Enjoy Your Favorite Dishes with Belly-Shaped Cookware

Turn to belly-shaped cookware when you're preparing larger portions of your favorite soups and stews. Cookware essentials like these pots are great for batch cooking, family meals and dinner parties. Our belly pots aren't just practical, they're a work of art with their shiny hammered copper design and hand-cast bronze detail on the lid. Discover how you can incorporate a belly pot into your home cooking.

Ways to Use a Belly Pot

Not only is belly-shaped cookware good for making soup or stew, but it's also good for preparing pasta and rice-based dishes. You can also use these pots for cooking beans and vegetables, as well as other grains. Explore our favorite cookbooks and find other soup, pasta and stew recipes that would cook well with your new belly pot.

Belly pots can hold large volumes of food and liquid. Choose your belly pot based on how much you plan to cook. We have pots that hold three-and-a-half quarts and five-and-a-half quarts. A good rule of thumb when cooking for several people is to assume that one quart will serve one person and so forth.

If you need soup and stock pots that will make even larger quantities, we have those too. Some of our pots hold up to 16 quarts. These large-capacity pots are ideal for a variety of food preparation needs. Use them for home canning or make a spaghetti feast for large family gatherings.

What are the Features of Belly-Shaped Cookware?

The Ruffoni brand is known for making elegant and durable pots. Some of the Ruffoni options you'll find at Williams Sonoma feature unique shapes. These shapes are inspired by the classic Italian bean pot. Some of their pots feature a narrow profile along the neck that helps reduce and minimize evaporation.

Ruffoni pots are made from copper. Copper cookware offers reliable heat conductivity. It excels at providing an even distribution of heat across the pan and helps ensure uniform and thorough cooking of your food. Copper is also naturally antibacterial.

Hammered copper can help in the heat distribution process and it's aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Our Ruffoni pots feature this exquisite hand-hammered copper detail on the outside and a tin lining inside. Ornamental detail on the lid adds an elegant flourish to complete the overall look of the pot.

With copper's naturally beautiful design, you might want to serve dishes from the belly pot at the table - on a trivet of course! When they aren't being used, belly pots are great for displaying in the kitchen too.

When you're ready to serve your stew or pasta out of your belly pot, don't forget to have the right kitchen tools on hand, like a slotted spoon or a ladle, for dishing up. If you're using copper belly pots, make sure to use utensils made from wood or silicone. These materials are safer for using with copper. Choose from options like an olivewood straining spoon or a silicone ladle. Our olivewood spoon comes from sustainably sourced wood and features a super-smooth finish. Silicone is durable and flexible and it won't absorb odors.

Make sure that you take care of your new belly-shaped cookware. Learn more about caring for your cookware. Get tips as you explore the best ways to use and maintain your copper pots. Copper cookware can last for years and years with proper care.