To make our recommended list, frying pans must be very good at heating evenly and very durable. But they also need to be safe to use — we don’t recommend frying pans with a stainless-steel handle because they can get dangerously hot during cooking.
Overall scores breakdown
Overall score includes:
Performance (60%)
We cook pancakes to assess the evenness of cooking (50% of the Performance score) and non-stick-ability (50%).
Note: For products from our previous test, scores are not displayed for Evenness and Non-stick-ability. These scores are equally weighted within the Performance score.
Durability (30%)
A mechanical arm scrubs each frying pan 10,000 times and the damage is recorded.
Ease of use (10%)
As well as assessing how easy the pan is to clean, we consider if it’s also balanced, with a comfortable handle.
We also check the flatness of each pan’s base. If the base turns concave (like a wine bottle base) when it’s heated, the food could run to the sides of the pan.
We've tested 20 frying pans.
Find the right one for you.