Pyrex Simply Store 18-Piece Glass Food Storage Set Review: The Boring Workhorse Everyone Eventually Owns
The Pyrex Simply Store 18-piece set is the food storage equivalent of buying a Toyota Camry — it is not exciting, it is not optimized, but it just keeps working for a decade while you toss its plastic competitors in the recycling bin. After years of these containers cycling through fridges, freezers, ovens, and dishwashers in homes I've actually used them in, my verdict is simple: the glass is great, the lids are the catch, and at around $38 for nine containers and nine lids it is still the best entry point for anyone moving off plastic.
What you're actually buying
The set is nine tempered borosilicate-style glass containers (Pyrex's modern U.S.-made formulation is soda-lime glass, which matters for thermal shock — more on that below) paired with nine BPA-free plastic snap-on lids. The mix typically includes one 7-cup round, one 6-cup rectangle, two 4-cup rounds, two 3-cup rectangles, two 2-cup rounds, and one 1-cup round. Lids are color-coded so you can match shapes by glance in a packed cupboard.
Everything is dishwasher, microwave, fridge, and freezer safe. The glass itself is oven-safe; the lids are not. There is no silicone gasket and no locking clamp — these are simple press-on lids, which is part of why they are cheap and part of why they leak when carried sideways in a bag.
The set is sold under the "Simply Store" line and has been one of Pyrex's evergreen Amazon best sellers for years. It is genuinely the same hardware your mother-in-law uses.
Performance and real-world use
Glass storage lives or dies on three things: does food stay fresh, does it survive the dishwasher and freezer cycle, and does it leak when stacked in a fridge. Pyrex is two-for-three.
Food keeps well. The press-on lids create a decent seal against air for fridge storage and the glass does not absorb odors or stain from tomato sauce, curry, or beets — a common failure mode for plastic. Microwaving leftovers directly in the container, with the lid removed or vented, works exactly like you'd expect.
Thermal handling is the area where expectations need to be calibrated. Modern Pyrex sold in the U.S. is tempered soda-lime glass, not the borosilicate of the pre-1998 era. It handles a wide temperature range but is not invincible: do not pull a container out of the freezer and put it directly into a hot oven, and do not place a hot container on a cold or wet surface. Follow that rule and breakage is rare across years of normal use; ignore it and you will eventually have a bad day.
Where the system actually disappoints is the lids. Press-on plastic lids do not survive forever — they crack at the rim under repeated dishwasher heat, they don't seal liquid for upright transport, and replacement lids are sold separately. After two or three years of heavy use, the lids age out well before the glass does. This is universal across affordable glass-storage brands, but it's the single largest source of one-star reviews on this exact set.
Stackability is fine. Round containers nest within their size; rectangles stack flat. The 18-piece footprint takes about one cabinet shelf when stored organized.
- Nine genuinely useful sizes covering everything from leftover sauce to a full casserole's worth of meal prep.
- Glass is dishwasher, microwave, fridge, freezer, and oven safe (lids off for the oven) — the most format-flexible storage at this price.
- Does not stain, retain odors, or leach into food, which solves the largest practical problem with plastic.
- Color-coded lids make matching shape to container painless in a busy cabinet.
- Pyrex sells replacement lids individually, so a chipped lid does not retire the whole container.
- At roughly $38 list, this is the cheapest legitimate path into all-glass food storage as a starter system.
- Plastic press-on lids are the weak link — they crack at the rim over time and are not leak-proof for sideways transport in a lunch bag.
- Modern Pyrex is soda-lime glass, not the legacy borosilicate; it will break under aggressive thermal shock (freezer-to-oven, hot glass on a wet counter).
- No silicone gasket and no locking clamps, so this is a fridge/freezer/microwave set, not a take-it-to-work set.
- Round containers are space-inefficient compared with all-rectangular systems if your fridge is small.
- Lids fade and warp slightly after extended dishwasher use even when they don't crack.
You're moving off plastic, you want a complete starter set in one purchase, and most of your use is reheating leftovers in the microwave or storing prepped components in the fridge. You're fine swapping a cracked lid every few years. You want something boring that will still be in your kitchen in 2032.
If you carry lunch containers upright in a bag with soup or saucy food, get a proper leak-proof system with silicone gaskets and locking clamps (Glasslock, OXO Smart Seal, or similar) — Simply Store will leak on you. If your fridge is tight and you want maximum stack efficiency, an all-rectangular glass set is a better space match. And if you specifically want true borosilicate for extreme thermal-shock work like going straight from freezer to a 400°F oven, this is not that product.
