A frying pan has a flat bottom base with sloped sides that make it easier to move and stir ingredients while cooking. A saute pan has a larger surface area with high sides that gotham steel cookware sets go straight up at a 90° angle. It’s excellent for searing meat or for when you need to cook sauces as the sides prevent liquids from spilling over the top and making a mess.
They look gorgeous, last a lifetime, and can be used for everything from steaming rice to braising chicken to simmering soup. Every set will also include one or two saucepans and, again, larger ones are more useful as you can warm a cup of soup in a 3-quart pot but might not be able to make enough rice for the whole family in a 1-quart. Although there is no evidence that traditional nonstick coatings are toxic or harmful to cook in, they can release fumes if they overheat, which can happen if you preheat an empty nonstick pan or use it over very high heat. If you want the benefits of a nonstick coating but want to minimize any risks, you can opt for a ceramic nonstick coating. While these finishes, which are derived from sand, are not quite as good at releasing food and not as long-lasting, they can be safely used at higher heats.
Time and time again, testing shows that All-Clad browns perfectly evenly and keeps stews and sauces at a perfect simmer. What that means to you is that you won’t have to vigilantly rearrange, stir and adjust the heat during cooking. All gleaming stainless steel inside and out, it has a core of aluminum that’s responsible for its great results. We love the sloped shape of the skillets which make it easy to roll out an omelet.
Nicole (she/her) is the director of the Good Housekeeping Institute’s Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, where she has overseen content and testing related to kitchen and cooking appliances, tools and gear since 2019. She’s an experienced product tester and recipe creator, trained in Cookware Sets classic culinary arts and culinary nutrition. She has worked in test kitchens for small kitchen appliance brands and national magazines, including Family Circle and Ladies’ Home Journal. A cookware set combines various sizes so you can choose the ones best suited to your cooking needs.
The Dutch oven is 5 quarts and the deep straight-sided sauté pan is only 2.5 quarts. However, when you cook directly in aluminum some of the metal leaches into your food, giving it a gray-ish cast. The vast majority of aluminum cookware has some kind of finish, either enamel or nonstick, to prevent this from happening and also make it easier to clean. Aluminum cookware can’t be used on an induction burner unless it has a layer of stainless steel in the base. Read on for how we evaluate nonstick cookware in our Lab and consumer tests — plus everything you need to know to shop for your perfect cookware set — at the end of this guide.
Using our pro experience, we’ve picked the perfect cookware sets for all kinds of cooks. Nicole Papantoniou runs the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, where she oversees all content and testing related to cooking products. She started testing and developing cooking tools, gadgets, gear and appliances in 2014.
Whether you are starting on your cooking journey or well established in… RACO® cookware has been manufactured since 1948 and has been tried and tested… Linens Set