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The frying pan is undoubtedly cookware that you use daily. It is adaptable and can do varied cooking that no other equipment can.

Recipes that you plan to grill up fast under high heat, meats that need to be seared, or foods that require constant flipping and stirring with a spatula are most conveniently prepared in a frying pan. The nicely sloped sides of a frying pan also make it possible to toss up a small portion of stir-fry. However, to achieve a perfect finish on this type of shallowly fried dish, a bowl-shaped Wok works best. 

Best for: Almost any food that needs frying, browning, or searing. Because it’s ovenproof, stainless is also a good choice for foods that you start on the stovetop and then move to the oven to finish, like thick pork chops.

The details: Nitahara says that 95 percent of the pans used in the CIA’s teaching kitchens are stainless steel because they can take a lot of punishment. “The only time we don’t use them is on egg day, when we use nonstick,” he says. He adds that the shiny surface of a stainless pan makes it easy to see whether your food is browning.

In CR’s tests of stainless steel pans, we measure heating evenness by cooking pancakes, and we gauge how evenly a pan sautés by cooking potatoes until they’re tender. We also conduct a cleaning test to see how easy it is to remove cooked-on food. You’d think that all stainless pans would be about the same to clean, but our tests show that some require a lot more scrubbing than others.

Here are two recommended stainless steel pans from CR’s tests.

CAST IRON FRYING PANS