I want to make healthy food with vegetables and chicken breast so which is better - Stainless Steel frypan or Non-Stick frypan…
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All three of my frying pans are non-stick (cheap ones - I don’t buy expensive branded pots and pans). I woudnt consider buying anything else.
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I’d always advocate stainless for most things, and believe what you are cooking can be done in that just fine.
However, if you want to go down the non-stick route there are two ways to think about that:
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Non-stick pans are disposable, so you can just buy cheap, abuse as much as you like, and replace frequently once they start to become less non-stick or the coating gets too scratched.
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The making of non-stick is absolutely terrible for the environment, so if you can’t avoid them, you should buy as few pans as possible, go for higher quality, baby them, and try to hold off replacing as long as safely possible.
You’ll see both schools of thought here. If you find yourself in the second camp, I believe @Claus has some Demeyere AluPro that he’s been able to look after for a long time, but I’ll let him weigh in on that.
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both stainless steel and non-stick frypans have their advantages when cooking healthy food with vegetables and chicken breast. If you prioritize achieving a nice sear and flavor development, stainless steel is a good choice. If you want to reduce the use of oil and ensure easy cleanup, a non-stick pan can be helpful. Consider your preferred cooking techniques and prioritize the factors that matter most to you in order to make the best choice for your needs.
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If you properly heat a good quality SS pan and then add some oil there should be little sticking. You can easily make a quick pan sauce by adding some liquid (broth or wine) to the pan, scrape up the fond and add a small touch of butter. I would argue that non-stick is important for scrambled/fried eggs.
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I know this might sound strange, but I really like this GraniteStone skillet I picked up off of Amazon. I needed a non-sitck “induction compatible” skillet and wanted one I could throw in the dishwasher.
This one is fairly cheap with no harmful chemicals. Amazon has both 10" and 12" variety.
GraniteStone skillet
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way more info and intents needed for an intelligent response.
if you intend to sear/brown crust chicken, telfon like non-stick is out of the question.
high temps needed to sear meats degrades the telfon coatings eventually making them 'full-stick"
using a black iron/cast iron/stainlesss pan is - pending the ‘learning curve’ - is the best approach.
no secrets - do - observe - adjust.
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If you’re just looking to do chicken and veggies, a good clad stainless steel pan is the way to go. Hot pan, dash of oil and/or butter, sear, baste, remove. Add veggies, deglaze with wine/vinegar/citrus/stock, cook 'till slightly tender and re-add chicken 'till done.
Non-stick is not great at high temps, and the dark surface makes it tough to manage the fond you’ll want to deglaze and manage your sauce from.
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In my humble opinion, the environmental harm and health care burden to the people involved in the production of nonstick pans makes consuming them unethical. It’s hard for me to objectively argue against this point. This fact is only confounded by the ubiquitous use of these tools which so heavily biases our collective judgment on using them.
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It depends on what cooking technique you want to apply to the chicken.
If you want a good sear on your chicken, avoid non stick pans. Go for a nice stainless steel cladded ply pan.
You can get a great sear on your chicken with such a pan and have a nice fond development at the same time from the chicken sticking to the pan.
You’ll get a better fond development in stainless steel cladded ply pans than you’ll get in raw cast iron and raw carbon steel pans in my opinion since sticking actually is a plus, when we talk fond development.
In this case the stainless steel cladded ply pan is the clear winner.
On the other hand if you need to reheat your already seared/cooked chicken the following day, using the same stainless steel cladded ply pan can now lead to serious sticking issues unless you use a good amount of cooking oil first.
In this case a non stick pan would be the better choice since you totally avoid sticking and you can cook pretty much without adding further oil to your chicken.
You don’t want fond development on reheated chicken so here the non stick pan is the clear winner.
So I would buy one of each, if you can afford it.
You’ll enjoy using both pans for different cooking techniques.
I own some of the best non stick pans you can buy (in my humble opinion of course) and I’m a fan of trying to baby your non stick pans to make them last for as long as possible instead of having to toss them out frequently.
It’s better for your wallet in the long run and better for the environment also.
My 6 Demeyere Alu Pro non stick pans are soon 6 years old and still look great and cook great too.
I can warmly recommend getting a couple of Demeyere Alu Pro non stick pans - they are simply excellent pans.
I also own 4 Mauviel M’Stone ceramic non stick pans and they are great too.
Quality non stick cookware beats the cheap crappy non stick cookware by miles performance wise, longevity wise and ergonomically wise.
If you want some nice stainless steel cladded ply cookware I would suggest Demeyere Proline 7-ply or Industry 5-ply.
You could also look at Lagostina Lagofusion cookware, De Buyer Affinity, Mauviel M’Cook and All Clad (though I’m not an All Clad fan, I realise they are HUGE in the US)
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Stainless steel. Available at many price points. No need to overspend.
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Stainless over nonstick for being environmentally responsible. A disc bottom pan from a restaurant supply store would be a great pan, the disc, presumably aluminum, evening out heat distribution, stainless’ s weak point.
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/vigor-8-stainless-steel-aluminum-clad-fry-pan/473SSFRY8.html
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Thanks for the reply! I’m going with stainless steel cookware because I want good flavor as you said and I’ll use non-stick for chicken breast because it always gets stuck with less oil in other pans! Also, I make egg and chicken fried rice for that SS pan is very comfortable!
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Nice, I’ll get a budget non-stick pan for cooking chicken and eggs!
Thanks for the detailed response about both pans, I too consider Stainless steel pans rather than non-stick but for some foods non-stick is good so I use them occasionally so no environmental hazard I suppose! I’m using Avias stainless steel cookware which is expensive and 2 non-stick pans which I bought from Amazon.
Much, perhaps most, of the environmental hazard of nonstick pans is in the manufacturing process and disposition.
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Definitely! what you’re implying is true.
I’ll check it out!
Thanks for the response!
Clad is the best but too expensive for me so I got one from Avias. Also, this is really good, I was having doubts when I bought this for a higher price but now it is great.
Yes, Non-stick is bad with high temp cooking!
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