Equipment Reviews: The Best Ceramic Nonstick Skillet

In the test kitchen we like to use a

nonstick

pan to cook delicate foods like fish and eggs, but we know that traditional

nonstick

pans coated with Teflon and similar materials have faced accusations of being harmful to cooks and the environment, especially when the Non-stick

ceramic

pans reheated to over 500 degrees are marketed as safer and healthier alternatives, unfortunately we have never found

ceramic

pans that were very good, almost all of the ones we have tried in the past could not release food cleanly even when they were As soon as we started cooking on them, even the slightly better ceramic surfaces went downhill too quickly, but we wanted to give these pans another chance.

We had two questions. Is there a new nonstick ceramic pan that is truly nonstick and stays that way? And if so, how does it compare to our winning regular nonstick pan? We bought seven ceramic nonstick

skillet

s, all 12 inches, priced between about $20 and $80, and gave them a workout. Our first test involved a lot of eggs, we fried eggs one after another. another in each pan dry without fat we didn't stop until the eggs started to stick or when we fried 50 eggs without sticking which came first this test tells you how well the pan stays slippery and we did it at the beginning and at the end At the end of the tests we were able to see if the coatings deteriorated after use and in the meantime we made some recipes that we normally cook in a non-stick pan, including stir-fried beef and broccoli frittata with peppers and onions and fried soul.

In addition to giving the pan practical use, these tests also helped us rate each pan as a frying pan. We look at its capacity, browning ability, comfort and maneuverability. We also recruited three more testers who were not at all familiar with these pea sauté pans to give us their opinions. and finally to test the structural durability of the pans, we cut them with a knife, heat them and immerse them in ice water and finally tap them three times on a hard surface. Now before we look at the results, I want to take a second to talk about it.

The difference between ceramic and regular nonstick both are coatings applied to metal pans in regular nonstick manufacturers use a substance called polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE this makes a super strong coating, quite flexible and very slippery. PTFE is inert, meaning chemically inactive, so eating its flakes won't hurt you, but they can degrade and release dangerous fumes when heated above 500 degrees and that will always be a limitation of traditional non-stick pans, Another concern until about 2015, PTFE was processed with the help of a compound called perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA that was found to be dangerous to the environment and human health, which has been phased out and no one uses it anymore.

Our previous recommended scanpan pan did not use pfoa but did use ptfe, so we did not include it in this one. Now the ceramic nonstick does not use pfoa and instead of ptfe, the pans are coated with a liquid material that when heated hardens to form a slippery ceramic surface, there is no risk of it releasing toxic fumes even at high temperatures, but here's the problem. The surfaces are brittle, so ceramic coatings are more likely to develop small microscopic surface cracks during normal use. It is a problem that quickly goes from bad to worse. The rougher the cooking surface becomes, the more likely food is to stick to it and then scrub off any stuck-on debris.

Food degrades ceramic the most, but while all nonstick ceramic coatings have the same challenges, they are not all made equal. Ceramics are a broad family of materials, so their formulation can vary significantly, as well as the thickness of the coating, how the layers are applied and how. For a long time, the coatings cure, since not all are the same, how do these new pans work? Unfortunately, most were still not long-term non-stick. Remember that in our first dry egg test we set the benchmark of 50 eggs from our seven pans, one of these pans released only 28 eggs and then got stuck, the other six pans passed, but when we repeated the dry egg test at In the end, four more trays failed, one drowned after nine eggs, others abandoned between 15 and 32 eggs now, as slippery is the only reason.

If you buy a non-stick pan, we automatically disqualified any pan that didn't pass the egg tests and that left just two of the seven pans, which is in contrast to our most recent review of traditional non-stick pans where, fortunately, all ten pans passed both egg tests. egg. We liked cooking with the two

best

-performing ceramic

skillet

s, both had spacious interior cooking surfaces at nine and a half and four inches wide, so there's plenty of room to brown meat for sautéing and searing fish fillets. We noticed that the food cooked faster. than in a regular nonstick pan, but everything we cooked turned out well and nothing stuck to the cooking surfaces of the pan.

Now one of the two had quite steep sides that got in our way, but the walls of the other were more gently sloping and allowed us to turn or remove food easily. Both had handles that were comfortable to grip, but both trays felt A little heavier than ideal, that pan with steep sides is oven safe at 400 degrees, while our preferred pan with sloping sides is oven safe at 600 degrees, so we had some chances in the world of ceramics, but How was it the

best

compared to our favorite regular nonstick pan from Oxo? We bought new copies of each and did five test cooks back to back, pancakes, fried eggs, caramelized onions, more meat and broccoli. -Fried and sauteed salmon, we make sure to use the same burner and heat level and strictly adhere to the cooking times listed in the recipes.

The pancakes and eggs are cooked on fairly low heat and it was difficult to tell them apart, but the recipes that called for higher heat levels told a very clear story, the ceramic pen warmed the food, they cooked faster and were a little more prone to sticking. Some of the caramelized onions came out a little too dark. The sauce in our stir fry was reduced a little more and it was done. Dark, sticky spots on the surface of the pan Salmon skin stuck on Cleanup was still pretty easy, we just gave it a quick soak in hot water and that was enough to loosen any bits of sauce or caramelized sugars, but the experience was distinctly different to using our traditional frying pan where food is cooked.

It never stuck to the pan and was very easy to clean and we took a closer look. Both pants are made of aluminum and have a similar weight and thickness, so we focused on the coatings. Ceramic conducts heat, meaning pans coated with it heat up faster and remain stable. On the contrary, PTFE is a type of plastic that acts as a thermal insulator and slows down the transmission of heat to food, so when you cook with ceramic pans it is very important to pay attention, you may need to lower the heat or take it off. off the heat a little earlier than called for in the recipe, the food may stick slightly and the pan may require a little more effort to clean and you'd better be careful when cleaning it if you want to avoid PTFE.

You have to make a compromise on ease of use, but if you love the super-slippery, ultra-reliable results our favorite traditional nonstick skillet delivers and you're careful to never heat it while it's empty or leave it over 500 degrees, then you're probably going to want to. Keep using it, although ceramic pans have improved dramatically since we first tested them several years ago, they still can't match the performance of PTFE pans, but if you're interested in the potential safety benefits of a ceramic coating and No you mind making adjustments while cooking. We can recommend two good pans. Our favorite is the green Valencia Pro hard-anodized nonstick frying pan.

It's well-shaped and features a large, flat cooking surface so foods have room to brown evenly rather than crowding and steaming. Its gently sloping walls help hold food in but don't interfere with a spatula or spoon. Its handle is comfortable and the pan is oven safe up to 600 degrees. It's even grill-safe and the base of the pan contains some copper and iron, making it induction edible. About half the price of our winner, the Kyocera Ceramic Coated 12-Inch Nonstick Frying Pan is our best buy. We're not so fond of the design with the more pronounced sides, it's a little heavier which makes it a little harder to use, but the non-stick ceramic surface remained slippery and durable on a final note, although we're pleased to find nonstick ceramic pans perform better than we've found before, we really can't fully guarantee their long-term durability. storing them in the test kitchen and updating our findings on our website to learn more about these pans and all the testing we did, check out the links below and ask your questions in the comments section and be sure to subscribe.