If you've ever eaten a Moroccan tagine, you know the pot is doing more than just holding the food. The conical lid traps steam and sends it circling back down over the meat and vegetables, basting them slowly for hours until everything falls apart at the touch of a fork. Buying your first tagine, though, means facing a wall of options: glazed or unglazed, 25cm or 35cm, "for cooking" or "for serving." Here's what actually matters.
Cooking Tagine vs Serving Tagine — Know the Difference First
Not every tagine on a shelf is built to sit over direct heat. Cooking tagines are made from thicker, denser clay designed to withstand a flame or oven temperature, while serving tagines are decorative pieces meant to keep food warm at the table after it's been cooked elsewhere.
Our Handmade Moroccan Tagine and the striped cooking tagines are built for the stove and oven. The Moroccan Ceramic Serving Tagine and the smaller Tazekka mini serving tagine are the ones you bring out at the table — for the main dish, or for smaller sides like olives, dips, or bread. If you only want one tagine and plan to actually cook in it, start with a cooking tagine; you can always add a serving piece later.
Glazed vs Unglazed: Which Should You Buy?
Traditional Moroccan tagines are made from either glazed ceramic or unglazed terracotta, and the choice affects both how you cook and how you look after the pot.
Glazed tagines have a smooth, coloured interior and exterior finish. They're easier to clean, less porous, and generally more forgiving for a first-time buyer, since food doesn't cling to the surface the way it can with raw clay. Our glazed cooking tagines, like the red and blue striped versions, fall into this category and work well over a low-to-medium hob flame or in the oven.
Unglazed terracotta tagines are closer to what you'd find in a Moroccan souk kitchen. They're more porous, which some cooks believe adds a subtle earthiness to slow-cooked dishes, but they need to be seasoned before their first use and treated a little more carefully afterward — we cover that process in detail in our tagine seasoning guide, which is worth reading before you cook in an unglazed pot for the first time.
What Size Tagine Do You Actually Need?
Tagines are usually sized by the diameter of the base, and the right size depends on how many people you're cooking for, not how much you like the look of a big one.
As a rough guide: a 25cm tagine suits one or two people, or a smaller side dish; 30cm comfortably feeds two to four; and 35cm is the size to reach for if you're cooking for a family or want leftovers. Our 30cm tagine is available across this full size range, so it's a good place to compare against your usual pan sizes before deciding. Bear in mind that a tagine's cooking chamber is shallower and wider than a stockpot of the same "size," so don't assume it holds the same volume.
Cooking With a Tagine: Stovetop, Oven, or Both
Most ceramic tagines sold today are made to work on a gas or electric hob, as well as in the oven, but always check the specific product before assuming — thin decorative pieces are not built for direct heat. A few practical rules apply across the board:
Start low and build heat gradually. Ceramic and clay expand as they heat, and a pot put straight onto a high flame can crack from thermal shock. If you're using an electric or induction hob, a heat diffuser between the tagine and the element spreads the heat more evenly and reduces stress on the base. In the oven, tagines generally do best at moderate temperatures (around 160-180°C) over a longer stretch of time — this is precisely the slow, steady cooking a tagine is designed for, rather than a quick blast at the top of the dial.
Once you've cooked, resist the urge to plunge a hot tagine into cold water or a cold sink — the sudden temperature change is one of the most common causes of cracking. Let it cool on the stovetop or a trivet first.
Caring for Your Tagine Between Uses
Glazed tagines are generally hand-wash only; the glaze can handle water well, but repeated dishwasher cycles and abrasive scourers will dull the finish over time. Unglazed terracotta needs gentler treatment still — a soak and a soft brush rather than soap, which can be absorbed into the porous clay and affect the flavour of future dishes.
Whichever you choose, store the lid slightly ajar or off the base between uses so trapped moisture doesn't sit inside the pot, and let a newly washed tagine air-dry fully before putting it away.
Finding the Right Tagine for Your Kitchen
A tagine is a genuinely practical piece of cookware once you know what you're looking at — the choice between glazed and unglazed, cooking and serving, and the right size for your table, matters more than which colour you pick. Browse our full Moroccan tagines collection to compare cooking and serving pieces side by side, and if you're planning your first proper tagine dinner, our traditional lamb tagine recipe is a solid place to start.