How to Choose Cookware (2014) (opens in new tab)

I appreciate the work that went into this, but it might be overthinking it to the point of turning some people away.

If someone wants to get into cooking their own meals to save money, the advice I would give is: go to Goodwill, or a store like TJ Maxx or Ross, where they sell this stuff for almost nothing. Buy the heaviest skillet and saucepan they have. Then buy a colander, some spatulas, scrapers, and tongs, and an 8-10" chef's knife and, if they have one, a honing steel. When you want to make soup, buy a stock pot. Subscribe to some YouTube channels and recipe blogs, and if they make some dish that looks good, but you don't have the right equipment, buy what they use, or something like it. Don't buy everything on day one, and don't get the impression that you have to get the right model of equipment or cooking somehow won't work.

Non-stick pans are massively overrated. For starters most foods don't stick much - it's mostly eggs that are a problem - and only then if your pan isn't preheated.

For that small benefit, non-stick pans have become almost the default. They last a couple of years depending on care which means that your cookware is now a consumable as well was difficult to recycle. A decent stainless steel pan costs about twice what a decent non-stick does and lasts forever. It can also go in the dishwasher and works on every hob type. The best basic advice for the majority of people to make regarding cookware is: get stainless steel except for when frying eggs.

The advice in TFA is sort of similar but a lot longer. To be honest I think it could have omitted all the "$1000 budget" stuff - the people who want to buy copper/carbon steel aren't doing so based on a starter guide.

I don't understand why the author dismisses carbon steel and cast iron pans. They're my favorite. They last forever and cook great. Go into any restaurant and you'll see mostly cheap, carbon steel pans.

If you are inexperienced enough with cooking that you don't already have your own preferences, this article is way overcomplicating things IMO. Buy a stainless steel frying pan, small pot, and a bigger pot. You might want a nonstick frying pan too, if you aren't sure then just wait a few weeks and see if the stainless steel one is annoying you. Then go from there. That's it.

Later you might want a steamer insert, but they are made so that they fit in any pot. You might also want a baking dish for roasting stuff. There is nothing to know about buying those, just get cheapest one in the size you want.

IKEA's stainless steel cookware is perfectly cromulent.

Why does this have "(2014)" in the title of the post? This article was written, or at least updated, in late 2022 or 2023: "data for 2022 and beyond are still being finalized, so this does not include inflation taking place in 2022 and beyond"

This is good as a survey, but can be easily simplified. 1) Get a duxtop induction portable burner. Around $100-$120. 2) Get a flat bottomed carbon steel wok ($40-$50) 3) Get a carbon steel 8" and 10" frying pan $20 & $30. 4) Get some good sauce pans (Like about $34 Cuisinart), and stock pot

No cast iron - it just takes too long to heat and to cool.

That is really all. Nothing fancy. Turn on the duxtop, it gets hot. To the same temp each time. Turn it off. There is no heat. If you use carbon steel the cooking stops almost immediately.

The need for expensive, fancy pans goes away because the heat is so consistent, reliable and fast. I have tried many ways to stir fry with both gas and electric and they just can't do it. Stir frying with an induction burner and carbon steel wok is a breeze and fun and just works.

As for non-stick. Want to cook eggs that don't stick? Heat the carbon steel until it just starts to smoke. Then add oil and let it smoke a little for 10 or 15 seconds. Done. Add the eggs, no stick.

If you have to cook for twenty people a single duxtop will not work, but then, just get a second one. In my experience that is all there is to it.

I was surprised how fast this article dismissed carbon steel. Carbon steel is my default pan. It’s lighter than cast iron and heats up faster. It’s also not really any heavier than stainless. Plus most the time I just need to gently wipe them clean and then a light coat of oil before I hang them up.

Most my by pans are De Buyer carbon steel. I do have some stainless steel pots and pans for when I need them. A couple cast iron pieces mostly use my Dutch oven.

I don't understand why the author is so dismissive of cast iron cookware. I have a cast iron pan that I inherited that is at least 80 years old. It requires little to no care and works great with my induction stovetop. Let it heat for at least 5 minutes and you have a nice evenly heated surface. I also recently bought a small cast iron rectangle pan for cooking a Japanese omelet - works perfectly. The complaint about cast iron being heavy is valid, but my hands got used to it quickly.

Regarding woks, it's definitely possible to get some nice high temperatures even in the apartment where your only option is electricity. I have a carbon steel wok with a round bottom and I got myself an additional concave induction cooktop from a store that sells equipment to restaurants. I paid about $170 for it, normally it goes for about $300. It is rated 3.5KW and 220C. Frying food for about 10-20 seconds on the highest setting gives it a nice taste like you'd get in a restaurant.

It's Sunday night and I dont want to write a HN reply that has some ulterior business motive. I wanna share how I make eggs and maybe read a reply that gets me to improve.

1) Get some flakey oven biscuits-from-a-tube or thick sliced baguette and have them toasted, buttery, and ready on a plate for just before your eggs wrap up. After making it three times it becomes about obvious how to time these.

2) Get one of those infrared temperature thermometers you can aim down into your pots and pans. I get a pot just smaller than a pyrex bowl and boil water just beneath the bowl, a double boiler. Wait for the water to boil.

3) Toss some eggs (6 eggs is a nice breakfast for two with the biscuits) into the bowl. With a spatula, keep stirring the eggs while you monitor the temperature. Try to keep the temperature near the bottom of the glass around 70C, 160F or so. But keep the eggs constantly stirring. Literally dont put the spatula down once the eggs are in.

4) It can take like 10 minutes, but the eggs will start to thicken; if you're stirring them enough, they will be a homogenous, pleasant orange color. As they start to move beyond paint consistency, they will start to rapidly approach their end of cooking. When they just start to really thicken up, take the bowl out of the pot using a mitten. Bring the bowl to the plates with the biscuits, and put them on the plate.

There is no cheese, no butter required for the eggs. Some salt is nice. I've gotten a lot of compliments for these eggs; this recipe is one of the most common egg recipes out there and I dont know the name for it. My wife calls them 'Frenchy Eggs', I believe because of a technique origin I don't know. A rasher of bacon or ham is a lovely complement but it will not be the star compared to the eggs themselves.

You can spend the rest of the day washing that bowl with a scouring pad.

I looked into these choices in detail from a heavy metal contamination point of view recently.

* Cast iron: this site implies that cast iron may not be safe, but it is the safest option if you need a little iron in your diet- most people do and an iron panel will tell you if your iron levels are too high. Safer than cast iron may be wrought iron- it is less likely to have accidental contamination issues [1]. Darto sells wrought iron pans at a reasonable price [2].

* Stainless steel- also a great option and this site does mention concerns of nickel leaching out. Nickel is not as concerning as lead contamination, but it is a concern for cooking acidic food. This site refers to all low nickel stainless steel as low quality, but there's a potential health advantage here to having a no nickel or low nickel pan even if it doesn't hold up as well.

* Rivets and other issues. I just bought a Noni no nickel stainless steel pan. It's made from a single piece of stainless, including the handle. [3] Rivets in pans can be contaminated with lead.

More details from XRF testing of cookware are here [4]. I also saw some other Century Life articles. They recommend silicone utensils but most silicone is contaminated with low levels of cadmium [5]. Undecorated wood is a safer bet. Century Life also mentions Le Creusset and enameled products without a discussion of lead contaminated. [6]

[1] https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=302979 [2] dartointernational.com [3] https://www.solidteknics.com/solid-products/ [4] https://tamararubin.com/2021/01/i-want-to-buy-some-nontoxic-... [5] https://tamararubin.com/?s=silicone [6] https://tamararubin.com/category/le-creuset-cast-iron/

This read like pan recommendations for people that never intend to learn to properly cook. In which case, there is no point. All pans will perform equally badly.

See the section on cast iron:

>I can’t really recommend cast iron and carbon steel for most people. Cast iron/carbon steel pans are heavy (heavier than any other cookware of comparable size and thus an automatic “no” for anyone with weak wrists/arthritis/etc.), require seasoning and sometimes re-seasoning by burning oil onto its surface (seasoning can wear off, and for those of you trying to escape Teflon nonstick, I’ve found no scientific studies about the long-term health effects of eating tiny particles of seasoning), require care to avoid rust (will all members of your household treat it right, including kids who might decide to soak the pan in water?), unevenly heat up and thus require more babysitting on the stove (constant stirring), can’t be used with acidic foods or the iron leaches and give off-tastes/colors (unless you get enameled cast iron pans but those cost a lot of money and still have the other disadvantages of cast iron, plus enamel is brittle and can chip), typically have horrible handle comfort that also get hot during cooking much faster than stainless handles would, can take longer to clean since you can’t just use abrasives or scour like you could with stainless steel, and takes a long time to heat up and cool down (which can hurt unaware pets/kids and also means higher energy bills). Cast iron is fine for low-heat stovetop cooking or oven use, but it’s not all-purpose the way other pans can be. You don’t even need a cast iron pan for searing: it’s a myth that only cast iron/carbon steel hold enough heat to sear meat without collapsing in temperature. Sure, thin aluminum nonstick pans crash hard in temperature. But thicker aluminum and copper pans can match or even beat cast iron, and the aluminum/copper-based pans also spread heat much more evenly. That’s not to say that you can’t cook with cast iron on the stovetop, but if the objective is to make cooking easier so that you’re more likely to eat healthy home cooking, then most people would be better off with something lower-maintenance and easier to use

It's tough to put into words how wrong this is. I'll agree on comfort, but I'll follow it up by saying it matters little. If you can't maintain cast iron because it's too complicated, you probably aren't an accomplished enough cook to be hand tossing things in the pan. Use both hands to move it, and a wooden spoon to stir with.

The list goes on: requires seasoning (yes, put it upside down in a hot oven for an hour with a thin layer of oil - simpler than cooking even the most basic of recipes), re-seasoning (with non-stick this is the point where you'd throw the pan out), there have been scientific studies that show health benefits, they heat unevenly and slowly, so just add 1-2 minutes preheating,

The great thing about cast iron for new cooks is that you cannot ruin them. Throw cold water in. Leave it to soak in the sink. Try your best to scratch it with a metal spatula. Leave tomatoe sauce in it overnight. In a year when your non-stick teflon pan is sticking, and your stainless steel tri-ply is coming apart, and your alumimun pan warped, get out the scrubber, scrub the rust off your cast iron, put a thin coat of vegetable oil on it, flip it over and bake it in the oven for an hour. Good as new.

In my experience, most people don't want good cookware -- the new generation doesn't even seem to own any sort of cookware at all, they live on take-away.

A large anodized aluminium sauté pan is probably the best for normies, preferably on induction, while foodies will want carbon steel and an overpowered gas stove.

The true aficionados will also have silver-plated hand-hammered copper to do their Michelin star sauces.