YSK You don't need Teflon pans for nonstick

It's the simplest thing in the world with a stainless pan. Bring up the heat, add in some oil, wait for it to smoke, wipe it out with a cloth, in with cold oil, add in your food. It won't stick.

Thanks for this but I will stay say teflon is simpler (not better!)
- The most annoying thing for me with Teflon was that in two years or so it is no longer nonstick, so your pans have essentially an expiration date.
  Not to mention that it will be scratched and danger to you and all around you long before that.
  I preach the gospel of our lord and savior stainless steel pans!
- right? six steps and having to deal with hot oil every time or use teflon and have a slightly higher risk of cancer and zero extra steps to cooking. I'll stick with teflon and hope for a global war to wipe us all out before I have to worry about cancer.
- Fresh teflon is. Then you start throwing it away in a year or two since your teflon coating has FLAKED off despite using only wood-plastic-silicone and handwashing it carefully.
  And then you read TEFLON FLAKES cause cancer.
  And then you start putting two and two together.
- If you’re lazy just say that
I add oil, just enough to barely coat the pan, and then tap a teeny drop of tap water from my finger onto the pan. Once the drop pops (if it got touched by the oil) or simply boils away, I can start cooking.
Additionally: butter. Butter somehow doesn't stick for whatever reason, even if the pan isn't fully heated up yet.
- Same here, but with a different order.
  Turn the heat on.
  Wait.
  Test with water. If it doesn’t sizzle, wait and test again. If it does sizzle…
  Add oil
- mmmm… butter
- It's an emulsion, butter is basically cheat codes
Thanks for giving a simple summary so I didn't have to click and watch.
"wipe it out with a cloth" I'm curious about the cloth you use and what you do it? Sounds really messy an oil soaked cloth.. But you do say it's the simplest thing..
- Sometimes I forget others haven't accepted tea towels into their heart. I've got a dozen or more cloth towels around the house for mopping up. It all comes out in the wash. Cotton ones won't burn readily, so they'll dry out a hot oily pan no problem.
  Paper towels work fine. Just make sure they're pure paper and not mixed with synthetics or weird scents or whatever.
Been using the same set of pans for about 30 years. Just cold oil and a hot pan, get my food in immediately and same thing. I can slap pork chops in there no problem. I just have a feeling if I tried this instead of your method on a new pan, I'd be screwed.
I'm pretty sure the pan is just seasoned after that amount of time and they definitely get used daily, if not multiple times a day.
- A stainless or carbon steel pan will take to the cold oil method first time. Cast iron will depend on the quality; some come preseasoned, but the quality of that varies a lot too.
  I got my first nice CI skillet about five years ago and daily driving it. I talk a good game about steel pans but I just don't enjoy them as much. You build their seasoning, it works perfectly once, then it's gone. There's no relationship, no satisfaction in getting a fried egg to slide freely about the pan.
Does this work with cast irons too?
- Update: just made eggs sunny side up this way on my moderately unwell seasoned cast iron pan. Worked amazingly well. Who knew I was putting too much oil… I brought the temp down a little after cracking the eggs in.
I just let it go until leidenfrost, add oil and roll oil around and its good to go. If you are making eggs, reduce the heat and wait a bit. Only difference vs teflon is that you put the pan on heat while you are prepping to ensure thorough preheat. Havent used teflon in years. Havent missed it either, I make pancakes (local ones are thin, not quite crepe like but thin) with only one knob of butter at the beginning just fine. No oil in pancake batter either.
- No oil in your batter? I wanna know more. Doesn't that make the pancakes too chewy?

I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that any other cookware material outperforms Teflon nonstick, and actually harms the conversation when trying to convince people to switch to an alternative. Nothing is going to beat the nonstick performance a fresh nonstick pan, and that's perfectly fine. I don't need a pan so nonstick that I could start an egg in a cold pan with no oil. Well-meaning people run the risk of frustrating less experienced cooks when they assert that they'll get the exact same or better results from a stainless steel pan, which just isn't true, especially right from the start. Stainless has plenty of other benefits that make it more than worth the learning curve to use. Sometimes you want some stick, to build fond for a pan sauce. Or you need a pan that can go from stovetop to oven to finish cooking.

This post wasn't aimed at you specifically, I just wanted to vent at what I feel like has been an uptick in cookware bros flexing their ability to reduce sticking on stainless steel ("I'm so smart I name dropped this little-known thing called the Leidenfrost effect"). I quite like your video and post because they show an alternative way to reduce sticking on stainless that is definitely more forgiving for a beginner than trying to hit a specific temperature range.

As a wonderful cook, I resent just about every piece of cooking advice. They're just oft-repeated, poorly-understood concepts.
For example, I love cast iron. It's my go-to for nearly all my cooking. I cannot stand cast iron people. They think their lump of iron is a baby that needs to be spit polished and pampered like a Fabergé egg. No, you beat the ever-loving hell out of it, abuse it, soak it in water, leave it to rust, abuse it with scouring pads... then you rub a 1/16th tsp of oil on it and get on with life/cooking.
Edit: Same thing with knives. Before you give me a huge sermon about how to sharpen and care for knives, why don't you understand that you can use a $5 German steel chef knife, a Rada quick sharp and a hone. For the amount most people cook and prep, that's going to last 30 years. I cook every single meal from scratch, there's 20,000 cutting board Kms on my $5 knife. Yet if the subject comes up, people are linking $300 knife reviews... Proof they want to have a knife, not use a knife.
- I agree with both your original comment and the edit, but especially the bit about cast iron. Neglecting mine for an extended period led to uneven patches of seasoning, but when I got round to giving it a proper scrub, it was like hitting a reset button. I'm going to try to be better at basic seasoning/maintenance this time, but the joy of cast iron is knowing that it's super forgiving if you do mess it up.
  Tangential to your edit: I enjoy being able to sharpen knives, but that's mostly because I'm a nerd who has other tools I need to sharpen anyway, so I already have the stones. Something that I found striking though is that when I was learning how to sharpen knives, I asked if I could practice on various friends' kitchen knives. Most of them were poor students, so I sharpened many cheap knives, and I was impressed by how well some of the cheaper ones performed compared once they were sharp. They held their edge for surprisingly long too.
  I'm quite fond of my Wusthof chef's knife, which was a bit of an indulgent treat for myself, but I am utterly baffled by the gear acquisition syndrome that so many seem to fall into. It's not just that prospect of someone who barely cooks buying a $300 knife that perplexes me, but that so many of these people keep acquiring more knives. If they said that collecting knives was just their hobby, and that they were never intending to actually use them, then I'd shrug and say fair enough. That's pretty rare though — the underlying implication that these people seem to operate under is that the fancy knives make you a better cook (and that the perfect knife will make good cooking into an effortless, joyful endeavour). It's an odd culture that's developed.
- I went for a cheapish knife, like £20 or so each for a few knives. My thinking was I don't want the 20 knives in a set for £19.99 that are probably made of stamped aluminium and hollow plastic handles, but by £20 you are getting something good without spending a silly amount of money.
  As for the cast iron I won't deliberately leave mine to rust, but happily use it over a fire and then just wipe off the worst of the soot/ash. But it's black anyway so no one is going to notice spot buildup. Just remove anything that would easily brush off on other things.
World is a better place when we dont buy pans that are designed to give you cancer and fail in a few years.. Teflon is reserved for the 1-2 dishes that require non stick at a low temperature. The few dishes that I cant think of right now but i'm sure they're out there.
- You won't find any disagreement from me there. I just think that when you set the expectation too high (stainless steel can actually be more nonstick than Teflon), people will give up and just go back to nonstick pans when they can't achieve those results.
  Regarding dishes that are solely the domain of Teflon, I think it definitely has a place for dishes that already have a high bar for execution. A perfect French omelette is hard enough on a nonstick that adding another layer of heat management puts it out of reach for most people. But like you said, there's not much that I'd use Teflon for, so I just don't have one after switching to induction.
Got 2 cast iron pans, one probably needs a good reseasoning sometime but the other is really good right now. Possibly not as good as brand new Teflon, but how long does Teflon remain good as new? Mine has long passed the age at which Teflon should be disposed of too, so how much less pan waste am I making by using cast iron?
I can also use it over a firepit, just brush the ash off the base when I bring it back in.
- I'd posit that your well-loved cast iron looks even better than new. For me, moving off nonstick pans was about sustainability (and money waste, who wants to buy a 2 year subscription to cooking?), but I can't get over how beautiful some cookware gets just from being used. The patinas on cast iron/carbon steel pans reflect the dedication of their owners to a craft, which I'll take any day over a colorful pan whose surface flakes just from looking at it.

Don't know who needs to hear this but you don't need to season stainless steel. You just need to pre-heat it correctly for it to gain non-stick properties.

You have to pre-heat to around 400 degrees Fahrenheit before you put anything in the pan - including oil. You know its good when you drop some water in and it immediately beads up and glides across the entire surface. If it boils and evaporates, the pan is still too cold. If it beads up and starts to glide but freaks out in a certain spot, you have a cold spot in your pan. You're trying to achieve the leidenfrost effect

Keep in mind that in a lot of dishes you actually want some of the food to stick to the pan and become [frond].(https://www.thespruceeats.com/all-about-fond-995681) Then you deglaze it later with some kind of wine or stock.

Stainless steel is perfect for this kind of cooking. I've been using it exclusively for years. Its versatility and low maintenance is why all the best kitchens in the world use it.

Fond. Fronds are parts of a tree.
Thanks for the tip about preheating! I bought a set of Allclad mostly so I could go from stove to oven to finish, but haven't bothered to learn how to correctly cook eggs in them (have a carbon steel crepe pan that is the designated egg pan, highly recommend). The rest of the reason for them is that they are nigh on unfuck-up-able.

Sis anyone else watch the video? I was waiting for his”spot seasoning method” until I saw just how much oil he used to cook and egg without sticking to his wok. Dude lost all credibility right there, and I quit watching

"the egg glides freely..."
the egg does not, in fact, glide freely. it's also fucking burned to a crisp and there's like an ocean of oil in there. terrible, terrible video.
- "Floats..."
This is how you cook with stainless. Get a high smoke point oil, get the pan and oil plenty hot, the put the food in. It immediately sears the contact surface and this is what prevents sticking. This is also why you slowly place food in the pan (other than to avoid spatter), it gives a little extra time for this to happen. Otherwise you gotta wait for the surface to brown and hopefully unstick, which might work for things like chicken or the skin side of fish, but anything liquid like eggs or super soft like the fish meat will have a good chance of sticking.
IOW, just do what chefs usually tell you to do with stainless and get it hot with the correct oil. Best odds of not sticking. Modern non-stick pans are pretty good if you obey the rules about using them.
- Yeah plus when cooking some foods in stainless (such as meat) you want some sticking so you can build a fond which you then deglaze to make a pan sauce. Carbon steel is less ideal for this because the seasoning will react with acids such as vinegars, wines, or citrus which are all common ingredients in pan sauces. While a well-seasoned carbon steel pan can survive a deglaze with vinegar the dissolved seasoning can ruin the flavour of your pan sauce.
- This is how you cook with stainless. Get a high smoke point oil, get the pan and oil plenty hot, the put the food in.
  This is not, strictly speaking, true for eggs.
  I've cooked eggs in stainless nearly every day for the last couple of decades. I can crack a few eggs in a properly prepared cold pan, and still get non stick effects, such that the food will slide right out without using a tool.
  The level of heat which would require a high smoke point oil is generally much too high for cooking most styles of eggs anyway.
  People should use whatever method works for them, I'm not judging, but high heat is not required for most styles of eggs.
I have that same wok. You need a lot more oil for a flat bottom wok than a round bottom because the flat bottom doesn’t let the oil pool to the middle.
You absolutely can get nonstick eggs with a stainless steel frying pan and a small amount of oil but you need to actually practice heat control and cooking technique. It’s actually much easier with butter because the water in it will begin to fizz and you just need to wait for the fizzing to stop and the pan will be just about hot enough.
You still need to use the right heat setting which is specific to your stove and pan, so practice is needed but you can get a good feel for it by how quickly the butter melts. If it melts rapidly and gives off a lot of steam and begins browning then the pan is too hot (unless you want to do a crispy egg, but that should be done with oil instead of butter which has milk solids that burn and turn bitter).
- slightly wet your fingers and flick little drops of water into the oil for the same “fizzy” test for regular oil… it’s not enough water to be problematic, but plenty enough to give you a light to heavy fizz to tell you how hot the pan is
You can absolutely cook an egg without sticking without needing that much fat and without the egg burning.
But that's how you cook an egg. Every Chinese chef does it this way no matter the pan.
- The first year I lived in China a tutor of ours offered to cook eggs at a breakfast and the American girls who lived in the apartment agreed. They were horrified when she heated an inch and s half of oil and deep fried those suckers

I need my pans that need to be treated like a princess and then fail anyway in a few years and need to be thrown and replaced. I need to keep doing it cause those poor people at teflon plants cant have a job creating one of the most polluting chemicals out there

I appreciate that people have found solutions for avoiding materials that can become dangerous when overheated. I, too, have gone on PFOA-free journeys.

But oh my god, that egg is swimming in oil! I don't want that many calories, and I don't want to feel a greasy egg in my mouth.

I understand this solution is great for many people, and they should be proud and happy that they have reached their Teflon-free goals.

But as a person who can't digest high amounts of fats without consequences and watches their calories, this is only a solution for people who love bathing their food in oil. I also avoid saturated fats, which are superior for their non-stick properties. I want to use olive oil, nothing else.

But fine, I will try it on my stainless pan and see what happens. Olive oil, heat to smoke, wipe, then a small amount of olive oil again for normal cooking.

If it works I'll be thrilled. If not, back to my trusty teflons that never fail me. Wish me luck! Got any more tips?

Yeah, don’t use that huge amount of oil. I’ve never had eggs stick in my cast iron, using 1-2 tablespoons of oil or butter. It shouldn’t need to swim in oil and if it is, you’re doing something wrong

I keep seeing people urging to go back to cast iron or stainless steel, but when I left the nest 5 years ago, I picked up ceramic pans, and you can use them the same way as teflons and I have yet to lose the nonstick.

Don't use bar keepers friend to clean them. That fucked up ours.
- Could be cheaper enamel. Le Cruset specifically mentions it in their cleaning instructions
  Bar Keeper’s Friend, or a paste of baking soda and water, also comes in handy for cleaning tough stains, oil residue and marks on your Dutch oven as well
  I use it on my enameled dutch oven all the time and I've never had an issue.
Don't those use very similar coatings as Teflon?
Some people, like me, can't possibly keep non-stick pans safe. I live on a sailboat, and the effort to keep non-stick pans (even ceramic) safe from damage is disproportionate to the advantages. Also, I am away from resupply for long periods of time. If my pan gets damaged, I can't just hop down to the store to replace it.

I prefer carbon steel. You get the same seasoning of cast iron and easy care, but it’s lighter so it heats more quickly and evenly. It’s a bit more expensive than cast iron but much cheaper than an All-Clad stainless pan.

I only use stainless for acidic foods, like tomato sauces.

Both have their place. I think both stainless and carbon steel are extremely cheap in the long run compared to nonstick for the simple fact these pans don’t wear out. Both types of pans will last for generations and can take a real beating, even from metal utensils, though carbon steel does not give a damn about scratches whereas stainless can lose some aesthetic appeal (barkeepers friend can help polish it up though)!
Besides the chemical reactivity differences, stainless pans (especially clad pans with aluminum or copper cores) tend to be much faster to react to temperature changes than carbon steel. At the same time can’t hold as much thermal energy due to lower density, so carbon steel is better for searing a large piece of food without cooling down too much (which can start boiling the food instead of searing).
Carbon steel FTW. I have a hand-hammered carbon steel wok (as well as one carbon steel knife). I live on a sailboat which means salt air. These two pieces of carbon steel perform so well that I'm willing to accept their higher maintenance "costs" (cost, in the effort context).
Things that heat up more quickly dont heat up more evenly

Can someone link to the actual fucking article describing how to do the spot seasoning method?

Don't properly nonstick pans mostly not use teflon anymore anyway?

They still use a chemical that’s part of the PFAS family, teflon is just one of those chemicals under the PFAS umbrella. Unless you mean ceramic cookware.
- https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY
  For some info into this chemical PFAS

“a stainless… steel… WOK.”

I’m going to need a supercut of this guy saying “WOK”.

Bought a carbon steel pan - never looked back, it is excellent and lasts forever!

Got one too, searing steacks is wonderful but I sure can't make eggs without garbling them!
I have a well seasoned good quality one that makes eggs as well as a nonstick pan. Took time to get to that point though. Sugary American bacon is the surest way to end up having to reseason it though.

my seasoning flaked off and it became metallic appearance. I was struggling with obtaining stable seasoning, but found a reddit post that suggesting Blueing process. You heat-up your clean wok a lot with no-oil the iron reacts with oxygen to form magnetite Fe3O4 which holds seasoning much better. After you blue your wok, you season it by heating up some oil, but generally it seasons itself diring usage. If something starts sticking, more oil and more heat usually does the job.

When my cast iron started flaking, it was because I was being too gentle with it. Once I began to suspect that that was the case, I decided that from now on if this layer of seasoning isn't strong enough to withstand my copper scrub pad, then it's not worthy to be the foundation for the next later of seasoning. I've had much better results with this approach.

For the majority of cooking? Yes, you don't need a non-stick pan. A properly used steel (or even aluminum) pan will work. Cast Iron is obviously loved but Carbon Steel is actually what most people want and has almost all of the same properties. But properly oiling your pan (and I actually love cooking sprays for dishes where I am using a neutral oil. Glug of "real" oil, get it up to temp, and then give a quick spritz just to make sure EVERYTHING is coated) and cooking at a high enough heat that your proteins can properly react and not "stick" to the pan will get you almost the entire way.

That said? Eggs and fish. Eggs very much are in that "nobody ever complained about too much butter" category but there is a lot to be said about a quick egg without any additional fats. And if you are cooking eggs these days, you can afford a 20 dollar specialty pan.... And fish in particular is the kind of food where it is very easy to overcook it while waiting for all the appropriate reactions to occur so you can cleanly flip it.

If I were to downsize my kitchen (which I hopefully will be doing in a few months...)? That shit goes in the appropriate bin. But if you have the space? A 20-ish dollar restaurant supply store non-stick pan is AMAZING. And cheap enough that you can afford to get rid of it the moment you see any scratching.

You seem to be experienced with pans of different materials and you opened a topic I have no-one to ask about, so I'll try here. I don't use much oil and I like cooking on lower heat to avoid the carcinogens that are created when oil and other substances get too hot. Is it possible to do that with non-teflon pans? What material and technique?
- Different oils have different temperature ranges with the "smoke point" what is commonly considered. As long as you are under that temperature, you are fine according to everyone that isn't facebook.
ive been doing low fat eggs and frying fish just fine on a stainlless pan. Once throughoutly preheated, you can lower the heat and let the pan cool down a bit. Rolling oil around the pan in every direction ensures all the pores have been properly hit with oil.
My eggs stick less to my stainless than to my 3 year old very expensive teflon plan that has been treated properly and still fails cause teflon a shit.

What's the consensus on ceramic pots? They seem to be easier for nonstick and I don't think they have the same issues as Teflon.

I have started to hate my ceramic skillets. They started sticking a couple of years after we bought them, and it's a pain to lose half of an egg to the pan....
- Hmm good to know, we have a couple and they seem great so far, but wasn't sure how others felt.
Some people, like me, can't possibly keep non-stick pans safe. I live on a sailboat, and the effort to keep non-stick pans (even ceramic) safe from damage is disproportionate to the advantages. Also, I am away from resupply for long periods of time. If my pan gets damaged, I can't just hop down to the store to replace it.
I use a ceramic coated pan regularly. From my experience, the stickyness is a bit better than stainless steel. Though seasoning them is not possible, so compared to a good seasoned stainless steel, it'll loose the game. The ceramic is dishwasher proof, so that's a plus.
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Even easier, heat the stainless steel pan until water balls up and skitters/rolls across it instead of evaporating.

Add oil and you can fry an egg on that pan

I just use butter to cook my eggs. I also pay attention to the bonds that the bottom of the egg form with the pan. By using a stainless turner on a stainless pan you can get between the egg and the bonds it's forming with the pan. The more often you manipulate it and make sure those bonds don't form, the more "non-stick" the egg is.

I usually pan flip single eggs cooked with this method because the egg slides around the pan easily.

My wife has a problem doing the same though, so I buy a couple of the disposable Teflon junk pans on a recurring basis.

I've been looking at the pirotech pans which are supposed to be nonstick and fully recyclable, but I've been unable to find a lot of reviews on them.

In addition to the tips in this thread: Parchment paper rounds that fit inside the pan and work great for really really sticky stuff

Does he actually show the spot seasoning process in this video? Or is it in a different vid?

I didn't know about this technique, thanks!

You can also season the whole pan once and the nonstick effect will last a very long time.

Controversial:

Im okay occasionally scrubbing the pans a bit harder. Sometimes it sticks - sonetimes it doesnt 🤷‍♂️

The benefit of stainless is that you can scrape it with a metal utensil.
Right there with ya; sometimes elbow grease is required. But for things like crispy, cheesy tteok, I want the crispy parts to stay on the food. Once the crust forms in the pan, no other food is going to crisp up.
- Mmmmmm... topokki

laughs in stainless steel and cast iron

In a good non stick pan you can fry an egg without any oil at all, so no, adding a bunch of oil is not a replacement for that

Some people, like me, can't possibly keep non-stick pans safe. I live on a sailboat, and the effort to keep non-stick pans (even ceramic) safe from damage is disproportionate to the advantages.
There are other cases, such as people who own birds. Overheating Teflon pans can result in PTFE toxicity in birds.
- Non stick doesn't have to be Teflon. Fuck Teflon!

Link to article?

My cast iron pans tend to get sticky, the sides, the handle, I’m not sure what to do about it. Any ideas? What am I doing wrong?

are you washing it? Like with soap, hot water? and scrubbing it with something like a scrubbing sponge?
Have to ask, due to the prevalence of people buying into the whole "you cant wash cast iron!" myth.
Cause, with the sides and even the handle being sticky and nasty, it sounds ALOT like just spattered grease never getting cleaned off.
- Definitely this, but also if you are washing it and re-seasoning it after if you use too much oil it can cause it to get sticky.

Also for skillets you can just buy ceramic. As long as you don't let them sit with food on them they stay pretty non-stick for years.

Some people, like me, can't possibly keep non-stick pans safe. I live on a sailboat, and the effort to keep non-stick pans (even ceramic) safe from damage is disproportionate to the advantages.
- Huh, I haven't treated my ceramic skillets special at all, just rinse 'em out when I'm done and throw 'em in the dishwasher, or if I have to hand-wash I can just scrub them real quick since they're not nasty with food gunk all over them. To the best of my knowledge they don't require special treatment, I only suggest not letting them sit with food on them because that'll make anything harder to clean up.