How do professional cooks and chefs manage to cook without needing non-stick pans?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “cooks non stick cookware“
About Valerie
Written by: Valerie
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How do professional cooks and chefs manage to cook without needing non-stick pans?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “cooks non stick cookware“
About Valerie
Not only do we not need them, but we actively avoid them except for very rare occasions and uses. I have one nonstick pan in my home, and really only use it to make eggs.
Most cooking applications are awful in nonstick pans. It’s far harder to get anything to caramelize properly in nonstick- no good Maillard reactions. Searing? Forget it.
We use proper fats, steady heat, avoid overcrowding pans, and make sure food is relatively “dry” when it goes in to keep food from sticking. In some cases we WANT some food to stick- deglazing the pan is the fastest way we build flavor in a sauce.
10 Pcs Non Stick Cooking Set w/ Frying Pans & Saucepans
Do chefs use non stick pans?
Truth be told, things really only ever stick to the pan if you’re doing it wrong. In the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing and who takes the time to properly “season” each one before its first use, even the most cheaply-made non-coated aluminum sauté pans you can find will perform equally as well against just about anything coated with teflon or ceramic for 99% of everything.
If you walk into the any one of the vast majority of restaurants in the US, what you’ll most likely find is a set of crusty-looking, grey aluminum pans that cost about $6 each. The absolute cheapest available. Why? Because restaurants go through pans like freaking toilet paper. With the exception of our precious egg and crépe pans (which we keep under lock and key and only let others use, or even touch, under threat of dismemberment if they come back to us with so much as a single scratch on their non-stick teflon-coated surfaces – fortunately, I’ve never had to follow through with that threat nor have I lost any digits of my own as a result), most don’t get handled gently. They get slammed down on a blazing-hot stove burner, things get stirred in them with metal utensils, then they get dropped into a sink full of water where they might end up warping if they didn’t get a chance to cool down first. Replacing old pans is an ongoing expense for a restaurant and one that most restaurant owners want to keep the cost of to a bare minimum. That fancy high-tech thing that costs $20 each at industry wholesale price? Yeah… no. Way too spendy. Especially when you have to buy 15 of them and the same non-coated aluminum pans that cost $6 each work just as well, once seasoned, to brown the meat for your spaghetti sauce or heat up a side of veggies.
Calphalon 10-Piece Pots and Pans Set, Nonstick Kitchen Cookware
Addis has a great answer, so I’ll just add a tip:
To season your pan, pour a tablespoon of a neutral oil (I like avocado or peanut – olive oil scorches and canola smells disgusting), swirl it around, and turn the burner to medium heat. When the pan starts smoking, swirl it again and let it smoke for a minute. Then pour out most of the oil and let it sit for one more minute. The remaining oil will harden onto the surface of the pan, leaving a brownish patina.
Repeat this 3 or 4 times and you should have a nice seasoning that will turn very dark over time. I can cook an omelet in my 10″ All-Clad and it slips right out without sticking at all.
This is important – as soon as you are done cooking with the pan and it has cooled, swab it out with a paper towel. Run a little warm water over it first if you need to, but just wipe gently and the seasoning should still be there. If you do scrub the pan with soap, you may need to season it again.
Do not put a hot pan in water – the bottom will buckle.
BELLA 21 Piece Cook Bake and Store Set
It’s all about it’s all about heat. When working with non-stick pans we use enough oil, butter , or a combination of both to thoroughly coat the bottom of the pan we insure that the pan it’s extremely hot and then once the item is put into the pan, if it’s meat we don’t move it until it has a crust. The crust releases from the bottom of the pan and the little bits that are still left are typically scraped up with wine, water, or stock to make the sauce. The typical non chef always wants to move the item in the pan around which causes nothing but a mess. It’s the same way when your barbecue don’t keep moving it and don’t stick it with a fork. Let the grill or the Pan do its job and only move whatever it is you’re cooking when you’re ready to remove it from the pan / Grill or to turn it over to cook it on the other side. Just a note when cooking fish always cook with the skin side down to let it get crispy and then finish it in the oven so you have the best of both worlds
Non-Stick Cookware Set, Pots and Pans – 8-Piece Set
By controlling the heat. also pans tend to “season” with use . they become non stick in a way.
Granitestone Blue 20 Piece Pots and Pans Set
If you want to learn more about non-stick pan technology, from seasoned cast iron to teflon to “ceramic” coatings, I wrote this post non-stick surfaces and seasoning Oil is your friend, even with non-stick materials. The idea that pores change in size with temperature (acting like a pair of vise grips) is not really important compared to the glue-like effect of proteins on metals. The idea that pores and scratches hold onto to bits of food is absolutely an issue, but sticking is mostly chemical bonding and protection from scraping, not clamping.
T-fal Ultimate Hard Anodized Nonstick 17 Piece Cookware Set
In addition to all the chemical-engineering points the others have made, professional chefs have brigades of dishwashers who’ll scrub the pans and others who’ll re-season them if all else fails. Those of us who do these jobs ourselves will often find non-stick easier.
T-fal C561SC Titanium Advanced Nonstick Thermo-Spot Heat Indicator Dishwashe
Lots of them do, but then again, lots also don’t. There is a wide discrepancy on chefs’ views on the benefits of non-stick pans. And in China, everyone uses a wok which, when properly seasoned – and all the ones used in China are! – is non-stick by nature; so they don’t give a sh*t for the western style non-stick utensils. Myself, I don’t use them. I prefer to use a new type of cast-iron pan which I got which is smooth on the inside, and looks just like any other frying pan, which I can season just like a wok, and which thereby results in a non-stick surface just like a wok does, while still having the shape of a western style frying pan. See one somewhat like mine here:
Eurodib 12″ Red Cast Iron Frypan .
T-fal Ultimate Hard Anodized Nonstick 17 Piece Cookware Set
My credential is that I am a lousy home cook, with a wife who has destroyed a lot of cookware, or thrown it out because she made a total mess of it and refused to learn a lesson by actually cleaning it. I have done a few of these screwups myself.
My observations for those at the lower levels of competence:
Rule 1: Unless it is a slow cook, long term cooking, cook remains in kitchen as long as heat is on. If call of nature says toilet break is necessary turn down or remove heat. And wash hands well before returning to kitchen.
Rule 2: Plan to, and do, wash the pan almost immediately after cooking, and before eating. Maybe not completely, but a 90%+ cleaning takes much less than a minute unless someone totally screwed up.
Rule 3: If you are the one who screwed up, clean the pan, and I do not mean just wash. It is OK to declare failure at some point, but go to the store buy and pay for a new one. Pain and major inconvenience are great tools for learning. We all make mistakes, but in most cases it helps a lot to learn from them.
Thank you to all the pros who provided good to excellent answers.
T-fal Signature Nonstick Dishwasher Safe Cookware Set, 12-Piece
Addis Aquinas provides a very good technical and educated answer to this question, and I recommend you read it. (I wish I knew how to link directly to it.) How do professional cooks and chefs manage to cook without needing non-stick pans?
There is something I know about this that should be emphasized though, that I learned from my chef mother (who once roasted the Thanksgiving turkey in the coal furnace when the oven broke. Perfectly).
Two different fats create a slide.
If you put one fat in a pan or season it with a fat (after it is hot) and then wait a minute, spread a different oil or solid fat on top of the first one and put your food on it quickly. The first fat will have bound to the pan and the second one will bind to the food as the two fats are different weights and not yet mixed together. This will allow the food to slide easily after about a minute (to allow for evaporation of water and binding time).
It’s not necessary to use a lot of either fat.
Mostly, I start with grapeseed or olive oil for the pan and add coconut oil or butter for the food, depending on what flavor profile I’m building.
It will work with any pan, too, except non-stick as they cannot be heated empty, although heating the non-stick with water and adding fat as the water evaporates ‘sort of’ works. Sometimes you are lucky enough to have fabulous expensive pans or carbon steel or cast iron, but even if you only have a flimsy, warped old thing with bumps in it (or one of those horrible tempered-glass frying pans) you can use a two-fat solution (with extra low heat, of course) to keep from sticking.
Gotham Steel Pots and Pans Set 12 Piece Cookware Set with Ultra Nonstick
How do professional cooks and chefs manage to cook without needing non-stick pans?
I use cheap stainless steel saucepans & skillets, and iron trays. Nothing sticks to the stainless steel, or well seasoned iron pans. Aluminum is useless unless it is teflon coated.
I tend to grease pans with a paper towel soaked in olive or canola oil if I am baking. For a tray full of baked potatoes or vegies, I line the pan with baking paper, then splash oil & sprinkle condiments over everything.
In my experience, things only stick when they are over cooked.
Gotham Steel 20 Piece Pots & Pans Set Complete Kitchen Cookware + Bakeware Set
Butter. Oils. High heat.
If the pan is hot enough and has a good source of fat coating it(the metal surface), tephlon is not needed.
Cuisinart Chef’s Classic Non-Stick Hard Anodized, 17-Piece
Thanks for all of the great, technical answers! But as a home cook I must point out that professional cooks and chefs have a staff that washes the pans!
T-fal, Dishwasher Safe Cookware Set, 18 Piece, Red
Depends on the region and the chef. Some use carbon steel and stainless steel for everything. Others will prefer to have, say, a dedicated nonstick egg pan, which is also perfectly understandable. Nonsticks help cut down on mistakes in some preparations that could result in loss of valuable time during a rush, so chefs who use them are willing to replace them when their linings wear.
GreenLife Soft Grip Healthy Ceramic Nonstick 16 Piece
It’s the experience of the professional cook that he is able to do so.
The timing of heating the pans and addition of ingredients at the right time helps then better
Calphalon 10-Piece Pots and Pans Set, Nonstick Kitchen