What is the best cookware? How to choose a pan.

A traditional frying pan, or fry pan, has a flat bottom with relatively low and slightly sloped sides, allowing for oils and sauces to spread evenly across the bottom of the pan. You may have come across the term ‘skillet pan’ in place of ‘frying pan’. The words are often used interchangeably but note that in some cases a skillet can mean a deeper frying pan with a larger cooking surface, and that some chefs are more likely to use the term ‘skillet’ for uncoated pans in stainless/carbon steel or cast iron. A frying pan is a kitchen staple, the one you can’t do without. You can use a frying pan for almost anything: stir-fry, sauté, bake, roast, or shallow fry. The main difference is the material (you can read more about that in our materials guide). Think about which dishes you cook the most and buy the pan that best suits your cooking style.

A grill pan is a frying pan with raised ridges on the surface, creating the distinct charred marks and smoky caramelised flavours that you get from a barbecue – especially if the pan is made of cast iron. The ridges also serve the purpose of letting any extra fat that’s cooked out of your food drip off. If you love the smoked taste from an outdoors grill but don’t have access to one, a stove-top grill pan is your go-to cookware. Pan seared steak, pork chops, salmon or scallops — mouthwatering recipes that a grill pan can handle with ease. Pan-fried chicken, potatoes or asparagus work great, too, and you can achieve a caramelised surface on peaches or pineapples. If you like a charred, smoked taste to your dishes, a grill pan delivers what a standard frying pan can’t.

A hybrid between a saucepan and a frying pan, a sauté pan has a similar size as a frying pan, but the sides are more vertical and taller. The diameter of a pan is measured across the top and not the bottom, which means that a sauté pan, with its straight sides, has an effective cooking area that is bigger than that of a frying pan of equivalent size. This allows you to cook more food at the same time, with even heat distribution. A sauté pan often comes with a lid which is practical if the food needs to simmer. A sauté pan can be used for sautéing, poaching, braising and deep frying. Its large cooking surface makes it ideal for recipes that require you to stir ingredients for a long time, for dishes with a lot of thick liquid, or when you need to cook a lot of food at once. They’re great for reducing sauces and gravies, cooking risottos, and sauteing vegetables. If you’re regularly cooking for a bigger family or often having friends over, go for a large sauté pan.