Nonstick cookware serves a purpose in the kitchen, but it shouldn’t be your go-to pan for every task. When used incorrectly, nonstick surfaces can ruin dishes by preventing proper browning and searing of meats and vegetables. Certain foods can also compromise the coating, reducing the pan’s durability and potentially contaminating your meals with flaking nonstick material.
As much as we love the easy cleanup, most foods fare better in a stainless-steel, carbon-steel, or cast-iron skillet. I turned to an expert for a list of foods you should never cook in a nonstick skillet.
Richard LaMarita is a chef-instructor of Health-Centered Culinary Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. LaMarita describes nonstick cookware, including ceramic, as “niche” in a sense.
“Scrambled or fried eggs, pancakes, and fried tofu are great for cooking in nonstick pans,” LaMarita told me over email. “These sticky foods must come out completely without leaving remnants in the pan. Nonstick pans are popular, easy to clean, and convenient, and I recommend every cook have one.”
That said, they’re not designed to handle high heat, be placed in the oven, or scrubbed vigorously. The coating that makes a pan nonstick can deteriorate faster when confronted with certain foods or cooking techniques.
So, what foods should never be cooked in nonstick cookware? Here are five things chef LaMarita warns against.
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1. Most meat and fish
First are foods that require or desire searing on the outside. When you’re looking for a deep, caramelized crust with good color, such as on a steak, chicken breast, or a piece of salmon, you won’t get the color you want from a nonstick pan. Nonstick is not made to tolerate the high heat required to achieve the desired crust, and its surface is not geared toward developing that crust due to the coating on the pan.
2. Most vegetables
Much like meat, vegetables need a little char for maximum flavor, and you just won’t get it with a nonstick pan. For zucchini, carrots, onions, asparagus and bok choy, reach for a stainless-steel or cast-iron skillet for best results.
3. Caramelized food
Anytime you plan on using the fond, which is the caramelized bits of food left on the pan after searing, a nonstick pan will not serve you. There will be no fond in the pan. Fond is often used in making pan sauces, searing items first, then picking up those beautiful, tasty bits of food and incorporating them into the sauce. This classic technique requires producing fond through proper searing; nonstick pans are not built for this.
4. Highly acidic foods
Cooking highly acidic foods in nonstick pans is not a good idea. Acidic foods include a tomato sauce, or a dish with a high ratio of vinegar in the pan, such as a braised cabbage, or if there is lemon juice in the cooking process. Ratatouille is a dish I wouldn’t cook in a nonstick. The acids in these foods will corrode the delicate nonstick surface over time.
5. Stir-fry, soups, sauces
Along the same lines of wearing down the surface, refrain from cooking foods or dishes that require a fair amount of stirring. A stir-fry, sauce, or a dish that demands a lot of tossing and mixing could wear down the surface quickly. I find that nonstick surfaces wear down eventually, even with proper use, so why speed up that process?