Non-stick frying pans that stay non-stick

[Smartie]

I cook a lot and it's horses for course with pans.

Decent steel pans with a heavy base does for most jobs and can last a lifetime. I have Stellar 7000 which is about a £100 for a set plus £30 for the steamer insert.

Cast iron for baking bread in, dry frying on high heat, Yorkshire puddings etc. Lodge is a decent manufacturer. Can last a lifetime but it has to be seasoned properly. Heavy.

Carbon steel wok for stir fries and deep frying sometimes. Needs to be properly seasoned.

Non-stick pans for cooking eggs. Used to use Tefal which lasted OK but currently Ninja Zerostick which seems to be good and allegedly PFOA free. The coating wears off the top edges but not the cooking surface. Ceramic coatings are an alternative but usually not as non-stick.

[NotAllThere]

A tip I learned in Girl Guides, while on camp and cooking over open fires. Coat the outside of the pan in washing up liquid and then it all rinses off when you wash up afterwards

Oh. The outside of the pan. I wondered why people were complaining.

[openstrike]

Agree about the high-heat usage. Better to have some non-non-stick pans just for that (a cast-iron griddle and a steel wok are good options I have found) and leave the non-stick for the low-to-medium heat work.

We have 3 really good non-stick pans: one omelet, one crepe and one saute. These are never used with high heat and are showing no signs of sticking at all. It might help that these are all "name" brand pans.

[ladymuck]

Though they were a uniform sooty black underneath, rather than on top. .

A tip I learned in Girl Guides, while on camp and cooking over open fires. Coat the outside of the pan in washing up liquid and then it all rinses off when you wash up afterwards

[DoctorStrangelove]

My granny cooked fish in a frying pan on the fire. Them were the days. All the pong went up the chimbley.

Even more so when cooking kippers (only took me 5 seconds to remember what a kippered herring was called ).

Ah, dear dead days beyond recall.

An there wasn't a shred of PFAS or PFOS or P anything in those frying pans.

Though they were a uniform sooty black underneath, rather than on top. .

I was rather sad to see that kitchen range ripped out after I sold the house.

As someone once remarked "You lot could live in a cave". .

[WTFH]

But IME heating a dry non-stick to a high heat without any oil in it does do real damage. Heating the oil to a high temperature is rather less so.

Yes, and it's worse if you are using induction with someone who believes in "must heat the pan before putting anything in it" or "it needs to be turned up to full power to cook"
My induction hob can boil water in a pan faster than a kettle can. New tech is great as long as the user is prepared to do something different to how their granny did it.

[malvolio]

Yes, I suspect that may be what's shortening their life. A couple of times a week I have the pan searing hot.

If it's properly hot, properly seasoned and properly oiled, steel or cast iron pans are non-stick anyway... But IME heating a dry non-stick to a high heat without any oil in it does do real damage. Heating the oil to a high temperature is rather less so.

[woody1]

Also, there's a temperature limit which can result in the damage to the coating if regularly exceeded. They can't handle the same temps as a stainless steel or cast iron pan.

Yes, I suspect that may be what's shortening their life. A couple of times a week I have the pan searing hot.

[ladymuck]

Also, there's a temperature limit which can result in the damage to the coating if regularly exceeded. They can't handle the same temps as a stainless steel or cast iron pan.

Don't put them in the dishwasher, regardless of what it says on the label.

I have some non-stick saucepans I bought when I first moved out of home 30+ years ago and they're going strong.

[woody1]

The three things that seem to trash some of the non-stick coatings based on my unscientific observation:
1. Using metal utensils - even on the non-stick ones that say they can cope
2. Putting the pan under a grill - heat from above = bad, heat from below = OK.
3. Putting water in them while they are still warm after use. The thermal shock of going from 100C to 15C takes its toll. Let them cool down before washing/rinsing/soaking/cleaning.

Don't do any of those.

I don't mind binning them every year or two but it just seems wasteful. We've got stainless steel saucepans my mother gave us 40 years ago that are still almost as good as new.

[WTFH]

The three things that seem to trash some of the non-stick coatings based on my unscientific observation:
1. Using metal utensils - even on the non-stick ones that say they can cope
2. Putting the pan under a grill - heat from above = bad, heat from below = OK.
3. Putting water in them while they are still warm after use. The thermal shock of going from 100C to 15C takes its toll. Let them cool down before washing/rinsing/soaking/cleaning.

[woody1]

We've gone through loads of them over the years. They're great when they're new but over time they get less and less non-stick. No amount of cleaning/scrubbing/scouring seems to restore the non-stick. We've tried lots of makes, with different non-stick coatings, but none last more than a couple of years or so before they start sticking. It's probably high-heat cooking that does for them; searing steaks etc.

Reviews aren't much help because they're mostly after people have just bought them, not years down the line.

Has anyone found any that stay non-stick after many years?

Maybe ones without a non-stick coating like stainless steel or cast iron are better for high temperatures?

Thanks