I just purchased an All-Clad d3 12-inch fry pan thanks to some unclaimed money I found through the state treasurer’s office.
Anyway, I’ve been doing research on using such skillets (I’ve never owned such a nice piece of cookware), and I would like some suggestions on its care and use.
I have seen conflicting advice on whether stainless steel items need “seasoning” before use. The instructions that came with the pan did not say that it needed seasoning.
So, I would appreciate any anecdotes about your use of a stainless steel fry pan and any recipes that you think work well with it.
No seasoning required. You can scrub it hard with Barkeeper’s Friend or Bon Ami if you want to, but never Comet.
I’ve found things stick less when you pre-heat the pan very well with the oil or fat in it. If you put the food into a pan that’s not hot enough, it will stick like crazy.
They don’t need to be seasoned, in fact, I’m not even sure if seasoning them would ‘take’ (being stainless steel).
I have a set of Viking stainless steel pots and pans that I absolutely adore. I’ve had them for nearly 15 years and other than some scratches on the bottom from metal utensils, they look just about brand new. Brainy_Deep mentioned Barkeeper’s friend, which I’ve used and it work. But honestly, there’s no harm at all with just tossing them in the dishwasher. They generally come out good as new.
I swear, you’d have to actively try to destroy these things…like run them over with a car or put them in a blast furnace and melt them.
Mine (again, Viking) were very expensive, but so far have been a very good investment. They don’t get dirty, nothing sticks to them, you can’t hurt them, there’s no teflon to peel off, they don’t rust, they’re very easy to clean (by hand or in the dishwasher).
If I bought some ‘regular’ pots and pans 15 years ago, they likely would have been replaced at least once. I do have some cheapo ‘regular’ ones that are just as old, but the exterior is SS and copper (or maybe a copper alloy).
The other nice thing about good set of SS pots and pans is that the handles are SS and very firmly attached. Which means they won’t snap off one day, they don’t melt on a gas stove and you can toss the entire thing in the oven if you need to.
Having said that, while checking my old posts here to double check the brand (because I know I’ve posted about them a few times in the past), I see that mentioned not to cook eggs on them. I don’t cook eggs, but I understand that requires teflon. Apparently they’ll stick to SS.
No seasoning required. A Scotch-Brite pad and Barkeeper’s Friend will clean off just about anything. If something is cooked on real good, fill the pan with water and bring to a boil on the stovetop. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape off the worst of the nastiness, then clean as usual.
Make sure the pan is well oiled before adding food, and has preheated to the desired temp. Nope, not yet. Wait a bit more.
For proteins, use a somewhat higher heat than you think is right. Again, preheat the fat thoroughly. Add the meat, and don’t try to flip it too early. If you try to flip and it is clearly sticking, wait another minute or two. When the side in contact with the pan is nicely browned it will release easily.
For fish and some chicken cuts that are “stickier” than other proteins, I’ll slide it around on the pan in little circles as I’m placing it down. This seems to help with sticking.
Don’t overcrowd the pan; it will bring the temperature down father than you’d like and food won’t brown as well. Work in batches if you have to.
I bought a 10" SS frying pan recently, and on its first outing made crepes with not a single one sticking even the slightest. Fat and heat management are your friends.
This I found is the trick to non-stick. Wait for the release. Not just for SS, even well seasoned ‘nothing sticks to it’ cast iron, and also on the BBQ/grill.
Yup. No seasoning. Do add fat when you cook. Feel free to soak it if something gets burnt on.
We clean ours with ordinary dish soap and a scrubbie sponge. It’s what I think of as an “ordinary” frying pan, and it needs no special care.
(We also have a cast iron pan and some no-stick. But I mostly don’t use no-stick, because food doesn’t cook right on them, since the oil doesn’t spread out to carry flavors around.)
Thanks the input everyone. It seems the consensus is that seasoning is not required, which is a relief to me since I can never get the seasoning right on cast iron cookware. I’ve tried several methods on a cast iron dutch oven I have and, yet, it never seems to come out right.
Definitely no seasoning required. I have a fairly complete set of what they’re now calling All-Clad D3 (stainless/aluminum/stainless), and it works like any other non-Teflon cookware, just a bit better because it’s tough like stainless, but transfers heat mostly like aluminum.
The main thing to look out for is that it heats up and cools down quicker than you’re probably used to, and until you’re used to that, you’ll probably mess up some dishes.
Cleaning is simple- I tend toward the dishwasher if there’s not anything stuck on, and if there is, I use a plastic scraper and then the green/yellow 3M scrub sponges (the abrasive ones) with regular dishwashing liquid. Otherwise I use the scrub sponges intended for non-stick if I’m hand-washing. If they’re really discolored, you can use Bon-Ami or Barkeepers Friend on them with no ill effects.
Huh, I’m no expert, but I would think that whatever gunk you managed to apply in a misguided attempt to season would come right off, in the dishwasher or with scouring powder. They’re practically indestructible – while it’s not point-ful to smear it all over with Crisco then bake it, as you would with cast iron, I wouldn’t think permanent damage would be done to stainless steel in that process. It gets greasy, it goes in the oven – same difference, right?
‘Hot pan, cold oil, food won’t stick.’ – Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet
IIRC, the idea was to heat the pan so that it expands and closes some micro-pores. Then add the oil and let it heat up, then add the food.
Barkeeper’s Friend works a treat, and stainless steel is easy to clean with it even when it’s scorched. (If it’s not scorched, you don’t need the abrasive.)
Nah, no damage. I’ve used my All-Clad saucepan to fry stuff before, and I got some of the polymerized oil on it, just like seasoning a cast-iron pan. While it was holy hell to actually get back off short of using oven cleaner on it, it didn’t actually do any damage to the pan itself.
Others can give more competent advice than I can; I just want to say that it’s likely to prove an excellent purchase. I have a good quality small Cuisinart skillet that I don’t use often, only because I don’t do a lot of cooking from scratch, but it’s an aesthetic delight when I do. I most frequently use it for stir-frying mushrooms in garlic butter when making spaghetti. A real cook would use it for almost everything, and have an assortment of sizes.
Thanks for this detail, and good to know the theory behind it. Any concern about heating the pan dry for too long? Say: burner on high, no oil in the pan, walk away and accidentally forget about it for 30 minutes. Would bad things happen?
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and Alton Brown call BS on the “Hot Pan, Cold Oil” nonsense. It’s perfectly fan to put the oil in the pan and then heat it up. Alton thinks it came as a way to keep people from walking away from a pan of heating oil.
Just make sure your pan is hot before adding the food. And being able to see the oil shimmer/smoke is a good indicator of how hot your pan is.
In my experience, yes. But I suppose it depends on the pan’s makeup. I have a beautiful and really expensive saucepan that is built up of multiple layers of stainless steel, copper, and whatever else. I once left it on too long and completely scorched whatever was in it. Cleaning it to its original pristeen condition was no problem, but the episode of extreme heat had slightly warped the bottom. I continue to use it as my favorite general-purpose saucepan, but the warped bottom now has a tendency to rotate on a glass-surface type stove, and I presume the very even heat it used to provide is no longer the same.
I’m just saying if you managed to get it to look like it’s been seasoned then you’ve abused it. Anything that does cake on should come off with a little elbow grease, or my favorite, bacon grease. Just make some bacon in the pan and let it sit for a few days, the bacon grease will eventually dissolve any baked on black stuff.
