Equipment Review: The Best Plastic and The Best Glass Food Storage Containers & Our Testing Winners

[Music] whether you're storing leftovers prepping a make-ahead meal or taking a lunch to work you need a food storage container to keep food fresh intact and ready to eat but if you like most people you've got piles of containers that are mismatched cracked warped and stained you could keep repurposing that old yogurt container but maybe it's time to trade up we found tons of new containers claiming to be leak proof airtight microwave safe and more well which actually function as promised and more importantly hold up to serious use over time we like having both plastic and glass containers since each has its advantages plastic is light and less fragile glass won't warp and resist stains and many glass containers are also oven safe so we tested six brands of plastic and five glass containers all about eight cups we didn't include the disposable supermarket brands because those are great for giving away but they're not really built for durability and we did most of the same tests on both plastic and glass containers at first no matter what it's made of we want to container that's leak proof and airtight who lusts to discover their lunch dripped on everything in their bag and we all want to keep our food fresher longer so we poured in two cups of water tinted with food coloring and make the drips easy to spot and then we shipped them hard in all directions for 15 seconds now some didn't last even five seconds before a water gushed out others drizzled out a little stream or a few drops but if you behaved perfectly next we tested to see if they were actually airtight so we put in moisture detecting crystals and then plunge them under water for two minutes now these crystals change from blue to pink at the slightest moisture touches them now some of the containers instantly filled up with water total fail others gave us a few pink crystals so we knew that a bit of moisture had gotten in the best stayed blue meaning they were dry as a bomb now if moisture can penetrate so can air so food gets stale more quickly and in the other direction odors from the food in your container could spread through your fridge which brings us to the next challenge smells and stains now most food storage containers are similar they have a plain box like bottom and fitted with a silicone gasket for a tight seal and flaps her rims that snap down but those gaskets and lid hardware can trap food moisture and odors so we went for it we threw an oil top tuna and anchovies we refrigerated them all overnight and then took out the fish and ran the containers through the dishwasher and then we asked testers to sniff the clean containers looking for fishy odors the bad news we found fishy smells and oil around those gaskets and some of the gaskets were much easier to clean than others some you have to pick out of kinky narrow channels and later shove them back in there but we loved this one that gaskets built into the lid so you can clean under it and this one has a big soft gasket that pops right out with a wide channel you can really get into to clean it and dry it the next problem with stains we stored chilly over a weekend and then we pop the containers right into the microwave until the chili hit a piping hot 160 degrees which is serving temperature now after they went through the dishwasher most of the plastic containers are still deeply stained the glass container didn't stand but their plastic lids did and the type of plastic mattered most of these are polypropylene which turned that familiar orange color this one made of a clear glass like plastic called Triton stayed stain free next we looked at durability any container that only works for a few months is a waste of money if the gasket breaks there goes the seal if the lid and flaps warp you're stuck playing whack-a-mole so to simulate months of use we did abuse testing we opened and closed the containers 100 times and then we ran them through the 50 dishwasher cycles then we repeated every test shaking and submerging storing fish and checking odors storing and heating chili and opening and closing the lids 100 times and finally we filled them with water and knock them off the kitchen counter we froze water in them and we dropped the frozen plastic containers onto the floor some containers burst open one piece snapped off a lid but most of them survived now you might never drop or fumble your container but know yours is unlikely to make a mess gives you peace of mind one more note about opening and closing lids 200 times some of these are total pain especially a glass one with a plastic lid and extremely tight flaps that one was leak-proof but it killed our hands on the other extreme the very easy ones are bad too because they leaked our top choices were comfortable to seal and leak proof at the end of all this testing we had winners for plastic we loved the Rubbermaid brilliants food storage container at $12.99 for the 9.6 cup size it's spacious with a stackable flat shape and a shallow profile that helped food to heat faster and more evenly than deeper containers it's attached gasket is easy to clean and these lit clips reinforce the seal but also pop up to be microwave vents so you can leave the lid on and avoid splatter these extensions stay cool for handling even when the food is hot and best of all the Rubbermaid didn't leak and it made it through all of our testing still looking clear clean and good as new with the glass containers we did one last test heating in the oven now this was a little scary since they all came with long warnings about thermal shock we're fast extreme temperature changes can cause glass to shatter we'd heard borosilicate glass is tougher than soda lime glass we had some containers of each material and they both had equally long warnings so our advice is follow the instructions only put them in a fully preheated oven because ovens can create hotter and colder zones as they preheat and never use them under the broiler in our containers we heated macaroni and cheese and we had no problems now our glass favorite is the ox oh good grips 8-cup smart seal rectangle container for 1499 it's sealed easily and tightly the big soft gasket was easy to clean and this container withstood all of our testing in great condition both are plastic and glass winners come in a wide variety of sizes so you can pick the one that works for you [Music]

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 618,361

Rating: 4.9529648 out of 5

Keywords: america's test kitchen, cooks illustrated, equipment review, product testing, product review, food storage, food storage container, tupperware, meal prep, glass, plastic, kitchen, best, food, cooking, baking, storage, organization, pantry

Id: WprgFWLgguM

Length: 6min 23sec (383 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 05 2018