Over my years I’ve owned many types of non-stick pans. Judge me as you see fit, but I’ve owned Teflon, stainless steel, ceramic, and cast iron pans, but none of them seem to stay “non-stick” for more than a few years. I’ve had the best luck with cast iron, but my wife doesn’t like to use them because they’re heavy. I hand wash them all with soap and water, but they all seem to lose their ability to shed off what I cook in them. Does anyone have any recommendations for a good non-stick pan?
EDIT: It seems like the consensus is on cast iron, or ceramic steel. I just looked it up, and there are “slim” cast iron pans, so maybe that’ll be a happy medium. Thanks for all the anecdotes and suggestions folks.
Carbon steel is pretty great, and costs the same in my experience (paid 20e for my De Buyer).
However you still need to season them and most importantly you need to be careful how acidic your foods are. Cook some tomatoe sauce, seasoning will be gone unless it’s been built up for at least a year.
That’s good to know. We must’ve purchased something more expensive. And good point with seasoning build up.
I didn’t know that about acidic food, thank you! Luckily, I’ve been using enameled cast iron for sauces for a long while now. I need to replace our nonstick with carbon steel!
but also the seasoning really isn’t that difficult to reapply, wipe some oil onto it with a bit of paper and put it in the oven for like an hour or whatever it is.
An aged seasoning is great but AFAIK they work perfectly fine with a basic seasoning, and frankly given the state most pans are in i don’t think people would even notice a difference between their current pan an an unseasoned carbon steel one…
Agree about not dificult to reapply, just need to know that it will go out and you’ll have to reapply