Are Frying Pans and Skillets the Same?

No, most professional chefs do not use non-stick cookware, especially non-stick fry pans. Before knowing why, let’s understand what non-stick cookware is. Non-stick cookware refers to utensils with surfaces from which the food simply slides off.

Typically, a layer of Teflon makes up the non-stick surface of a non-stick fry pan.

Restaurants don’t have non-stick pans as they do not match the basic demands of a busy kitchen. For a chef who has to send a dish out every two minutes, non-stick cookware is not a viable option as it wouldn’t last longer than a week. 

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The sauté pan gets its name from the French term “Sauter,” which means “to leap,” while the sloping sides of a frying pan refer to its capacity to make a “jump-flip” action when cooking. You can cook a lot of food in a saute pan without spilling.

Enamel Pot

Offering excellent heat conduction, aluminum frying pans dissipate heat quickly for efficient, even cooking. Uncoated aluminum frying pans have a stick-, rust-, and corrosion-resistant surface and should only be used to cook low-acidic foods since acidic foods, such as tomato paste, citrus, and vinegar, react with aluminum and can alter the flavor of your food. Many professional aluminum frying pans are hard-anodized or feature a non-stick coating to make them non-reactive. Aluminum pans are not compatible with induction cooktops since aluminum is not magnetic.

Best for: Almost any food that needs searing, including steak and burgers. Cast-iron pans are ovenproof, so you can use them to roast meats like beef or pork and to bake cornbread, deep-dish pizza, shepherd’s pie, and more. And they retain heat so well that they’re a good choice for deep-frying chicken, doughnuts, or other foods because they keep the oil at a constant temperature.

The details: Cast-iron frying pans are practically indestructible, and they’re handed down for generations in many families. That makes their typically low price even more attractive. And if well cared for, cast iron develops a patina that releases food almost as well as nonstick. But the pans are heavy, and you have to be patient when heating them up because they don’t come up to temperature fast. Once they do, however, they retain heat.

Our tests of coated and uncoated cast-iron pans show how versatile this cookware can be. We sear steaks, brown scallops, and bake cornbread to see how well a cast-iron pan works for home cooks. The best pans ace all these tests. We also judge how easy they are to clean. Because of the enamel coating, the coated pans are a bit easier to clean than the uncoated ones.

Here are two recommended cast-iron pans from our tests.

Carbon steel pans are just as suitable for high heat cooking as cast iron, but with a lighter, less bulky profile. Here are some distinct advantages of using this pan.