There’s nothing like a good nonstick skillet. You can crack an egg into it and count on a perfect fried egg sliding out a few minutes later, even if you get distracted for a minute or are a little clumsy with your spatula. Sautéed vegetables and stir-fries move around the pan with ease and don’t stick or leave behind cooked-on bits that can burn. It’s our go-to for all sorts of other delicate and fast-cooking foods, from omelets and pancakes to pan-seared salmon and quesadillas.
We’ve spent hundreds of hours evaluating nonstick skillets over the years. We know what we like: a slick and durable coating, a wide cooking surface, and a comfortable handle. Several intriguing new models have hit the market recently. Two direct-to-consumer companies, Misen and Made In, launched to much fanfare. Meanwhile, OXO, the manufacturer of our favorite nonstick skillet, launched a new model with a metal handle that can go in hotter ovens than its original model. We gathered a total of 10 nonstick skillets, priced from about $30 to about $200, and put them through the wringer. We made Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry, Pepper and Onion Frittata, and pan-fried sole—recipes selected to test the pans’ capacity, browning ability, and maneuverability—and recruited three additional testers to use the pans. To zero in on the pans’ nonstick coatings, we conducted a test that’s standard in the cookware industry: cooking eggs in a dry skillet back-to-back, stopping either when they began to stick or when we had made 50 consecutive eggs. We did this at the beginning and end of testing so we could see if the coatings deteriorated with use.
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