‘Don’t use oil spray, don’t leave a preheating pan unattended, don’t put it in the dishwasher, don’t use metal scourers or harsh detergents and always soak used pans before you scrub them.’ Photograph: xalanx/Getty Images/iStockphoto
A culinary bombshell landed in March when thechef David Chang, owner of the Momofuku empire and host of Netflix’s Ugly Delicious, admitted on his podcast that he’s changed his tune on Teflon. “I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d cook with a Teflon wok – I’m not embarrassed any more, I’m coming out, I’m telling the world that my favourite piece of equipment right now is a Teflon wok made in Korea, ” he chortled, saying that it was the ease of cleaning that swayed him.
“It’s sort of like throwaway gear, ” says Annie Smithers, chef-owner of Du Fermier in regional Victoria, who’s been cooking in commercial kitchens for more than 30 years. “No matter what quality they are, that coating wears off eventually and you throw them away.”
Our Table™ Nonstick 8 Inch Aluminum Fry Pan
In hospitality there’s no mucking around with sensitive pots and pans. They go from a ripping hot stove to the sink over and over, every service. This is why pans with a friable coating are rare and chefs mostly stick to steel and cast-iron (the original nonstick).
“If you have Teflon pans in a commercial kitchen environment, it’s just not practical to say to every dishwasher, ‘Don’t use the scourer on that pan, ’” Smithers says. “And given that you’ve got a lot of metal utensils, which are encouraged because they are more hygienic than using wood, you can’t just say to everybody, ‘Don’t use those utensils on that pan.’”
Teflon, a trademarked chemical, was discovered by accident in 1938 when an Ohio scientist working on refrigerant gases at DuPont discovered a white, waxy solid, later identified as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE).
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According to Choice, Australia’s leading consumer advocacy group, the reasons to buy Teflon are the same as when the “happy pan” was launched in the US in 1961: effortless clean-ups and lower-fat meals without the need for oil or butter.
When assessing nonstick cookware for its independent reviews, Choice starts with the fried-egg test. How loose is the egg when fried with no fat on the pan’s first, second, third cook? It then test for evenness of heat distribution and, finally, durability, which involves a mechanical scrubbing arm fitted with a scourer and a 10kg weight used to scratch a spot on each pan 10, 000 times.
“Every 500 repetitions we look at it and we’ll just see if there’s any wear, ” says a home economist and head of the Choice kitchen lab, Fiona Mair. “Usually, if it’s got a weak nonstick coating, you’ll notice [wear] within the first 500 repetitions.”
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But while coated pans can cost anything from $5 to $500, Mair says the best quality items, if treated with care, still have a maximum lifespan of six to 10 years.
I divulged to Mair over the phone that, while going hard in the kitchen during Melbourne’s second lockdown, I had massacred a pricy nonstick pot. “Did you use any metal utensils?” I told her I hadn’t. Mair, who’s tested more than 3, 000 appliances, hypothesised that I’d been preheating it on too high a heat.
“High temperatures can ruin the Teflon coating, ” she says. “And even though a lot of brands state you can use metal utensils, you can put them in the oven up to 260C – in my opinion I would avoid that because if you’re doing it constantly over time, you can’t tell me that it’s not going to damage that nonstick coating.”
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At 280C, PTFE starts to release degradation particulates, which, if inhaled, can be lethal to birds. 280C seems high but on a gas stove an empty lightweight pan can reach that temperature in less than two minutes – so keep pet birds out of the kitchen. PTFE toxicosis or “polymer fume fever” can also occur in humans but it is rare and mainly associated with the manufacture of PTFE.
The safety of chemical coatings has been under the microscope since the early 2000s when a class-action lawsuit alleged that perfluorooctanoic acid – at the time a key ingredient in the production of PTFE – contaminated drinking water supplies in West Virginia and Ohio, leading to six diseases including testicular and kidney cancers in more than 3, 000 residents. The US Environmental Protection Agency asked companies to voluntarily phase the acid out by the end of 2015, and in 2017 DuPont agreed to pay US$671m to settle the lawsuit. A film about the scandal, Dark Waters, came out in March 2020.
Choice says when the surface of a nonstick product starts to chip, it’s time to replace it. It also suggests that to use PTFE pans safely, you must avoid metal utensils, high heat and dramatic temperature changes. The list of don’t continues: don’t use oil spray, don’t leave a preheating pan unattended, don’t put it in the dishwasher, don’t use metal scourers or harsh detergents and always soak used pans before you scrub them.
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“[My] copper pans will see my life and they’ll be around for generations, ” Smithers says. “And the cast-iron pans, if you look after them, they don’t wear out.”
Just a month after his shocking revelation, Chang too rescinded his endorsement. He crowned cast-iron as his preference, saying that while nonstick has its place, “it’s pointless to buy a fancy one”.Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for insider tips and product reviews from our shopping expertsSign up for our free IndyBest email
The humble non-stick frying pan is one of the most underrated vessels in the kitchen. You might associate it with a greasy fry-up, but it can be used to make everything from a quick frittata to a deliciously moreish apple tarte tatin.
Non Stick Surface
Pick the right pan and you might even be able to substitute it for a baking tray to make a sumptuous lasagne, without the extra washing up.
The perfect pan needs to have a flat base with a relatively large cooking surface so you can shallow fry a few items at the same time. It also needs to have a curved edge, so when you’re cooking something like an omelette, it can slip out with ease. A frying pan is even more versatile if it’s oven-safe, so you can finish cooking under a grill if needed.
For our selection, we’ve opted for non-stick frying pans that are suitable for induction hobs. And for price comparison, they’re all of a similar size.
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To test each of these, we started out with a household favourite – the humble fry-up. We then moved onto other recipes, including French toast, pancakes and skin-on salmon, so we could get a sense of how the pans would perform under different conditions and on different food groups.
In assessing each of the pans, we looked for style, balance, and how well its non-stick surfaces worked. We also looked for how quickly each heated up, how well it retained heat, and of course, how the food turned out. Here are our favourites.
Robert Welch is particularly proud of the non-stick coating on this Campden frying pan; so much so, it has put a 10 year guarantee on it. This is quite unusual as normally, brands only offer guarantees on the pan itself (25 years in this case) and not on the non-stick surface.
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You may well be wondering what’s so special about this coating. There are a couple of things, starting with the fact that there are three separate coatings, each made from different materials, that give it its long-lasting, abrasion and corrosion-resistant properties. ILAG, the Swiss company behind the technology, has also made it PFOA-free and used sustainable raw materials to do it.
What we really liked about this pan was how quickly it heated up - our sausages were sizzling within a couple of seconds of us switching on the power. And the heat distribution was great, too. We had mushrooms right at the edge of the pan and they were cooking at the same rate as in the middle. This is all thanks to that layer of copper, which heats up quickly and evenly.
One thing to note is that just like copper pans, this one tarnishes quite easily. Although the 18/10 stainless steel that makes up the bulk of the base can be polished to a mirror finish in no time, the layer of copper that just peeks through will need a bit of extra care.
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ProCook’s professional anodised frying pan is ideal if you’re looking for a reliable pan that doesn’t cost a fortune. The durable forged aluminium body is relatively lightweight, while the brand’s triple layer PFOA-free non-stick coating means food glides around the pan with relative ease. It’s fitted with cooltouch handles for using on the hob but if you use it in the oven – and the pan is oven safe up to 260C – then you’ll need oven gloves afterwards. Plus, it comes with a 25-year guarantee.
We really liked how quickly it heated up when we tested it and our
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