Cooking Pans: What You Really Need and How to Use Them

When you pick up a cooking pan, a flat, open vessel used for frying, searing, or sautéing food on a stovetop. Also known as a frying pan, it’s one of the most used tools in any kitchen—but most people use it wrong. The right pan doesn’t just hold food; it shapes flavor, controls heat, and lasts for decades if treated right.

Professional chefs don’t reach for nonstick pans when they fry eggs. They use cast iron, a heavy, durable pan that holds and distributes heat evenly, ideal for high-heat cooking and developing fond, or carbon steel, a lighter, faster-heating alternative to cast iron that develops a natural nonstick surface over time. Why? Because the brown bits left behind—called fond, the caramelized residue that forms on the bottom of a pan during cooking and is the foundation of rich sauces and deglazed dishes—are where the real flavor lives. Nonstick coatings prevent that. They’re fine for scrambled eggs once in a while, but they don’t build depth. And if you’re trying to make a pan sauce, a nonstick pan won’t help you at all.

You don’t need ten pans. You need two: one cast iron or carbon steel for searing, browning, and making sauces, and one lighter pan for delicate foods like fish or pancakes. The rest? Often just storage space taken up. A good pan heats evenly, doesn’t warp, and gets better with age. It doesn’t need a fancy brand name—it needs proper seasoning, gentle cleaning, and respect.

What you cook in your pan matters as much as what the pan is made of. A cast iron skillet turns a simple steak into a restaurant-worthy dish. A carbon steel wok makes stir-fry fast and smoky. Even something as small as knowing how to deglaze a pan with wine or broth can turn a basic meal into something memorable. And if you’ve ever wondered why your scrambled eggs stick or your sauce tastes flat—it’s not your recipe. It’s your pan.

Below, you’ll find real advice from people who cook for a living, not just for Instagram. From the exact pan a chef uses for perfect eggs to why some pans last longer than your car, these posts cut through the noise. No fluff. No marketing. Just what works—and what doesn’t.