Ask Lemmy

Cast iron pans are fucking heavy. As soon as I tried picking one up, I knew I don't want to cook with that on a regular basis.

I have gone through several non stick pans and they all suck because they will wear out relatively quickly. Eventually things will start to stick, and then you are in trouble because you have to treat them gently to avoid scraping off the nonstick coating, so you end up in a catch 22 situation where you can't actually scrub stuff off without making it worse.

I switched to a stainless steel pan about a year ago and I love it. The weight is somewhere in between cast iron and most nonstick pans. I've never had anything get horribly stuck to it, and it's not difficult to clean because you can use abrasive sponges or whatever without damaging it.

As someone who learned way more about pans than I really want to know, let me say that a good cook can make good food in any pan, however some pans are more suited to tasks than others.

First off, searing meat in a non-stick pan (traditionally Teflon) is a bad idea, the pan can reach temperatures that produce toxic gases, and are known to kill birds that are more sensitive to them than we are. The coating that makes them nonstick isn't very durable and will at most last a few years before being useless. While other kinds of pans are likely to outlive you.

Other common pans include cast iron, stainless steel, carbon steel, and ceramic non-stick (non-toxic, but are delicate)

Specifically for searing meets, my favorite is stainless steel. It holds heat similar to cast iron, but is slightly more conductive and can transfer a lot of heat to sear meat. Meat also literally bonds to pan and can be used to make great flavorful sauces with deglazing. Cleanup is easy, if anything is really stuck just boil water in it to loosen. Alternatively stainless steel holds up decent in a dishwasher. Cleanup can't be easier than automatic. However, stainless steel is still quite heavy.

For general purpose cooking my personal favorite is carbon steel. It's seasoned like cast iron and can be quite nonstick, but is much lighter making it feel very similar to nonstick pans, which are made with aluminum.
I won't lie, seasoning has a learning curve. Seasoning is very tough under some circumstances, and very delicate under others. Notably acid will eat the seasoning away.

Cast iron is great, but it is so heavy that it is inconvenient to use.

All will work with induction, except for cheap aluminum nonstick pans

Give cast iron a try. It's cheap, lasts forever, and can be just as non stick as any "non stick" pan. Just clean it out and oil it again after use.. Or leave it be.. I'm not here to start a cast iron cleaning war

Duck non-stick.

Treated myself to Le Creuset and will probably never have to buy something again lol.

Cast iron has a crap ton of mass compared to other pans you mentioned, so if you're searing a stake you're going to have a more consistent temp as the temperatures of the pan and the steak equilize. Enough to make a difference? No idea but it could possibly have something to it there

Different tools for different jobs. There's a ton more variables at play. Oversimplifying does just that.

Play with it all. Try to do both. Then you will have a better idea. Or post on lemmy asking everybody and read a lot of incomplete and possibly misleading explanations that might help you find the detail(s) you lack to edge your mind into a wider hunger for deeper understanding.

Mine? Cast iron is just different. Like using a truck vs using a car.

In real life, nothing is clear. So, when people give you clear explanations, they may be making the decision to not invest a lot of energy trying to get you to understand or know more. Like right now, I know that spectrum people take a lot of explaining sometimes, and I am really tired and going to bed, so my best advice is to understand they're different. Learn by doing if you can, and learn from others if you can. But, if it means anything, I use two cast iron skillets, three types of stainless steel pans, some of them tri-ply, and an aluminum with a nonstick coating. I have my preferences not just for different things, but styles of certain things, and even times for different things (like just cooking for me, or one other person, or multiple other people).

Also, generally with non-stick, using high heat or metal utensils on it will ruin it and expose you to pretty bad chemicals basically immediately. But also so does any smoke in general.

Literally pick your poison.

Pan make food hot. But cold food make flimsy lightweight pan less hot too. Food just sort of simmers while sometimes you want scorching.

Cast iron, or heavy bottom stainless steel pan, stays hot while food touches the pan. More energy is stored in hot heavy bottom pan. Food gets scorched and this gives more roasty toasty flavour, which is better in my opinion. If you don't care for this, don't.

Also, heavy bottoms spread heat more evenly so everything is cooked at same speed (not the middle of the pan faster like most non-stick pans).

The solution to all this mess is to buy good quality pans that meet your cooking needs and learn how to care for them, I have cast iron that belonged to my grandparents, I also have good nonstick pans,stainless pans and carbon steel they all have their uses. But if someone just wants a pan and doesn't cook alot I would go with carbon steel, it's more expensive, but you will probably only buy it once, (Vimes boots)and it does most thing well enough.

I can’t comment on the various toxicities…but I was a high-end chef for 20 years. Stainless (proper stainless, with a high quality underside) and cast iron pans were essential for their respective purposes. Non-stick pans generally weren’t used outside of breakfast in kitchens without a flattop. Copper was a gimmick for homeowners…never saw one in a kitchen. My understanding was the copper was on the outside and the shtick was it was supposed to regulate heat better…BS AFAIK…it just made them look slick and therefore easier to sell.

Stainless are the go-to for searing and sautées…nothing is going to stick if you know what you’re doing and monitor the pan. Cast iron was for things you started on the stovetop and moved to the oven to finish…and/or for things you blacken or crust. In my experience the same effect can be achieved with a stainless pan (never buy a pan with a plastic handle that can’t go in the oven and always cook with a hot-cloth)…but some chefs swear by cast iron for niche purposes and they’re certainly easier to clean and last longer, even if they’re useless for sauteeing (square shape).

Oh…woks can compliment stainless pans for sauteeing if you have people who know what they’re doing with them…you pretty much can’t leave a wok unattended…but they get the best results for what they’re made for (stir fry, fried rice, etc).

Gas is the only choice for proper heat regulation. All the other elements are out of the question for proper cooking.

Sometimes it's not about metal hot. It's about how fast or slowly metal gets hot.

A lot of pans are made of stamped sheet metal and quite thin. They get hot very fast, they cool down very fast. With something like a gas burner, you can get a ring of very hot metal where the flames are, and relatively cool metal everywhere else.

Cast iron is thicker, and has a lot more thermal mass. It heats up slower, it evens that heat out, and it hangs onto that heat.

If you were to try to bake cornmeal in a sheet steel pan, it would burn. The metal would get too hot too fast. I prefer cast iron for making rues as well, because you get much more even heat.

Sometimes you do want a lighter pan for concentrated high-heat applications. Woks are designed for cooking over a very hot, very concentrated flame so there's one very hot spot in the pan, perfect for stir frying.

If you know what you're doing, you can cook non-stick in a stainless pan, it just takes some oil. Famously, cast iron pans can be "seasoned" or coated with a thin layer of extremely smooth polymerized oil which forms a non-stick surface, like DIY teflon.

So, honestly, I would recommend having a couple of each and choose the pan for the kind of cooking you're doing.

Yes

I personally cook with a mix of stainless, high carbon, and cast iron and have moved on from gas to induction, with loving my induction and steel pan combo.

I don't care for non-stick due to its short lifespan, not great a searing, and having to replace them every couple of years creating waste and chemicals.

I've found that cast iron with a properly done seasoning and just a little bit of oil, which come on almost no one is cooking without a little bit of oil, I've got a perfectly great non-stick surface that can do eggs, including omurice, and salmon without anything sticking and cleanup is fine, if I get some stuck bits, just take a plastic scraper and then just clean as normal with or without soap depending (yeah, keep it to yourself purists)

My two cents

Non stick: alright for eggs and other relatively low temperature stuff. Make sure you only use rubber, plastic, or other soft utensils, and never clean it with a scraper or steel wool. The surface of the non stick is fine as far as I know, but if you go deeper by getting too hot or scraping with something too hard, you can expose the toxic chemicals.

Stainless: my go to. Use whatever utensils you want, and clean it however you want. The main thing to make it non stick is heat the pan up hot enough that when you splash a bit of water on it, it beads up and scatters. Then use plenty of oil. The main downside is you usually can't put them in the oven.

Cast iron: better in use than stainless, but harder to clean. Upside is you can use whatever with them, and you can swap between oven and stove. Downside is you can't clean them the same way as anything else.

Consumer reports does a non-stick pan test where they fry an egg without oil repeatedly until it starts to stick. The point is that normal use degrades non stick surfaces, so every non-stick pan, no matter how fancy, will one day be garbage.

Don't get me wrong, I use both non-stick and metal surface pans. I think they both have their place, but I think of non-stick pans as expendable.

Yes. Cast iron is best. It and high carbon steel are the only real "non stick" because thyre the only ones you can season. Dont use "nonstick" pans they are just pollutants and give you cancer. Seasoning cast iron is easy (really... Do less! Stop reaming it and scrubbing it to death... just get it really hot and wipe it). Cast iron last forever... these other things become garbage in 1-5 yrs

No. It’s more versatile than most pans, but that starts and ends with “you can put it in the oven”.

The cast iron cult is just as other weird subculture that developed from people who are online too much. They’re pans. They’re fine.

Never buy non-stick unless it's labeled PFAS-free. PFAS, also called "forever chemicals", are persistent organic pollutants which are a great way to fuck up the whole ecosystem

Stainless is just a piece of metal. Indestructible. No rules. Requires some skill to avoid food sticking, but it is doable. You can cook anything, anyhow and clean it however you want.

Non-stick is... well, non-stick, but there's a ton on rules. No metal, no dishwasher, no stacking, ... However they are really non-stick, no skill required.

Cast iron is like a middle ground. You cannot ruin the pan, but you can easily ruin the coating: no wine, no tomato, no lemon, no soap, no dishwasher, etc. And the non-stick effect is weaker than Teflon or ceramic, it still requires skill to use.

As a hobby cook I have never gotten into cast iron, I use 90% stainless steel and 10% non stick (mainly for pancakes) and for my wife who doesn't want to fiddle with temperatures with stainless.