Those who want a minimalist kitchen or who are on a budget often wonder if they can make do with just one of the two pans. If you could choose only one, which should you get?
Example of a frying pan/skillet:
Example of a paella pan:
Example of a Stewpan/Everyday Pan/Weeknight Pan/Chef’s Pan, etc. (companies call it whatever they want):
Example of a saute pan:
Example of a braiser/rondeau/low casserole style pan:
THE SHORT ANSWER
If you can have ONLY a skillet or only a sauté pan, and you plan to cook things like eggs and pancakes sometimes, then buy the skillet. It can do every task the sauté pan can do. The only drawback is that a skillet holds fewer quarts of food compared to a sauté pan of equal diameter. In contrast, a sauté pan can’t do everything a skillet can do, because a sauté pan’s higher sidewalls prevent you from getting underneath flat foods (like eggs and pancakes) with a spatula as easily. Also, a sauté pan may not brown/sear food as well due to the close proximity of the vertical sidewalls to food near the edges, which can collect condensation and does not promote as much evaporation.
Some companies make a hybrid between a skillet and sauté pan. This hybrid pan takes many names: “weeknight pan,” “everyday pan,” “chef’s pan,” or even “sauteuse” or “sauciere” or “saucier” in some cases. A particularly high-sided paella pan would also fit under this classification. These hybrid pans vary in exact shape and size, but the basic idea is that they are a cross between a skillet and a sauté pan. You can think of them as high-sided skillets. The smaller ones can be good for making sauces, and the larger ones are big enough for frying and sautés, too–sort of. The problem is that such shapes are jacks of all trades and masters of none, so it won’t be as good as a skillet for skillet-type tasks, and it won’t be as good as a sauté pans for sauté pan-type tasks. Furthermore, hybrid pans have the same problem as sauté pans: you can’t get a spatula underneath food as easily due to higher sidewalls than you find with skillets.
To say that I’ve used a lot of skillets is a huge understatement. The best overall skillet I’ve ever used (and I’ve used everything up to and including 2.5 mm copper lined with silver) is Demeyere Proline
For a skillet, the lowest I’d go is Cuisinart MultiClad Pro (reviewed here), which is basically a clone of All-Clad Stainless at a lower price.
As for best value nonstick skillets, the Ozeri Green Earth Ceramic Nonstick pan (reviewed here) and Anolon Nouvelle Copper PTFE (Teflon; reviewed here) pan are my top picks for ceramic and PTFE (Teflon) pans, respectively.
The best sauté pan I’ve encountered for general-purpose sauté and occasional frying/searing has been the Demeyere Atlantis (reviewed here) series. The best value I’ve found is Cuisinart Professional Series Stainless (reviewed here), which unfortunately is mostly sold in sets and not individual pieces. If you need something a la carte, or if you want something sturdier and/or not made in China like the Cuisinart, then I would highly recommend Sitram (reviewed here) or Paderno (reviewed here). However, they come without lids. But you can re-use lids you already have, and there are some pretty good third-party lids out there, too.)
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THE LONG ANSWER
The Skillet (also known as a Fry Pan or Frying Pan)
- Shape. A skillet is a relatively flat pan. Seen from the side, frying pans resemble a long trapezoid with a long handle attached to one side, and sometimes a short helper handle attached on the other side. A typical frying pan may have a diameter of 28 cm (11 inches) across the top, measured from the inside wall to the opposite inside wall, yet curve down into a flat cooking circle of only 8 to 9 inches in diameter. Such a pan is usually around 2 to 2.5 inches tall (so about 4-5 times wider than it is tall).
- A paella pan is shaped much like a skillet with only short helper handles on both sides. There is no long handle to allow for easy one-handed operation. Paella pans sometimes have even shorter sidewalls and are used to cook paella, though you could cook other things in them as well.
- Purpose. A skillet is a do-all pan.
- A skillet is particularly good for cooking flat foods like omelets. The sloped sidewalls allow one to use a spatula or turner at a shallow angle to get underneath food. In contrast, the vertical sidewalls of a sauté pan do not allow access at a shallow angle.
- The sloped sidewalls promote dry cooking, because you can cook right up to the sidewalls and water vapor still has an escape route into the kitchen air, as opposed to condensing on a straight sidewall. Thus a skillet is particularly good for searing and browning proteins. You can even cook on the sidewalls if it has thermally conductive material (usually copper, aluminum, carbon steel, or cast iron) running up the sidewalls.
- A skillet may also be used for wet cooking, though skillets tend to have low capacities, so you may have to cook in batches. For instance, leafy green vegetables take up a lot of space before they are cooked down, so if you are trying to cook large amounts of leafy greens, you may want to use a sauté pan. Many skillets don’t come with lids, either, so you would have to supply your own lid (perhaps a universal lid or one taken from another pan).
- Desired Qualities.
- High heat capacity. Browning food (especially meat) is extremely important because it produces Maillard reactions, which produce flavor chemicals. However, Maillard reactions occur at temperatures higher than the boiling point of water, and most foods contain water. As long as there is water present, heat from the pan goes toward boiling off the water rather than browning. Therefore you want a pan with high heat capacity so that the pan temperature doesn’t crash too hard when you toss in, say, a large steak. The last thing anyone wants to eat is a semi-steamed steak.
- Even heating. The larger the skillet is relative to the burner underneath, the less evenly the burner will heat the pan. Restaurant-caliber gas stoves with multiple ring of burners or star-shaped burners tend to heat most evenly, followed by smaller gas burners, electric coil, and then induction stoves, but any undersized burner will heat unevenly. That is, the heat will tend to be clustered as a circle at the center of the pan, so you want a pan that can spread that heat out to prevent those hot spots from overcooking food while food at the edges of the pan remains undercooked.1 The ability to spread heat evenly is important for pre-heating and during cooking, because the burner is continuously recharging the heat in the pan that is being lost to the food and to the surrounding kitchen air.
- Hot sidewalls. Ideally, every part of a pan should be the same temperature to give perfectly even heating. Realistically, there will be some temperature dropoff as you move towards the edges and rim of the pan. So long as the sidewalls are decently hot, you should be able to achieve fairly even cooking and easily slide food out of the pan. However, some skillets consist of a thin stainless vessel with an aluminum disc bonded to the bottom, with the aluminum sometimes capped off with a another thin sheet of stainless steel. These designs mostly work, but on gas stoves, hot gases flow up and around the aluminum disc. This can superheat the thin stainless so that you have a “ring of fire” or “ring of scorching” around the edges of the pan. On electric and induction stoves, you have the opposite problem: very little heat goes beyond the aluminum, so you get relatively cold sidewalls. In both cases you can lessen the problem with stirring, but it’s not always possible to stir, such as when you are busy doing something else or are cooking delicate fish that doesn’t like to be pushed around much.
The Sauté Pan (or Low Casserole or Rondeau or Braising Pan or Braisier)
- Shape. A sauté pan is built like a short cylinder with a long handle sticking out of one end, and sometimes a short helper handle sticking out of the other end. The pan bottom is shaped like a flat circle. As you approach the edge of the circle, the floor quickly bends upwards into vertical sidewalls. A typical sauté pan may have a diameter of 24 cm (9.5 inches) across the top, measured from the inside wall to the opposite inside wall. The flat cooking surface of the pan is a little smaller, perhaps 9 inches in diameter, due to the curvature at the edges of the pan’s floor. Such a pan is usually around 2.5 to 3 inches tall and holds about 3 to 3.5 quarts (so about 3 to 4 times wider than it is tall). Most sauté pans come with a lid.
- A rondeau is basically a sauté pan that has two short handles, instead of one long handle and one (optional) short handle. Without the long handle, you lose the ability to “jump” or “sauté” food by jerking the pan in a loop with one arm. You also lose the ability to hold the pan with one hand and guide food onto a plate with the other hand. In exchange, you get a pan that takes up less space on the stovetop, in the oven, and in storage. Rondeaus are also known as low casseroles. Rondeaus are often used for braising and other wet cooking, so they usually come with lids and slightly taller sidewalls than equivalent-diameter sauté pans. For instance, a 24 cm (9.5 inch) rondeau may have sidewalls of about 3 to 3.5 inches tall and hold about 4 quarts.
- Purpose. A sauté pan is better at wet cooking than a skillet, a little worse for browning, and a lot worse for flat foods that you are trying to flip with a spatula:
- For dry cooking, such as searing steaks, a sauté pan’s vertical sidewalls do a less-good job of encouraging evaporation than a skillet’s angled sidewalls. Water can even condense more easily on the vertical walls. However, if you do not crowd the pan, you can still get good browning results.
- For cooking wet foods, a sauté pan shines because it has more floorspace than equivalent-diameter skillets, as well as more vertical clearance, which adds up to more capacity. In other words, you can cook down lots of leafy greens or braise chicken more easily than you could in a skillet of equal diameter.
- Sauté pans are particularly good for sautés; many skillets are angled too shallowly to allow efficient “jumping” of food.
- A sauté pan has vertical sidewalls that prevent the use of spatulas or turners at shallow angles to get underneath food. Use a skillet for such foods.
- Desired Qualities. As a practical matter, there are basically two flavors of sauté pans: mobile and immobile. (Rondeaus are basically immobile, though you can try to “jump” food in a rondeau using both hands.)
- Mobile sauté pans must be lightweight enough for users to “jump” food by jerking one’s arm in a loop. Usually this means using less aluminum or copper, and therefore having less even heating, but also more responsiveness to changes in burner strength.
- Thus for mobile sauté pans, you want a light enough weight for you to comfortable “jump” food, even if it means more hotspotting, lower retained heat, and thus less ability to brown/sear. Unless you leave a pan unattended, thermal discontinuities at the edges don’t matter, since you will be continually rotating food via the jumping motion.
- Immobile sauté pans are so heavy that it’s unrealistic for many people to attempt to “jump” food with them, so most people resort to stirring food with a spatula instead. These immobile sauté pans are usually so heavy because they use thicker aluminum or copper layers, and therefore have a higher heat capacity, spread heat more evenly, and are less responsiveness to changes in burner strength compared to mobile sauté pans. This makes immobile sauté pans better for searing and browning large amounts of protein.
- Immobile sauté pans should have thick bases for even heating and high heat capacity. Like skillets, it would be useful to avoid thermal discontinuities around the edges of the cooking surface. This means buying a clad pan or a pan with an oversized disc base.
- Mobile sauté pans must be lightweight enough for users to “jump” food by jerking one’s arm in a loop. Usually this means using less aluminum or copper, and therefore having less even heating, but also more responsiveness to changes in burner strength.
Recommendations
To say that I’ve used a lot of skillets is a huge understatement. The best overall skillet I’ve ever used (and I’ve used everything up to and including 2.5 mm copper lined with silver) is Demeyere Proline
For a skillet, the lowest I’d go is Cuisinart MultiClad Pro (reviewed here), which is basically a clone of All-Clad Stainless at a lower price.
As for best value nonstick skillets, the Ozeri Green Earth Ceramic Nonstick pan and Anolon Nouvelle Copper PTFE (Teflon) pan are my top picks for ceramic and PTFE (Teflon) pans, respectively.
The best sauté pan I’ve encountered for general-purpose sauté and occasional frying/searing has been the Demeyere Atlantis series. The best value I’ve found is Cuisinart Professional Series Stainless, which unfortunately is mostly sold in sets and not individual pieces. If you need something a la carte, or if you want something sturdier and/or not made in China like the Cuisinart, then I would highly recommend Sitram or Paderno. However, they come without lids. But you can re-use lids you already have, and there are some pretty good third-party lids out there, too.)
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