How to Choose Cookware

Good cookware more than pays for itself. Here’s why:

In 2021 (data for 2022 and beyond are still being finalized, so this does not include inflation taking place in 2022 and beyond), American households spent an average of $6,961.68 on food for every man, woman, and child. $3,058.40 of that went to food-at-home expenditures.¹ Food at home includes everything from raw vegetables to pizza home deliveries to potato chips eaten at home.² The remaining $3,903.28 per person went towards food consumed at outside-of-home venues such as restaurants, sports games, and museums. These numbers are for 2021, but even if we ignore all inflation that took place after 2021, $3,903.28 per person for 20 years equals $78,065.60. That’s $312,262.40 for a family of four just on eating outside of the home for 20 years. Ouch!

Home cooking is not just cheaper, it’s also healthier than eating processed foods or restaurant foods; according to a studies by Johns Hopkins University, “[w]hen people cook most of their meals at home, they consume fewer carbohydrates, less sugar and less fat than those who cook less or not at all, even if they are not trying to lose weight.” Home-cooked meals even add to life expectancy. The bottom line is that home cooking is both less expensive and healthier than eating processed food or restaurant food (usually laden with salt/sugar/fat).

It seems like a no-brainer to eat home cooking more often: you save a ton of money, plus better health, which is priceless–not to mention the social benefits of being able to host gatherings with good food.

So why don’t people do it more often?  Effort.

There’s no silver bullet to decrease the amount of effort it takes to cook, but one thing you can do is to lower the amount of effort it takes to cook by choosing cookware that heats up evenly (so you don’t need to account for hot spots on the cooking surface), is comfortable to use, and is easy to clean. Even small differences in the ease of cooking and cleanup matter psychologically.  For example, people eat less when they use smaller plates, because the small effort it takes to re-fill a plate is enough to keep us from re-filling the plate as often.³

Skipping just one restaurant dinner can pay for the price difference between a poor piece of cookware and a great one.  Skip a few more restaurant dinners and you could buy practically any cookware set and enjoy its benefits for decades. Good cookware pays for itself through lower lifetime food expenditures and better health!

HOW TO CHOOSE COOKWARE

If you want to cut to the chase, please skip down to the SCENARIOS.

For definitions and images of specific cookware pieces like “skillet” or “casserole,” please see the GLOSSARY at the end of this page.

For the thought process behind the recommendations, please read the section entitled RATIONALE.

For thermal rankings, click here for gas and here for electric/induction.

We’ve reviewed dozens of cookware product lines, including All-Clad and its rivals. If you’re looking for specific cookware attributes, please use the menu to the side of the screen. Select which attributes are important to you in the drop-down boxes (don’t click on a drop-down box if the attribute doesn’t matter to you), and click “search.”  For a complete listing of all product lines, click “search” without selecting any attribute filters.

RATIONALE

Question: What is the most essential purpose of stovetop cookware?

Answer: Stovetop cookware’s purpose is to evenly distribute heat to food.

How many ways are there to do this?

1. Raw/cold – Fruit/green smoothies, gazpacho, etc. are not usually cooked on the stove.
2. Steaming/boiling – Heating up water or watery soups
3. Baking/roasting – Dry heat applied from all sides
4. Deep Frying – In hot oil
5. Grilling/Broiling – High dry heat with the food under or over the heat source
6. Smoking – Hot smoke applied from all sides
7. Simmering/making stews and braises – Heating up viscous liquids like thick stews or chili
8. Sautéing – Moderately high temperature, wet or dry
9. Frying/searing – High temperature, dry
10. Stir-Frying – High temperature, dry; usually means using a wok on commercial-grade, high-Btu cooking fire

We can eliminate some of these tasks from consideration when discussing indoor cookware. For the first task (raw/cold), you will be working at room temperature or colder, not on the stove, so cookware is largely irrelevant. If you are blending smoothies, you want a blender or food processor. For grilling, you would presumably use a real grill. (If you use a stovetop grill pan, then it’s basically just a frying pan with raised ridges that impart faux grill marks; see a discussion about frying pans, below.) For smoking, you could use a steamer basket if it has large holes, and your smoke source would be placed underneath.

As for the other cooking methods:

Steaming/boiling/poaching and baking/roasting inside an oven are low-stress. Any decent cookware is fine, because air or water currents will spread heat around. If you’re on a limited budget, then here is where you can trim your budget by opting for affordable disc-bottom pieces instead of clad pieces. But you don’t want to skimp too much because of durability issues as well as how you may still want to brown meat/caramelize onions/etc. in the bottom of a stock pot even if the stock pot is mainly used for making stock.

That leaves simmering/stews/braises, sautéing, and frying/searing/stir-frying as the most problematic tasks. These tasks demand good-quality, highly thermally-conductive cookware to avoid hot spots and burning.

A graphical representation of what types of cooking methods go with what types of cookware follows, with best matches in red and good matches in orange:

For instance, if you want to fry, you are best off with a skillet (red line), though you can do okay with a sauteuse or sauté pan as well (orange lines). Similarly, a stockpot can do fine baking, except that some won’t fit into an oven or have lids that aren’t heavy enough to seal in moisture as well as a dedicated enameled Dutch oven/casserole.

For sake of completeness I included high-temperature stir-frying and linked it to woks, but most people’s residential stove aren’t powerful enough for true, high-temperature stir-frying. What some people call “stir-frying” on a residential stove is more like sautéing (which is just as delicious).

The differences between pans can be subtle, so if you’re trying to decide between two similar pieces and can have only one, please see the GLOSSARY of this page for a short summary, or else you can read the following summaries:

• Pick One: Skillet or Sauté Pan? Discussing Frying Pans / Paella Pans vs. Saute / Low Casserole / Rondeau / Braising or Brasier (Brazier) pans
• Pick One: Casserole vs. Stock Pot (or, French or Dutch Oven vs. Stockpot)
• Pick One: Straight vs Curved Saucepan / Saucier / Sauteuse sidewalls

Also, let’s talk ideal cookware materials for a moment.

• Stainless steel is relatively indestructible and won’t react with foods.  You can scour them with steel wool and BKF or boil vinegar in them and it’d be totally fine.  The indestructibility of stainless steel is particularly important if you have household members (kids or otherwise) or guests who can’t be counted on to treat cookware properly.  It doesn’t take much to wreck nonstick pans (e.g., drag a steel spoon across a nonstick pan’s surface, or chip off enamel by banging it into the side of the sink).  Ditto with cast iron which requires specific care to maintain its seasoning. In contrast, stainless steel shrugs that off and makes care and maintenance easier.

• Bare aluminum chemically reacts with foods and can impart off-flavors, especially with acidic foods like citrus or tomatoes.⁴  That’s why most aluminum is coated with nonstick PTFE/Teflon or ceramic, but those coatings wear down and become sticky over time.  And once those coatings go bad, they become harder to clean than stainless steel. Furthermore, aluminum is notorious for warping (bending so it is no longer flat).  Nevertheless, I recommend nonstick aluminum for delicate, sticky foods like eggs and fish, and if you don’t overheat such pans and use them only for delicate foods, they can last a long time.

• Copper is not dishwasher safe, does not work on induction stoves, oxidizes so you either have to accept copper patina or else polish it periodically, tin/silver linings are relatively fragile and harder to clean than stainless steel or nonstick surfaces. Worst of all is how copper weighs more than aluminum of equal performance, and it’s also far more expensive.  You might want to consider it anyway if you can afford it–I have reviewed several copper product lines–but for most people I’d recommend skipping copper.

• I can’t really recommend cast iron and carbon steel for most people.  Cast iron/carbon steel pans are heavy (heavier than any other cookware of comparable size and thus an automatic “no” for anyone with weak wrists/arthritis/etc.), require seasoning and sometimes re-seasoning by burning oil onto its surface (seasoning can wear off, and for those of you trying to escape Teflon nonstick, I’ve found no scientific studies about the long-term health effects of eating tiny particles of seasoning), require care to avoid rust (will all members of your household treat it right, including kids who might decide to soak the pan in water?), unevenly heat up and thus require more babysitting on the stove (constant stirring), can’t be used with acidic foods or the iron leaches and give off-tastes/colors (unless you get enameled cast iron pans but those cost a lot of money and still have the other disadvantages of cast iron, plus enamel is brittle and can chip), typically have horrible handle comfort that also get hot during cooking much faster than stainless handles would, can take longer to clean since you can’t just use abrasives or scour like you could with stainless steel, and takes a long time to heat up and cool down (which can hurt unaware pets/kids and also means higher energy bills). Cast iron is fine for low-heat stovetop cooking or oven use, but it’s not all-purpose the way other pans can be.  You don’t even need a cast iron pan for searing: it’s a myth that only cast iron/carbon steel hold enough heat to sear meat without collapsing in temperature. Sure, thin aluminum nonstick pans crash hard in temperature. But thicker aluminum and copper pans can match or even beat cast iron, and the aluminum/copper-based pans also spread heat much more evenly.  That’s not to say that you can’t cook with cast iron on the stovetop, but if the objective is to make cooking easier so that you’re more likely to eat healthy home cooking, then most people would be better off with something lower-maintenance and easier to use.

• 100% glass/enamel/ceramic is poor choices for stovetop cooking.  Some con artists claim that stainless steel is somehow toxic, so you should buy their all-ceramic/enamel/glass cookware instead.  In reality, stainless steel is safe, and enamel/glass/ceramic are terrible heat conductors that produce hotspots where your heating elements touch them.  Furthermore, they are all brittle and can chip or crack if roughly handled or if metal utensils are used. Little kids or clueless houseguests can do things like overheat cookware, bang on pots and pans against sink walls, etc.

• For even more information about cookware materials, see our in-depth, no-nonsense guide to cookware materials.

Given all of the above, stainless steel is the best material to use, because it won’t chip/dent/warp easily, won’t become useless if overheated, and isn’t very chemically reactive (it can be used in dishwashers and doesn’t chemically react with foods to impart metallic tastes/off-flavors). The problem is that stainless steel is a bad heat conductor compared to aluminum and copper. There are two main workarounds to this problem: a) bond stainless steel to aluminum or copper and make the entire pot out of this multi-layered material (colloquially known as “clad”⁵); and b) make the cooking surface out of thin stainless steel and then slap an aluminum or copper disc to the bottom (“disc base”).

There are pros and cons for clad vs. disc base, and they vary depending on stove type.  The short answer is for induction stoves, stick to disc-base for any large-diameter cookware.  For gas and electric coil stoves, or for induction stoves used with cookware of smaller diameters (say, 8 inches or less on the bottom), read on:

Clad (has aluminum or copper running up the sidewalls, not just stainless steel) is usually more expensive but is better for skillets, sauciers, saute pans, and arguably also pots that deal with thick stews/chili/etc.  This is because solid foods and solid-ish foods like very thick stews are relatively poor heat conductors and aren’t thin enough (like water) to have convection currents spread heat around. You can still use disc base to cook thick stews, but you may have to stir more often, something that you might not always be able to do in a busy kitchen. (NOTE: induction stoves are so uneven-heating that I would recommend using disc-base for all large-diameter pots on induction, as thick disc bases do a better job of spreading out the “O” shaped induction heating pattern. Stir as necessary.)

Disc-base is usually less expensive, but doesn’t work as well for skillets, sauciers, saute pans, and pots full of thick stews.  Also, almost all disc-base cookware uses undersized aluminum disc bases that don’t stretch to the edges of the pot bottom, which causes thermal discontinuities.  On gas this means burning a circle of food/oil around the edges of the pan.  On electric/induction this means the outer ring of the bottom of the pot or pan are colder than the center, so you should stir more often. If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty details, see Cladded sidewalls vs. disc-bottomed cookware: which is better?

Back to Top

SCENARIOS

It’s a metric cookware world: Europe and Asia manufacture most cookware in the world. You should standardize your diameters around particularly popular numbers in case you want to add inserts or swap lids. Popular numbers include 16, 18, 20, 24, 28, and 32 cm diameters. These translate to 6.30, 7.09, 7.87, 9.44, 11.02, and 12.60 inches, respectively, though many manufacturers round off to 6.3, 7.1, 8, 9.5 (some manufacturers round to 10 inches), and 12.5 inches (and some manufacturers round to 13 inches). 22 cm and 26 cm are a little less common and correspond to 8.66 and 10.24 inches, respectively. Diameters are usually measured from the interior to interior, so you don’t count the thickness of the cookware itself or the flared rim. (A few companies cheat by measuring from exterior to exterior in an effort to exaggerate the size of their equipment, and we note which ones do that in our reviews.)

This is not to say that you could not standardize your cookware sizes, but if so, you may have a harder time finding compatible lids and steamer inserts. Universal lids sort of work but are not ideal since many are flimsy and not tight-fitting enough for efficient steaming.

The most critical cookware pieces are a skillet, a saucepan, and a stockpot. If you’re cooking for one to two people, I would recommend a 28 cm (11 inch) skillet, a 3-quart saucepan, and a 6-8 quart stockpot. If you’re cooking for 3-4 people, I would recommend at least an 11 inch diameter skillet, a 3.5+ quart saute pan, a 3 quart saucepan, and an 8-12 quart stockpot. (For larger households, or if you want to have enough for leftovers, you may need larger sizes.) The skillet is for both meats and vegetables and allows you to scoop underneath food. A saute pan would be useful for reducing large batches of leafy greens down to size, but isn’t as indispensable as a skillet, because it’s hard to scoop underneath food in a saute pan due to the higher sidewalls. The saucepan is for sauces or small servings of sides that aren’t the main course, such as sides of rice. The stockpot is for making large batches of soups, stews, pasta, stock, etc., including leftovers, and can double as a Dutch oven for braising. That’s all you absolutely need–other things like  and nonstick pans are very useful but not absolutely crucial.  (If you’re cooking for larger households or like leftovers, the next two very useful pieces I’d get would be a large rondeau/saute pan and and a large steamer basket.)

That said, many people in this scenario opt for cookware sets because you get a discount for buying bundles.

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s take a look at common scenarios:

SCENARIO 1: Electric Stoves: Coil or Radiant (Smoothtop)

SCENARIO 2: Gas Stoves: Natural Gas, Propane, or Butane

SCENARIO 3: Induction Stoves

SCENARIO 4: Unusual or Exotic Cookware (not recommended for most people)

SCENARIO 1: Electric Stoves: Coil or Radiant (Smoothtop)

Electric stoves heat relatively evenly, but are slow to respond to changes in burner strength, and they take longer to preheat cookware since the metal coil itself has to heat up as well. They also demand cookware with flat bases, since heat transfer requires direct contact between the flat stove coil/smoothtop and the bottom of your cookware. Cookware that gets bent is a recipe for uneven heating.

SETS

~$150 Budget:

If you have to stick close to $100 and won’t be using your cookware in an oven, I’d suggest the slightly-more-than-$100 Vollrath 3822 Stainless Steel Deluxe Optio Cookware Set, 7-Piece set (less corrosion-resistant due to using 18/0 magnetic stainless steel even on the sidewalls; handles not very comfortable; not oven safe; I review it here).

If you can stretch your budget a bit (don’t eat out for dinner just one time), get the Cuisinart 89-11 11-Piece Professional Stainless Cookware Set (I review it here). It’s a bit odd in that it’s mostly stainless but comes with one PTFE nonstick egg pan.

If you absolutely must have a totally nonstick set even though it won’t last that long, then get a set of decent PTFE (such as Teflon) or ceramic nonstick. Ceramic can survive more overheating than PTFEs, which can start to break down as low as 400F, but ceramic is brittle and can chip or crack, so it’s debatable which is more durable. PTFE and ceramic both lose their nonstick properties within several years (or much sooner if you use them with high heat), and nonstick coatings don’t do much for pots which you’d use at boiling temperature of lower, so consider getting a frying pan in nonstick and your other pieces in stainless steel (see Individual Pieces, below).

For PTFE at this price level, I’d recommend the T-fal C515SC Professional Total Nonstick Thermo-Spot Heat Indicator Induction Base Cookware Set, 12-Piece, Black (I review it here). For ceramic, I’d recommend the GreenPan 12 Piece Lima Hard Anodized Nonstick Ceramic Cookware Set.

~$250 Budget:

Most people would be best served with either the Cuisinart 89-13 13-Piece Professional Stainless Cookware Set or the Cuisinart 89-11 11-Piece Professional Stainless Cookware Set (I review them here). They both come with PTFE nonstick egg pans.

But if you must have a clad set, then the Cuisinart MCP-12N MultiClad Pro Stainless Steel 12-Piece Cookware Set (I review it here) is an All-Clad D3 Stainless knockoff that performs just as well thermally. It’s the cheapest knockoffs that gives you the same performance and features as All-Clad.

~$500 Budget:

What you can get is US-made or EU-made cookware at this price point that performs similarly to the Cuisinart set above, if you don’t like buying stuff made in China. The classic example would be All-Clad 401488R Stainless Steel Tri-Ply Bonded Dishwasher Safe Cookware Set, 10-Piece, Silver. The cheapest good-quality All-Clad knockoff made in the US/EU is the Cuisinart FCT-13 French Classic Tri-Ply Stainless 13-Piece Cookware Set (I review it here), which is made in France.

~$1000 Budget:

For disc-base, I’d go with the Fissler 084 363 06 000 Original Pro Collection 10-Piece Set (I review it here). It’s got super thick 6mm aluminum bases that go all the way to the bottom edges and top-quality German stainless steel.

If you must have clad, then get Demeyere Industry5 (I review it here). It cleans more easily than most stainless and heats up the sides well.

If you want faster responsiveness to changes in burner strength, you want copper. Unfortunately bare copper tends to be quite expensive and has a lot of maintenance issues. A compromise is All-Clad 600822 SS Copper Core 5-Ply Bonded Dishwasher Safe Cookware Set, 10-Piece, Silver (I review it here), which sheaths copper between stainless steel. The copper layer is reasonably thick and heats more evenly than regular All-Clad D3 Stainless. But evenly-heating cookware matters less on electric stoves, which tend spread heat around relatively well in the first place, so what you’re really buying this set for is the much faster thermal response to changes in burner strength. There’s less lag time between when you turn the burner up/down and when the pan or pot responds.  You can save some time and fuel every time you cook, as well as have a greater ability to rescue dinner before it burns.

>$1000 Budget:

If you need a lot of pieces, then a larger set of something might make sense, like the All-Clad 60090 Copper Core 14-piece set (reviewed here). Practically every shape and size you could need is in that set.

If you don’t need as many pieces, then Demeyere Atlantis (reviewed in three parts: Proline Skillets, Conic Sautueses, and Straight-Sidewall Pieces).  It’s not the absolute best in terms of thermal performance but it’s comfortable, has no rivets to clean around, and has a slicker than normal stainless finish for easier cleaning that should help make cooking more enjoyable, so that you eat healthier home cooking more often instead of eating out as often.

I recommend buying Demeyere Atlantis pieces you need individually because they don’t give much of a discount for buying as a set, and sets often include pieces that you might not use.  Thus a power combo would be a Demeyere Proline skillet, Demeyere Atlantis conic sauteuse, and Demeyere Atlantis saute pan.  Those three designs cover you for  dry foods, sauces, and wet foods, respectively.  Add a nonstick ceramic pan of your choice (see below) for eggs/fish if you want.

However, don’t buy their stock pot, which does not outperform cheaper stainless pots.  A stock pot is where you can skimp the most because watery foods spread heat around, so you can definitely get away with using something like an Update International SuperSteel stock pot. If you’re okay with the price, get a German-made Fissler stock pot or a French-made Sitram Profiserie or Catering stock pot, both of which are virtually indestructible (thick stainless steel that won’t dent and is 18/10 for strong corrosion resistance) and which you can use to sear meat with impunity for one-pot meals (very thick aluminum disc bases; not the absolute thickest, but Paderno stock pots don’t come with flared rims and thus pour more messily).

Also, for skillets in particular, All-Clad d7 skillets (I review it here) are better value than Demeyere so be sure to check out d7 if you just want a good skillet.

INDIVIDUAL PIECES

If you already have a cookware set and just want to supplement them with something else, e.g., you started a family and now need a larger saute pan, then I’d recommend reading the reviews for the product series above and then buying individual pieces depending on price.

If you want to replace your current cookware with something better, it makes sense to upgrade your most-used pieces with top-quality stuff that you won’t need to replace again. Generally speaking, that means buying the following:

• Egg pan (don’t overheat it and use it only for eggs or other delicate foods like fish, in order to prolong its life)
• Skillet or saute pan, cladded so food can cook on the sides and won’t stick when sliding out; can double as a low-capacity saute pan; sloped sides let you flip food more easily and won’t let water condense and drip back into the pan, which is useful for dry foods
• Saute pan (optional); useful for cooking a lot of wet foods in a single batch, such as a lot of leafy green vegetables
• Medium saucepan, cladded, for thicker stews, chili, oatmeal, reheating leftovers, etc., but you want it responsive enough to rescue sauces that are overheating, so you don’t want anything too thick; evenness matters less with smaller diameters since the burner diameter can match or even exceed the diameter of the saucepan
• Large stock pot for heating water or other thin fluids
• Casserole/Dutch Oven (optional), for long-duration braises/simmers/etc. on the stovetop or in the oven. Long-duration cooking of acidic/salty foods can corrode even stainless steel if you keep doing it enough times, so many people use enamel-lined cast iron, which is immune to corrosion.  Also makes a great presentation piece when having guests over.

Electric coil and electric radiant (smoothtop) stoves tend to heat relatively evenly, though they are slow to respond when you dial up or down the burner strength. Most disc-base pieces will not heat all the way to the edges on electric or induction stoves, so you get a relatively cold perimeter around your cooking surface. A few brands use discs that go all the way to the edges, though.

My recommendations would therefore be:

• Anolon Nouvelle Copper Nonstick (I review it here) or GreenPan Ceramic Nonstick (I review it here) if you prefer ceramic. Either way, use them only for eggs/fish/delicates and don’t overheat them. Use non-scratch sponges and don’t use metal utensils on them, no matter what the manufacturer claims about how they are metal safe (metal can still wear down PTFE or chip ceramic). These precautions will extend their useful lifespans.
• Demeyere Proline 5-Star Frying Pan (I review it here) but the better value would be All-Clad d7 skillets (I review it here) which perform similarly for much less
• Demeyere Atlantis Saute Pan (I review it here) but if you’re on a budget or need a different size, Fissler Original Pro (I review it here) (or similarly thick disc-base alternatives, such as Sitram Profiserie (I review it here) or Paderno Grand Gourmet (I review it here)
• All-Clad Copper Core (I review it here) saucepan
• Update International SuperSteel stock pot (18/8 stainless) (boils water faster than other designs)
• Casserole/Dutch Oven (optional)

You can supplement these pieces with other pieces in the same product lines if you want. I’d also recommend getting a steamer basket if you don’t already have one. They’re very versatile and can double as colanders.

Why is a skillet a higher priority than a saute pan? Because you can more easily get a spatula under your food to flip an egg or other flat food. You do lose volume in the process, so a skillet is not as good for reducing a huge bunch of spinach, but if money is tight, go with the skillet–you will simply have to batch-saute huge bunches of spinach rather than cook the entire bunch at once. (Obviously you can buy both a skillet and saute pan if it’s within your budget.)

Invest in a big can of Bar Keepers Friend to clean off the inevitable scorch marks and food or water stains. Avoid rubber/plastic handles unless you think you will never use pans in the oven. Don’t worry about hot handles when cooking on the stovetop, because stainless is a relatively poor heat conductor. Even if the handle somehow gets too hot, just wrap a towel around it. You want a stainless steel lid because of its ability to withstand abuse that would break glass lids; furthermore, steel lids are usually oven safe to 500F+ whereas glass lids often have plastic/rubber/bakelite handles that degrade over time when heated above 350F or so.

Back to Scenarios

SCENARIO 2: Gas Stoves: Natural Gas, Propane, or Butane

Gas is very responsive. Turn up the heat, the pot immediately warms. Turn down the heat, the pot immediately cools. Gas also works with all kinds of cookware and is the most forgiving if your cookware is not perfectly flat, since the hot flame and combustion gases will make contact with the pot anyway.

SETS

~$150 Budget:

With gas, you want to avoid rings of scorched food at the bottom, so that means no disc-base sets because a) almost all discs don’t go all the way to the edge, and b) even the ones that do, are paired with frying pans that have an overhang that is not protected by the disc, resulting in a ring of scorched food.

This means your best bet is thinner but still serviceable stainless steel clad: Cooks Standard Multi-Ply Clad Stainless-Steel 10-Piece Cookware Set (I review it here).

If you absolutely must have a totally nonstick set even though it won’t last that long, then get a set of decent PTFE (such as Teflon) or ceramic nonstick. Ceramic can survive more overheating than PTFEs, which can start to break down as low as 400F, but ceramic is brittle and can chip or crack, so it’s debatable which is more durable. PTFE and ceramic both lose their nonstick properties within several years (or much sooner if you use them with high heat), and nonstick coatings don’t do much for pots which you’d use at boiling temperature of lower, so consider getting a frying pan in nonstick and your other pieces in stainless steel (see Individual Pieces, below).

For PTFE at this price level, I’d recommend the T-fal C515SC Professional Total Nonstick Thermo-Spot Heat Indicator Induction Base Cookware Set, 12-Piece, Black (I review it here). For ceramic, I’d recommend the GreenPan 12 Piece Lima Hard Anodized Nonstick Ceramic Cookware Set.

~$250 Budget:

The Cuisinart MCP-12N MultiClad Pro Stainless Steel 12-Piece Cookware Set (I review it here) is an All-Clad D3 Stainless knockoff that performs just as well thermally. It’s the cheapest knockoff that gives you the same performance and features as All-Clad.

~$500 Budget:

What you can get is US-made or EU-made cookware at this price point that performs similarly to the Cuisinart MCP set above, if you don’t like buying stuff made in China. The classic example would be All-Clad 401488R Stainless Steel Tri-Ply Bonded Dishwasher Safe Cookware Set, 10-Piece, Silver. The cheapest good-quality All-Clad knockoff made in the US/EU is the Cuisinart FCT-13 French Classic Tri-Ply Stainless 13-Piece Cookware Set (I review it here), which is made in France.

~$1000 Budget:

If you want faster responsiveness to changes in burner strength, you want copper. Unfortunately bare copper tends to be quite expensive and has a lot of maintenance issues. A compromise is All-Clad 600822 SS Copper Core 5-Ply Bonded Dishwasher Safe Cookware Set, 10-Piece, Silver (I review it here), which sheaths copper between stainless steel. The copper layer is reasonably thick and heats more evenly than regular All-Clad D3 Stainless.  But what you’re really buying this set for is the much faster thermal response to changes in burner strength. There’s less lag time between when you turn the burner up/down and when the pan or pot responds.  You can save some time and fuel every time you cook, as well as have a greater ability to rescue dinner before it burns.

Another good choice is Demeyere Industry5 (I review it here). It cleans more easily than most stainless and heats up the sides well.

>$1000 Budget:

If you need a lot of pieces, then a larger set of something might make sense, like the All-Clad 60090 Copper Core 14-piece set (reviewed here). Practically every shape and size you could need is in that set.

If you don’t need as many pieces, then Demeyere Atlantis (reviewed in three parts: Proline Skillets, Conic Sautueses, and Straight-Sidewall Pieces).  It’s not the absolute best in terms of thermal performance but it’s comfortable, has no rivets to clean around, and is slicker than normal stainless finish for easier cleaning that should help make cooking more enjoyable, so that you eat healthier home cooking more often instead of eating out as often.

I recommend buying Demeyere Atlantis pieces you need individually because they don’t give much of a discount for buying as a set, and sets often include pieces that you might not use. Thus a power combo would be a Demeyere Proline skillet, Demeyere Atlantis conic sauteuse, and Demeyere Atlantis saute pan.  Those three designs cover you for  dry foods, sauces, and wet foods, respectively.  Add a nonstick ceramic pan of your choice (see below) for eggs/fish if you want.

However, don’t buy their stock pot, which does not outperform cheaper stainless pots.  A stock pot is where you can skimp the most because watery foods spread heat around, so you can definitely get away with using something like an Update International SuperSteel stock pot. If you’re okay with the price, get a German-made Fissler stock pot which has aluminum extending to the outer edges to make it immune to a ring of scorching at the bottom cooking surface.  It’s virtually indestructible (thick stainless steel that won’t dent and is 18/10 for strong corrosion resistance) and which you can use to sear meat with impunity for one-pot meals (very thick aluminum disc base; not the absolute thickest, but Paderno stock pots don’t come with flared rims and thus pour more messily).

Also, for skillets in particular, All-Clad d7 skillets (I review it here) are better value than Demeyere so be sure to check out d7 if you just want a good skillet.

INDIVIDUAL PIECES

If you already have a cookware set and just want to supplement them with something else, e.g., you started a family and now need a larger saute pan, then I’d recommend reading the reviews for the product series above and then buying individual pieces depending on price.

If you want to replace your current cookware with something better, it makes sense to upgrade your most-used pieces with top-quality stuff that you won’t need to replace again. Generally speaking, that means buying the following:

• Egg pan (don’t overheat it and use it only for eggs or other delicate foods like fish, in order to prolong its life)
• Skillet or saute pan, cladded so food can cook on the sides and won’t stick when sliding out; can double as a low-capacity saute pan; sloped sides let you flip food more easily and won’t let water condense and drip back into the pan, which is useful for dry foods
• Saute pan (optional); useful for cooking a lot of wet foods in a single batch, such as a lot of leafy green vegetables
• Medium saucepan, cladded, for thicker stews, chili, oatmeal, reheating leftovers, etc., but you want it responsive enough to rescue sauces that are overheating, so you don’t want anything too thick; evenness matters less with smaller diameters since the burner diameter can match or even exceed the diameter of the saucepan
• Large stock pot for heating water or other thin fluids
• Casserole/Dutch Oven (optional), for long-duration braises/simmers/etc. on the stovetop or in the oven. Long-duration cooking of acidic/salty foods can corrode even stainless steel if you keep doing it enough times, so many people use enamel-lined cast iron, which is immune to corrosion. Also makes a great presentation piece when having guests over.

Gas tends to spread heat relatively evenly and is very responsive to changes in burner strength. That said, gas can definitely still hotspot. More problematically, the heat from a gas stove doesn’t stop with the flame. There are very hot combustion gases as well, which rise up and around the bottom of your cookware. This is good and bad. Good, because some of that heat that wraps around from the bottom can be captured by heat-conductive sidewalls in cladded cookware designs. Bad, because a) some of the heat is wasted and heats up your kitchen air instead, and b) if you use disc-base cookware, the hot gases rising up can result in a “ring of fire” or “ring of scorching” if there is no aluminum or copper at the edges to protect your food.  And almost all disc-base cookware utilize discs that don’t go all the way to the edge, even though they appear to (the stainless steel wrapper on the bottom hides this from view).

My recommendations would therefore be:

• Anolon Nouvelle Copper Nonstick (I review it here) or GreenPan Ceramic Nonstick (I review it here) if you prefer ceramic. Either way, use them only for eggs/fish/delicates and don’t overheat them. Use non-scratch sponges and don’t use metal utensils on them, no matter what the manufacturer claims about how they are metal safe (metal can still wear down PTFE or chip ceramic). These precautions will extend their useful lifespans.
• Demeyere Proline 5-Star Frying Pan (I review it here) but the better value would be All-Clad d7 skillets (I review it here) which perform similarly for much less
• All-Clad Copper Core (I review it here) saucepan
• Demeyere Atlantis Saute Pan (I review it here) (disc base goes all the way to the bottom edges) but if you’re on a budget or need a larger size, Fissler Original Pro (I review it here)
• Update International SuperSteel stock pot (18/8 stainless) (boils water faster than other designs)
• Casserole/Dutch Oven (optional)

You can supplement these pieces with other pieces in the same product lines if you want. I’d also recommend getting a steamer basket if you don’t already have one. They’re very versatile and can double as colanders.

Why is a skillet a higher priority than a saute pan? Because you can more easily get a spatula under your food to flip an egg or other flat food. You do lose volume in the process, so a skillet is not as good for reducing a huge bunch of spinach, but if money is tight, go with the skillet–you will simply have to batch-saute huge bunches of spinach rather than cook the entire bunch at once. (Obviously you can buy both a skillet and saute pan if it’s within your budget.)

Invest in a big can of Bar Keepers Friend to clean off the inevitable scorchmarks and food or water stains. Avoid rubber/plastic handles unless you think you will never use pans in the oven. Don’t worry about hot handles when cooking on the stovetop, because stainless is a relatively poor heat conductor. Even if the handle somehow gets too hot, just wrap a towel around it. You want a stainless steel lid because of its ability to withstand abuse that would break glass lids; furthermore, steel lids are usually oven safe to 500F+ whereas glass lids often have plastic/rubber/bakelite handles that degrade over time when heated above 350F or so.

Back to Scenarios

SCENARIO 3: Induction Stoves

As an induction stovetop user, congratulations, you have the high-tech equivalent of a gas stove, with easy cleanup and no combustion byproducts. However, only strongly magnetic materials work on your stovetop, and induction interface discs don’t work well. (This is an example of such a disc.). Using a converter disc basically turns an induction cooker into an electric hotplate with slower response time, and it also heats up your ceramic top much faster, much longer because the heat is not transferred into the cookware’s cooking surface as efficiently.

Induction is by far the most stressful out of all the stovetop types because most of the heat is concentrated into a circular hotspot. This means that your pans will burn food on that circle, unless you use thick, conductive cookware that spreads out the heat well.

Also, we can dismiss everything EXCEPT for cookware with magnetic stainless steel bottoms. Forget about cast iron or carbon steel, both of which do not heat evenly. What you really want is cookware with thick, highly thermally conductive properties to spread out heat, which means copper and/or aluminum. But those won’t work on induction cooktops unless they have magnetic bases bonded to their bottoms (typically a thin disc of magnetic stainless steel).

SETS

~$150 Budget:

If you have to stick close to $100 and won’t be using your cookware in an oven, I’d suggest the slightly-more-than-$100 Vollrath 3822 Stainless Steel Deluxe Optio Cookware Set, 7-Piece set (less corrosion-resistant due to using 18/0 magnetic stainless steel even on the sidewalls; handles not very comfortable; not oven safe; I review it here).

If you can stretch your budget a bit (don’t eat out for dinner just one time), get the Cuisinart 89-11 11-Piece Professional Stainless Cookware Set (I review it here). It’s a bit odd in that it’s mostly stainless but comes with one PTFE nonstick egg pan.

If you absolutely must have a totally nonstick set even though it won’t last that long, then get a set of decent PTFE (such as Teflon) or ceramic nonstick. Ceramic can survive more overheating than PTFEs, which can start to break down as low as 400F, but ceramic is brittle and can chip or crack, so it’s debatable which is more durable. PTFE and ceramic both lose their nonstick properties within several years (or much sooner if you use them with high heat), and nonstick coatings don’t do much for pots which you’d use at boiling temperature of lower, so consider getting a frying pan in nonstick and your other pieces in stainless steel (see Individual Pieces, below).

For PTFE at this price level, I’d recommend the T-fal C515SC Professional Total Nonstick Thermo-Spot Heat Indicator Induction Base Cookware Set, 12-Piece, Black (I review it here). For ceramic, there are no good ceramic cookware sets that are also induction-compatible, at this price point. The closest thing is the Zwilling JA Henckels Spirit 10-Piece Cookware Set at $400.

~$250 Budget:

Most people would be best served with either the Cuisinart 89-13 13-Piece Professional Stainless Cookware Set or the Cuisinart 89-11 11-Piece Professional Stainless Cookware Set (I review them here). They both come with PTFE nonstick egg pans.

But if you must have a clad set, then the Cuisinart MCP-12N MultiClad Pro Stainless Steel 12-Piece Cookware Set (I review it here) is an All-Clad D3 Stainless knockoff that performs just as well thermally. It’s the cheapest knockoffs that gives you the same performance and features as All-Clad.

~$500 Budget:

What you can get is US-made or EU-made cookware at this price point that performs similarly to the Cuisinart set above, if you don’t like buying stuff made in China. The classic example would be All-Clad 401488R Stainless Steel Tri-Ply Bonded Dishwasher Safe Cookware Set, 10-Piece, Silver. The cheapest good-quality All-Clad knockoff made in the US/EU is the Cuisinart FCT-13 French Classic Tri-Ply Stainless 13-Piece Cookware Set (I review it here), which is made in France.

~$1000 Budget:

For disc-base, I’d go with the Fissler 084 363 06 000 Original Pro Collection 10-Piece Set (I review it here). It’s got super thick 6mm aluminum bases that go all the way to the bottom edges and top-quality German stainless steel.

If you must have clad, then get Demeyere Industry5 (I review it here). It cleans more easily than most stainless and heats up the sides well.

If you want faster responsiveness to changes in burner strength, you want copper. Unfortunately bare copper tends to be quite expensive and has a lot of maintenance issues. A compromise is All-Clad 600822 SS Copper Core 5-Ply Bonded Dishwasher Safe Cookware Set, 10-Piece, Silver (I review it here), which sheaths copper between stainless steel. The copper layer is reasonably thick and heats more evenly than regular All-Clad D3 Stainless.  What you’re really buying this set for is the much faster thermal response to changes in burner strength. There’s less lag time between when you turn the burner up/down and when the pan or pot responds.   You can save some time and fuel every time you cook, as well as have a greater ability to rescue dinner before it burns.

>$1000 Budget:

If you need a lot of pieces, then a larger set of something might make sense, like the All-Clad 60090 Copper Core 14-piece set (reviewed here). Practically every shape and size you could need is in that set.

If you don’t need as many pieces, then Demeyere Atlantis (reviewed in three parts: Proline Skillets, Conic Sautueses, and Straight-Sidewall Pieces).  It’s not the absolute best in terms of thermal performance but it’s comfortable, has no rivets to clean around, and has a slicker than normal stainless finish for easier cleaning that should help make cooking more enjoyable, so that you eat healthier home cooking more often instead of eating out as often.

I recommend buying Demeyere Atlantis pieces you need individually because they don’t give much of a discount for buying as a set, and sets often include pieces that you might not use.  Thus a power combo would be a Demeyere Proline skillet, Demeyere Atlantis conic sauteuse, and Demeyere Atlantis saute pan.  Those three designs cover you for  dry foods, sauces, and wet foods, respectively.  Add a nonstick ceramic pan of your choice (see below) for eggs/fish if you want.

However, don’t buy their stock pot, which does not outperform cheaper stainless pots.  A stock pot is where you can skimp the most because watery foods spread heat around, so you can definitely get away with using something like an Update International SuperSteel stock pot. If you’re okay with the price, get a German-made Fissler stock pot or a French-made Sitram Profiserie or Catering stock pot, both of which are virtually indestructible (thick stainless steel that won’t dent and is 18/10 for strong corrosion resistance) and which you can use to sear meat with impunity for one-pot meals (very thick aluminum disc bases; not the absolute thickest, but Paderno stock pots don’t come with flared rims and thus pour more messily).

Also, for skillets in particular, All-Clad d7 skillets (I review it here) are better value than Demeyere so be sure to check out d7 if you just want a good skillet.

INDIVIDUAL PIECES

If you already have a cookware set and just want to supplement them with something else, e.g., you started a family and now need a larger saute pan, then I’d recommend reading the reviews for the product series above and then buying individual pieces depending on price.

If you want to replace your current cookware with something better, it makes sense to upgrade your most-used pieces with top-quality stuff that you won’t need to replace again. Generally speaking, that means buying the following:

• Egg pan (don’t overheat it and use it only for eggs or other delicate foods like fish, in order to prolong its life)
• Skillet or saute pan, cladded so food can cook on the sides and won’t stick when sliding out; can double as a low-capacity saute pan; sloped sides let you flip food more easily and won’t let water condense and drip back into the pan, which is useful for dry foods
• Saute pan (optional); useful for cooking a lot of wet foods in a single batch, such as a lot of leafy green vegetables
• Medium saucepan, cladded, for thicker stews, chili, oatmeal, reheating leftovers, etc., but you want it responsive enough to rescue sauces that are overheating, so you don’t want anything too thick; evenness matters less with smaller diameters since the burner diameter can match or even exceed the diameter of the saucepan
• Large stock pot for heating water or other thin fluids
• Casserole/Dutch Oven (optional), for long-duration braises/simmers/etc. on the stovetop or in the oven. Long-duration cooking of acidic/salty foods can corrode even stainless steel if you keep doing it enough times, so many people use enamel-lined cast iron, which is immune to corrosion. Also makes a great presentation piece when having guests over.

Induction stoves respond instantly when you turn the burner up or down. Most disc-base pieces will not heat all the way to the edges on electric or induction stoves, so you get a relatively cold perimeter around your cooking surface. A few brands use discs that go all the way to the edges, though.

My recommendations would therefore be:

• Anolon Nouvelle Copper Nonstick (I review it here) or Zwilling Spirit (I review it here) if you prefer ceramic. Either way, use them only for eggs/fish/delicates and don’t overheat them. Use non-scratch sponges and don’t use metal utensils on them, no matter what the manufacturer claims about how they are metal safe (metal can still wear down PTFE or chip ceramic). These precautions will extend their useful lifespans.
• Demeyere Proline 5-Star Frying Pan (I review it here) but the better value would be All-Clad d7 skillets (I review it here) which perform similarly for much less
• Demeyere Atlantis Saute Pan (I review it here)
• All-Clad Copper Core (I review it here) saucepan
• Update International SuperSteel stock pot (18/8 stainless) (boils water faster than other designs)
• Casserole/Dutch Oven (optional)

You can supplement these pieces with other pieces in the same product lines if you want. I’d also recommend getting a steamer basket if you don’t already have one. They’re very versatile and can double as colanders.

Why is a skillet a higher priority than a saute pan? Because you can more easily get a spatula under your food to flip an egg or other flat food. You do lose volume in the process, so a skillet is not as good for reducing a huge bunch of spinach, but if money is tight, go with the skillet–you will simply have to batch-saute huge bunches of spinach rather than cook the entire bunch at once. (Obviously you can buy both a skillet and saute pan if it’s within your budget.)

Invest in a big can of Bar Keepers Friend to clean off the inevitable scorchmarks and food or water stains. Avoid rubber/plastic handles unless you think you will never use pans in the oven. Don’t worry about hot handles when cooking on the stovetop, because stainless is a relatively poor heat conductor. Even if the handle somehow gets too hot, just wrap a towel around it. You want a stainless steel lid because of its ability to withstand abuse that would break glass lids; furthermore, steel lids are usually oven safe to 500F+ whereas glass lids often have plastic/rubber/bakelite handles that degrade over time when heated above 350F or so.

Back to Scenarios

SCENARIO 4: Unusual or Exotic Cookware

Generally speaking I would only recommend copper cookware to people who demand the best performance and responsiveness, even at the cost of extra maintenance (or else being okay with the copper oxidizing into different colors), lack of induction- and dishwasher-compatibility, and extra weight and expense. That said, I’ve reviewed a number of copper cookware lines:

• All-Clad C2 Copper Clad (1.7mm copper lined with stainless) Review
• De Buyer Prima Matera (induction-compatible 2mm copper lined with stainless) Review
• Mauviel M’Heritage M250c 2.5mm Copper (lined with stainless) Review
• Mazzetti 100% Handmade Italian Copper (lined with silver or tin) Review
• Soy Turkiye 100% Handmade Turkish Copper (lined with silver or tin) Review

To get rid of copper tarnish without damaging your cookware, use a non-abrasive copper polish that is specifically designed for cookware, like Mauviel Copperbrill Cleaner.

I’ve also reviewed some unusually thick aluminum-core clad or hybrid cookware which gives copper-like heat spreading ability but significantly worse responsiveness to changes in burner strength:

• Berndes SignoCast/EcoFit/VarioClick Pearl Ceramic-lined aluminum Review
• Cristel Casteline (expensive hybrid pans with detachable handles)
• KitchenAid Tri-Ply Copper / Old Dutch International Tri-Ply Copper Review
• Woll Diamond Plus Induction Review

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GLOSSARY

Frying Pan/Skillet – flat disc of metal with low sides that gently curve upwards from the base. Ratio of top diameter to height ranges from about 4:1 (most skillets) to 5:1 (especially large skillets). The bottom diameter is usually significantly smaller than the top diameter because of the gentle curve upwards. For instance, many 12-inch skillets have 9 to 9.5 inch diameter flat bottom cooking surfaces. The shallow design of a skillet allows water vapor to dissipate quickly, so you can fry something rather than steam it. Furthermore, the low sidewalls make it easier to slide utensils like spatulas underneath food at low angles. Although skillets are great for less-wet foods like fried eggs and meats, you can still cook wet foods in them, especially if you have a lid. Example of a frying pan/skillet:

Paella Pan – Basically a frying pan with two short handles instead of a long handle. You lose one-handed operation but the pan takes up less space on the stovetop, in the oven, and in storage. Used to make the Spanish rich-based dish paella. Example of a paella pan:

Saute Pan or Low Casserole – flat disc of metal with sidewalls that quickly bend upwards from the base to form a 90 degree angle. Ratio of diameter to height ranges from about 3:1 to 4:1. This design does not dissipate water vapor as well as frying pans/skillets, but you get more surface area. Good for mass-producing potstickers, cooking large amounts of leafy greens, and even making clam soup. Example of a saute pan:

Rondeau/Braisier/Low Casserole – Almost the same as saute pan (although some are curved like frying pans) but usually with two small handles instead of one long handle and a helper handle. Ratio of diameter to height is about 3:1 to 4:1, varying wildly from company to company. Some users prefer these to regular frying pans and saute pans because they take up less space on the stovetop, or in storage or in the oven, but these pans also lack the leverage of a long handle to use traditional saute “jumping” cooking methods (where you flip the food into the air by physically jostling the pan). If you don’t overcrowd the pan, you can still fry, but the evaporation ability is a little worse than a skillet because the sidewalls can crowd food near the edge. Example of a braiser/rondeau/low casserole style pan:

Casserole/Dutch Oven – Basically a taller rondeau. Companies’ products vary wildly on exact ratios but generally speaking these will be somewhere between 3:1 and 1.5:1 ratio in terms of diameter to height. You get even less evaporation control as the sidewalls grow higher. Technically a Dutch oven just means a thick-walled pot with close-fitting lid, but they are often shaped like casseroles or a little taller. Example of casserole/dutch oven:

Sauce Pans/Sauce Pot (Half Stockpot) – A saucepan has a long handle, and sometimes a short helper handle. A saucepot or half-stockpot is basically a saucepan that has two short handles, which takes up less space on the stovetop, in the oven, and in storage, but which also means they are a lot harder to use one-handed. These pots have diameter to height ratios of about 1.5:1 to 2:1, but exact ratios vary among companies and even within the same company or product line. Like saute pans, the bottom quickly bends up 90 degrees from the base of the pot. The shape makes it easier to have a lower liquid to food ratio than you can get with a saute pan. This is important for doing things like boiling eggs, which would waste a lot of water if you tried to do it in a saute pan. Example of a saucepan:

Stock Pot – Basically a taller casserole, with ratio of diameter to height often of about 1:1. Some stock pots are made in higher ratios like 5:4 (taller than they are wide). That shape makes it easier to submerge lot of food–to have a lower ratio of liquids to solids, but I prefer 1:1 ratio stock pots because they give you more floor space for cooking ingredients for one-pot meals, and they are generally easier to fit into ovens. Regardless of whether the ratio is 1:1 or higher, stock pot shapes help impede evaporation by presenting less surface area for water vapor to escape. Most pressure cookers are shaped like stock pots. Example of a stock pot:

Saucier/Sauteuse (also marketed as a Stewpan, Everyday Pan, Weeknight Pan, Chef’s Pan, etc.) – Like a deep skillet where the sidewalls gently curve upwards; this makes it easy to get a whisk into the corners of the pan to dislodge food and thus make burning less likely since the same piece of food is less likely to hide in the corner and overcook, especially with gas burners. The shape makes it possible to use a large saucier as if it were a saute pan, albeit not as well as an actual saute pan. The shape also promotes slightly faster evaporation than pots with faster transitions from horizontal base to vertical sidewalls. The ratio of top diameter to height varies depending on the size of the pan, usually around 3:1 to 2.5:1. Examples of a chef’s pan:

Example of a saucier:

Fait Tout/Windsor – Like a saucier but with straighter sides that do not bend to perpendicular. The shape is more trapezoidal like the cross-section an ingot of gold turned upside down. It gives you the faster evaporation of a saucier and it’s easier to whisk the corners than a straight-walled saucepan, even if it’s not as easy to whisk compared to a curved-wall saucepan. Example of a Fait Tout/Windsor pan:

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