 
• BC Precision Slingshot Ammo Balls: Another too-heavy contender that resulted in a soggy, dimple bottom! Also, the container broke in shipping and I spent some time pulling plastic shards out of the balls before baking. 
• PressPerfect Silicone Pie Weight: This didn’t fit the 9-inch pie shells and it felt like it was missing a side piece to keep the whole thing in place. (Spoiler: It was.) 

FAQs

Do you really need pie weights?

For any pie recipe requiring a parbaked or fully-baked pie shell, yes, you do. Pie weights essentially hold the crust in place as it bakes, which prevents slumping, shrinking, and large bubbles from ruining the shape and structure of the finished pie 

What can be used instead of pie weights?

Dried beans, rice, and sugar can be used instead of pie weights. Our favorite alternative is granulated sugar, as it’s inexpensive and reusable. That said, sugar can be messy to work with and you need a large volume to fill each pie. Pie weights have enough density to hold down crusts without filling the pie pan to the top, plus they are infinitely reusable and won’t leave your work space sticky. 

How heavy are pie weights?

Pie weight sets can vary in size from eight ounces to seven pounds. A set in the 1.5 to 2.5-pound range is the best for most home cooks. 

Can you cook beans after using them pie weights?

You reuse dried beans as pie weights, but you cannot cook them as beans for eating after baking. 

Why We’re the Experts

• Meghan Splawn is a food writer and recipe developer who has worked in food media since 2006. 
• Her work includes 15 years in the test kitchen with Alton Brown as well as at sites including Simply Recipes, TheKitchn.com, and Serious Eats. 
• Meghan’s freezer is fully stocked for holiday pies after baking over 16 pies for this story.