I’ve tried them twice now and they do a shitty job. The metal is generally thinner and they don’t heat evenly. Eggs film over quickly with a stiff, cellophane-like crust.
I’ve always used Oxo pans in the past, but recently they’ve switched over from a teflon type coating to ceramic type coating. I didn’t know, and after ordering and using one of their new pans, I had to return it. Then I went to Home Goods and managed to track down an old-school teflon-lined All-Clad skillet for a bargain price. It performed very well this morning on the eggs. I noted that about 98% of the nonstick skillets on the shelf at Home Goods were the ceramic-lined ones.
Is this how cookware is headed? Is everything going to be coated in this ceramic lining in the future? If so, I think I’ll head back to Home Goods and buy up any teflon ones and hoard them against the coming ceramic apocalypse.
Worse is that stone looking.coating. I got one sauce pan with it. A mottled grey stone looking thing. I liked it because it had a real wood handle. Which has failed.
We’ve come to believe, in this pan, water will stick. It’s just worthless.
Ceramic is really a compromise for those who want teflon quality non-stick but a different, and thought of as a healthier, type of non-stick. They generally don’t last as long or non-stick as well as teflon types, so no I don’t see them as where it’s headed unless those properties can be improved. But yes stores like Homegoods do have a lot of them.
There are also other pans coming out, micro-finishes to carbon steal come to mind, with so far mixed results but it does show that the industry has recognized the need for better non-stick. They are not cheap, but neither is a decent carbon steel pan. If they can crack that nut we may have high quality long lasting non-stick.
I think a lot of it is driven by the supposed health risks of PFAS/PTFE.
I did a deep dive on the issue a couple years ago, and came away convinced that modern, PTFE-coated cookware is perfectly safe. But there’s still a lot of fear out there (and IMO, mostly unfounded), which is why ceramic has become more popular.
Last year I bought a ten-piece, PTFE-coated set from Circulon, and we’ve been perfectly happy with them.
Hmm, Mrs Mouse was determined to ditch the teflon coated (or whether they use now) non-stick pans, so we got a $120 All Clad ceramic skillet a few months ago. It is very heavy compared with our non stick one (also All-Clad). Was very apprehensive about how it would perform, though the salesperson at Williams-Sonoma was very enthusiastic.
So far I am very pleased. It’s only three months in, so can’t say anything about durability, but for some purposes it is an absolute dream. I have carmelized onions and browned ground beef in this thing way better than in the non-stick.
I went back to Homegoods and found two more All-Clad teflon skillets and bought them. One is 12" and the other is 7". I’m going to stash these in the pantry and when our current Oxo 12" and 7" skillets bite the dust, I’ll feel secure that I have a couple of non-ceramic replacements.
We had a ceramic-coated pan where the coating had a green color. It was really fantastic for about six weeks, then it lost its mojo and quit being nonstick. Which bothered me for two reasons- one, it didn’t have a very long useful shelf life, and two, what sort of coating quits working after six weeks? What was it putting in the food?
I’ve been using Teflon coated pans since I started cooking, so probably 55 years now, and I’m not dead yet. I have no intention of changing to ceramic or any other flavor of the month. Keep the heat under 500F and you’ll be fine.
One of my favorite sales pitches for ceramic and other non-Teflon non-stick cookware is that they don’t have “forever chemicals.” You know, those little bits of Teflon that come off the pan and you eat them and they stay in your body forever. Forever! Scaremongering bastards.
The forever chemicals that are the problem aren’t necessarily in the final product but instead the cheapest and easiest way to create teflon creates a bunch of intermediary forever chemicals. There’s a (very) comprehensive Veritasium video about it.
Kinda surprised on the hatred - I quite like my ceramic-coated nonstick skillet for its non-sticky qualities (I actually particularly like mine for scrambled eggs). I’ll admit to not being a big cook and not having any sort of high-end skillet at any point in my life.
Roger to all that. As long as one properly seasons the cast iron with the right kind of oil (grapeseed, canola or even Crisco) and NEVER washes it with soap of any kind these skillets will last a LONG time: I’ve had mine for 17yrs, use it practically every day and have never been disappointed with the culinary results, ‘specially omelettes!
A couple of our observations, from switching away from Teflon skillets to ceramic nonstick skillets:
Even when brand-new, a good ceramic skillet may still not be as slick/non-stick as a Teflon one.
It’s pretty easy to scratch (even at a microscopic level) the surface of a ceramic surface; as those scratches pile up, the surface becomes less and less non-stick, because ceramic skillets rely on being (close to) perfectly smooth to be non-stick. Also, high heat can apparently degrade the surface. By scrupulously avoiding ever using a metal cooking utensil on the skillets, avoiding using the abrasive side of the dishwashing sponge on them, and never using them at anything above medium-low heat, we were able to keep our skillets effectively non-stick for about four years, but the gradual wear and damage have finally started to degrade the surface enough that some things do stick now.
Regarding @bump 's experience: did you avoid ever using anything metal or abrasive on those skillets, and not use high heat? I agree, six weeks is an absurdly short service life for such a skillet.
