To me, someone who celebrates a bit more of the spectrum than most: Metal hot. Make food hot.
Non-stick means easier cleanup, but my wife seems to think cast-iron is necessary for certain things (searing a prime rib roast, for example.).
After I figure those out, then I gotta figure out gas vs. electric vs. induction vs infrared…
It’s a tool. Like a hammer.
Hammer hit nail, nail go in. But if you look for hammers you’ll quickly find that there’s a dozen or so different hammers available, all of which make nail go in.
Different hammers are for different types of hitting things.
Different cooking pans are for different types of cooking. All of them make food go hot.
Stainless steel make food go hot and also make pan sauce and clean real easy. But food sometimes stick. This is considered a feature, not a flaw.
Non stick make food go hot but food no stick. Doesn’t last very long but it’s very easy to clean. If you really love eggs they’re a necessity.
Cast iron make food go hot and stay hot longer. But they don’t heat very evenly and they’re hard to clean, this is also considered a feature by… Certain people…
For some reason there’s a community of gooners for cast iron. I cook a lot and have long since abandoned 99% of my cast iron cookware. The only things that survived was a burger press and a Dutch oven that has a ceramic glaze on it so it’s easy to keep clean. I find that for just make food go hot, cast iron is not as good at it as stainless steel is. But if I’m making a stew, or bread, or frying something, a really big cast iron vessel really is the best thing. It stays at a temperature longer than anything else does, and that matters in specific applications.
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
Induction > glass ceramic (infrared) > gas > cast iron electric > fire
Why ceramic over gas? Because gas is a bit more responsive but
- Needs extra infrastructure
- Safety risk
- Not sustainable and climate warming
And btw, why is induction still more expensive than ceramic? It’s not that new a tech anymore.
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).
It fits the bill of cheap and reliable, but not “modern”*. The heat retention is very useful, and handling the surface of the pan itself is easy when you’re using it to cook constantly.
Non-stick more often than not is going to be cheap and modern, but not reliable because high quality non stick pans are expensive (or people opt for enamel instead because of low quality PTFE/PFAS that both scrapes off easily and can’t handle high heat which is dangerous, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-eBmPSqd4g)
I would argue the “upgrade” to cast iron is carbon steel, which is much more common as a wok material. You get a nice balance between affordable, reliable, and modern.
- *By modern, I just mean the underlying technology. Cast iron is pretty old and has its own flaws you have to deal with, and it lacks some of the nice features of newer materials.
gas vs. electric vs. induction vs infrared…
The tier list is: Induction (most responsive heat control) Gas (Slightly less responsive heat control Infrared (Electric, much slower) Electric (direct heating element, as slow as infrared but lacks the heat retention, have not seen these outside bargain basement cheapo units landlords like to put in apartments solely to screw with your ability to cook food normally)
Gas and Induction is always preferable because infrared is slow enough to be at the best annoying and at the worst less forgiving if you mess up the temperature. Induction comes with the great advantage that it doesn’t require a special gas line, and you can actually buy single unit cooktops for pretty cheap, but do keep in mind that induction only works on magnetic metals (won’t work with pure copper or aluminum).
Reddit has a fucking hard-on for cast iron. I’m not really a fan.
I don’t use teflon non-stick but have had good results with ceramic-based non-stick. My second choice would be carbon steel, which has a similar “seasoning” process as cast iron, but I find carbon steel easier to work with compared to cast iron.
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.
My family uses our cast iron skillets daily. We have one that is almost exclusively for eggs, and one for meat.
Cast iron wants to be used often and if you really like cooking, will eventually become your go-to. But not everyone gets there; for a lot of people it is counterintuitive to have a pan that you only scrub any bits off and rinse with plain water. Actually, our egg pan only gets wiped out with paper towels because its so slippery now. I don’t think I’ve scrubbed it in months.
If you really want to use your pans:
- Best: cast iron
- Better: stainless steel or enameled
- Good: high quality nonstick like HexClad
- Never: cheap non-stick
We use the absolute hell out of our cast iron and our stainless steel. They all get scrubbed with a metal Chore-Boy scrubbee. Only the stainless gets soap.
hexclad is not high quality. the metal on the pan creates hundreds or thousands of edges for the teflon to seperate from the pan into your food
I mean honestly you should be using soap and water on it and not just wiping it out. It doesn’t hurt anything to you soap and water. I use cast iron daily I’ve got six odd pans or something like that that I use and not ever had one issue with utilizing the soap and water on it.
Why? There’s nothing on my pans except seasoning when I use them. I scrub any food bits off after each use. Why would I need soap? What would I want the soap to do?
“seasoning”
Doesn’t the soap weaken the seasoning, causing it to flak off faster?
No when everything used to be lye based and acidic, sure. Soap has changed, and we know better now. If you have seasoning flakes off, it’s not seasoning.
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
Metal hot. Makes food hot. Yes.
But!!
Cold food makes hot pan cold.
Cast iron has a lot of thermal mass, so when you put a cold piece of meat on it it doesn’t immediately get cold and stop cooking for a bit. Thin pans without it don’t keep hot, hot so they don’t sear long enough and you don’t get the maillard reaction and the tasty brown crust.
This is exactly what I was going to say. More hot stuff means the temperature spikes get flattened.
Very useful for electric ranges.
Define “better”.
It’s heat- when preheated properly- is much more even and it holds it quite a bit better. This of course, requires preheating (and that takes a long moment.)
when properly seasoned and oiled, the pan is genuinely nonstick to the same degree as most PTFE pan out there (without all the nasty plastics flaking off, and able to be get up to a proper temperature for searing in the first place…) But of course, this means keeping your pan properly seasoned.
I’m not a fan of lodge cast iron, though, IMO its too much work to develop and maintain that level of seasoning (because of it’s surface. Victoria is a better inexpensive option if you’re looking to buy new.) But I also rock a lodge when camping (Because I don’t want to subject my really nice, inherited stuff to campfire cooking.) but cast iron can take the abuse of cooking right on coals and other campfire torture (like being cleaned with sand.)
Of course, you have to clean up/care for that camp pan after the fact.
The point being made is that everyone has a different understanding of what is “best”, cast iron does require a significant investment in maintenance and care. For me, the effort is worth it. for many it’s not.
for what cast iron does well, it’s amazing. And really, the biggest problem is that it’s not so good for acidic things (which eats away the seasoning, but that’s more like ‘don’t try and make a pasta sauce’ rather than “don’t splash in some citrus.”
This is factually wrong from the jump.
Cast iron does not heat evenly.
Cast iron quite specifically is very good at heat retention. Heat distribution suffers as a consequence. What you’re seeing as heat distribution is the consequence of having to preheat your pan for so long.
Cast iron is horrible at heat distribution and responsiveness.
I recently got an induction stove (not even one of the expensive ones) and am so blown away by how fast it can heat up cast iron pans. It’s seconds, not minutes.
I mean I’m sure it’s pretty much instant with pans of lower mass, but instant isn’t what I need.
Oh yeah. actually have to be careful to not heat it too quickly, though. I’m not sure what that threshold is, though. Inductive cooktops are lovely, though. Much better than electric cooktops, and lacking in all the unpleasant pollution of gas.
Cast iron is vastly superior to non stick. You can get it hotter, it stays hot when you put food in it, you can use metal utensils, no horrible chemicals like pfas.
they also last significantly longer. I’m using pans I got from my grandma. She got them from her mom. and If i had kids, they’d probably get them after I was done with them.
My favorite pan is from the 70s and I got it out of tge trash.
Glad you rescued it and gave it a better home!
This is a HUGE “Yes, but.”
Entering adulthood, I got cheap run of the mill non stick pans, they work until they dont.
Then we tried cast iron. Gotta oil it, cure it, and don’t use soap to wash it. Some extra work, but it worked great.
Now, I’m rocking stainless steel. Less work than the cast iron, but you need to preheat the pan before you put anything in it. If you do this, it’s just as nonstick as the others, and it’s a lot lighter and easier than the iron, and I think they are less expensive than cast iron, but I haven’t compared in a very long time.
Yea that’s the part that keeps me from cast iron.
Not being able to wash it normally just sounds weird and nasty to me.
And two the whole having to season your pan… God damn I’ve got a million things to worry about and barely time to make food, I don’t have time to be giving a hot oil massage to my pans…
FYI, you can wash cast iron with soap.
Not using soap is a hold over from when soaps were more caustic (e.g. lye soap).
FYI, you can wash cast iron with soap.
Only if you re-season it afterwards. Otherwise it starts to rust because the seasoning is what protects it from oxidation
If your seasoning rinses off with mild soap and water, you might want to try some different seasoning methods. That might mean using a different oil, different temperature, longer heat time for the seasoning, etc. Or you might want to season it with thinner layers of oil multiple times in a row.
Really not. See the lye comments.
I generally wash with dish soap and a chainmail scrubber, then dry with a paper towel. If I remember I might spread a tiny amount of oil.
Yeah I could do better but the point is I’ve done almost nothing to care for them in years.
Pure iron oxidizes without the high carbon content to make it stainless and will absolutely rust if you don’t at least oil it after washing with soap, but seasoning it properly definitely makes a difference in how it cooks.
I own 4 different size/shape cast iron and I speak from experience. Any decent dish soap will still strip the oils that are acting as a barrier to the open air and oxidation, doesn’t have to be lye-based
Stainless steel is made with chromium, not carbon.
Carbon steel makes good knives, but will definitely rust.
Cast iron is extremely forgiving of improper treatment. And even if it eventually rusts, you can fix it. I’ve been using cast iron as my primary skillets since pandemic. I know I don’t treat them like I should, but they’re not yet rusted, still have an easy to clean surface that food doesn’t stick to. I’ll probably have to reseason eventually but if that’s not until I’d normally have to replace non-stick, I’m way ahead without putting in any extra work
Edit: sure, standard three cast iron skillets, and cast iron Dutch oven. I also have a set of stainless pans, and some induction ready non-stick for company
It only oxidizes when water can reach the iron. If you have a good seasoning on it, mild dish soap can’t lift it off, and water can’t reach the iron.
Making sure it’s completely dry (I dry mine with heat on the stove) and adding a thin layer of oil is a good idea too. There are often parts of the pan that aren’t well seasoned. On mine, it’s the part that touches the stove that’s most likely to rust.
Thanks for the tip. I saw many people saying both sides, so I figured I’d just avoid soap and not find out for myself.
If you wash your cast iron with eg Dawn dish soap, you can definitely clean it down to bare metal and it will rust. I usually will clean the cast iron pan last and use the sponge that just has a small amount of soap left in it. Just watch it as you clean, if the shiny hard coating seems to be going away, rinse out the soap and make something greasy next time you use the pan to replenish it.
If you have a good seasoning, it won’t wash off. “Seasoning” is the process of polymerizing oil. That hardens the oil and binds it to the surface. You’re more likely to burn the seasoning off or to scratch the seasoning and have it flake off than take it off with dish soap.
Whether you use soap or not, dry it on the stove and give it a light coat of oil after you clean it.
Thank you for helping to dispel this myth. It is truly disgusting the state that some people leave their cast iron pans in, the fact that people eat the food from them after not having washed it for years is terrifying.
The pans regularly get above boiling temperatures. They’re sterile
Sterile and clean aren’t the same thing.
Then wipe it with a paper towel when it’s cool like a normal person
what about enamaled pans?
i don’t like the thought that i will be spending more time with my pans outside of cooking then cleaning the regular ones. and i don’t want to manage my pans intake like its a diabetic that can’t handle tomato based foods.
I use stainless for acidic foods. Most of the advantages of cast iron are irrelevant when you’re making a sauce anyway, since the water adds mass, distributes heat and deglazes the bottom.
Enameled cast iron is very good, but I find it’s not quite as nonstick as a properly seasoned not-enameled cast iron. Enameled pans are rockstars for acidic sauces, though, and that makes them amazing for braises.
Watch a video on how to cook properly on a stainless pan. Changed my outlook on from how I thought they were trash to they are my favorite to use in daily stove cooking.
Also I use steel wool to clean them when it’s needed.
Carbon steel is great as well and to be treated like cast iron on the seasoning side of things. The woks usually heat up really quickly and pretty non stick like iron and it’s totally ok to use metal cooking utensils.
I stay away from chemically non stick just from how toxic that stuff becomes after it ages past it’s prime.
