Difference Between A Skillet And Sauté Pan

You can still find French skillets in professional kitchens because they provide good heat dispersion during cooking. But other cooks have shifted to frying pans over time because of their perceived durability and sturdiness.

Because they conduct heat so well, copper pans are good for sautéing, making candy, sauces, and delicate foods like fish and seafood.

Nowadays, “French skillet” refers to the specific design aspects of the cookware rather than its place of origin.

Stainless steel frying pans are popular among professional chefs and home cooks. They are lightweight, easy to clean, and resistant to rust and corrosion. They also have a sleek and modern appearance, making them a great addition to any kitchen.

Yes. It is safe to use metal, wood, and high-heat silicone utensils on stainless steel pans.

Benefits of Enamel Cookware:

With tall sides and a wide base, sauté pans pack more weight. Larger sauté pans may even come with a secondary helper handle, which is a small loop handle attached opposite the main long handle as well as a cover or lid. This is helpful, as the weight of larger sauté pans is difficult to move around, especially since they can hold plenty of food. 

Skillets are the heavier option because of its thickness, the material used to craft it, and larger size. This extra weight allows skillets to distribute heat evenly and retain heat better, making it ideal for recipes that involve searing and braising.

Best for: Almost any food that needs frying, browning, or searing. Because it’s ovenproof, stainless is also a good choice for foods that you start on the stovetop and then move to the oven to finish, like thick pork chops.

The details: Nitahara says that 95 percent of the pans used in the CIA’s teaching kitchens are stainless steel because they can take a lot of punishment. “The only time we don’t use them is on egg day, when we use nonstick,” he says. He adds that the shiny surface of a stainless pan makes it easy to see whether your food is browning.

In CR’s tests of stainless steel pans, we measure heating evenness by cooking pancakes, and we gauge how evenly a pan sautés by cooking potatoes until they’re tender. We also conduct a cleaning test to see how easy it is to remove cooked-on food. You’d think that all stainless pans would be about the same to clean, but our tests show that some require a lot more scrubbing than others.

Here are two recommended stainless steel pans from CR’s tests.

Skillets vs. Pans: Why the Confusion?