Cookware Even Heating Rankings (Butane, Propane, Natural Gas, etc.)

Lodge Carbon Steel on Gas Burner (heated above 350F for better contrast)

For electric coil/induction/radiant/halogen rankings, please see Even Heating Rankings (Induction and Electric). For more details on testing methodology, see here.

EVERY COMPANY CLAIMS THAT THEIR COOKWARE IS EVEN-HEATING, BUT IS THAT TRUE?

The job of stovetop cookware is a) to smooth out the uneven heat coming from the burner underneath so that the entire cooking surface of the cookware is the same temperature; and b) to keep your food in the Maillard reaction temperature zone–not too hot and not too cold. If you have too much of an imbalance in temperatures, you wind up with hot or cold spots that can undermine your dish by leaving some food overcooked and some food undercooked. You may even scorch carcinogens into your food or produce carcinogenic smoke, if some hotspots grow hotter than the oil’s smoke point while you are waiting for non-hotspots to catch up in temperature. (Hotspotting is particularly troublesome on nonstick pans because you can overheat the hotspots when trying to bring up the temperature of the colder spots, and overheating PTFE/Teflon will permanently damage it and cause offgas.) If you’ve ever cooked fish where part of a fillet got overcooked while the rest was undercooked or made rice and had some undercooked while the rest burned, then you’ve already experienced the joy of uneven heating.

The larger the diameter of your cookware bottom relative to the diameter of the flame or heating element or induction coil, the bigger the uneven heating problem can be, since heat has to travel a longer distance to reach the sides.¹

HOW TO READ THE TABLE(S) BELOW:

The higher a pan is on the list, the better the thermal performance of that pan. Therefore the list is in order of best (on top) to worst (on bottom).

10 cm temperature delta means the difference in temperature between the hottest point and the coldest point in a 10 cm radius circle centered on the pan’s cooking surface, at the moment in time when the hottest point reached 350 degrees Fahrenheit (176.7 degrees Celsius).² A lower 10 cm temperature delta score is better than a higher score. A perfect score of zero would mean that the entire 20 cm diameter circle was the same temperature. 20 cm = 7.9 inches. The flat cooking surface of most 11-inch skillets is about 8.5 inches in diameter. All testing began at room temperature.

I have separated cookware types because bottom-disc-only cookware pieces often have large temperature discontinuities where the disc bottom ends and the thin sidewalls begin. Those discontinuities may contribute to uneven cooking and food sticking to sidewalls. In contrast, cladded designs have heat conductive metal (cast iron, carbon steel, aluminum, or copper) running up the sides to eliminate that sudden temperature discontinuity. And finally, nonstick like Teflon can wear off, and ceramic loses its nonstickiness over time, so nonstick gets its own category.

Heat-spreading ability is most important in skillets, as they endure the highest temperatures and thermal stresses of any cookware. Therefore I have focused on testing skillets first. The results are usually applicable to the rest of the product line.³

The higher a pan is on the list, the better the thermal performance of that pan. Therefore the list is in order of best (on top) to worst (on bottom).

Thermal Results (Gas): Clad

Avg Delta 10cm (F)	Brand	Model	Product	Review/Rating
69.1	Demeyere	Proline	11 inch Skillet	4.7
69.4	De Buyer	Prima Matera	11 Inch Skillet	4.05
82.3	All-Clad	D7	12 Inch Skillet	4.7
82.3	All-Clad	MC2 (Master Chef 2)	12 Inch Skillet	4.0
83.8	Vollrath	Tribute	12 Inch Skillet	3.9
89.4	Zwilling J.A. Henckels	Sensation	11 inch Skillet	4.5
90.3	All-Clad	Copper Core	12 inch 6112 Skillet	4.1
92.8	All-Clad	D3 Stainless	12 inch 4112 Skillet	Overview
94.3	Cuisinart	MultiClad Pro (MCP)	12 inch Skillet	4.65
95.6	T-Fal	Multi-Clad Tri-Ply Stainless	12 Inch Skillet	4.0
101.9	Calphalon	Tri Ply Stainless	12 Inch Skillet aka Omelet Pan
102	Culina	Tri-Ply Stainless	12 Inch Fry Pan	3.75
109.7	All-Clad	D5	12 inch skillet
114.1	Cooks Standard	Multi-Ply Stainless	12 inch NC-00239 Skillet	4.05
167.3	Chantal	Chantal Copper Fusion	11 Inch Fry Pan	2.9
172.7	Lodge	Cast Iron	L10SK3ASHH41B 12-inch Skillet	2.35
190	Lodge	Carbon Steel	CRS12 12-inch Skillet	2.05

Thermal Results (Gas): Nonstick (PTFE/Teflon, Ceramic)

Avg Delta 10cm (F)	Brand	Model	Product	Review/Rating
42.1	Anolon	Nouvelle Copper	12 inch Skillet	4.6
62.4	KitchenAid	Hard Anodized	12 inch Skillet	4.35
64.7	Ozeri	Green Earth	12-inch Frying Pan	4.35
67.6	T-Fal	Professional Total Nonstick	12 inch E93808 Skillet	3.7
68.2	GreenPan	GreenPan Nonstick Ceramic	12 Inch Skillet	4.2
91.8	Zwilling J.A. Henckels	Spirit	12 Inch Skillet	4.0

FOOTNOTES

Show 3 footnotes

Gas is somewhat less demanding on cookware than induction. With induction, heat goes into the circle above the induction element and then spread out from there. With gas, the flame heats a hotspot “O” shaped circle, but hot combustion gases help spread the heat some more by pooling up under the pan and then eventually spreading out and up and over the bottom of the pan, heating the sidewalls as well. If the sidewalls are made out of thermally conductive material (i.e., has some aluminum, copper, or cast iron/carbon steel), the sidewalls will absorb some heat and reduce the temperature difference between the edges of the pan and the center of the bottom of the pan. Note that these hot gases are much cooler than the flame, so you still get hotspots on gas, just less so than on electric/induction.
Also, if the bottom of a pan is larger than the hotspot diameter (which for electric is the diameter of the coil), then you will NEVER get edge-to-edge even heating no matter how long or how low you preheat a pan on the stove, especially for poor thermal conductors like cast iron. That’s because the pan is bleeding heat energy into the air at the same time that the burner is injecting heat. (And contrary to popular belief, cast iron does not bleed heat more slowly than stainless.) There will always be a thermal gradient. You can try this yourself at home with a metal pan and thermocouples: preheat it on a very low setting for as long as you want and you will still see a temperature difference between the center and edge of the pan. Be careful not to overheat your pan, especially nonstick pans which can emit fumes. ↩
Why 350F? Because it’s safely below the smoke point of extra virgin olive oil (~350F depending on the specific oil). The smoke point marks when an oil first starts to decompose into potentially carcinogenic compounds that are emitted as smoke. I’ve also tested pieces at 400F and the relative results don’t change much if at all; pans that outperform other pans at 350F will continue to outperform them at 400F. ↩
To compare apples-to-apples as much as possible, I’m testing 11- to 12-inch (interior diameter) skillets. Note that almost nobody makes cookware based on inches; the cookware world is mostly metric. So while a pan may be advertised as 11 inches, it’s actually 28 cm (11.02 inches). Pans advertised as 12 inches are typically 30 cm (11.81 inches) in diameter. (1 inch = 2.54 centimeters.) ↩