Trick is to splash water on the pan and wait till it starts dancing and gliding around. When that happens put ur oil on and fry away. I haven’t figured out how to manage the pans temp but this has so far been the best way for me to find out if the pan is ready or not
You cant heat Teflon to more than ~250°C without taking damage - wihch is pretty shitty for a pan used for frying. You can basically only safely heat water / wet food in it - but you´d usually want to use a pot for this.
Also, if you heat it for the first time and you have a canary in the room, it will die!
If you are running your eggs too hot and you are not stirring them while the pan is too hot, you will actually do this to your eggs. You have to stand there and stir the eggs while they are on a hot pan. It's really easy. I don't understand why you don't see this
Because it’s clearly burnt to the pan, not simply sticking. Non-stick pans aren’t magic, they just help keep your chicken breast from adhering to the pan if there’s too little oil. I use a non stick pan almost exclusively for eggs. A nice Tfal one. I have no issues with it, even though it’s old and scratched up. Even then, I will on occasion burn eggs to it because of too little oil or too high heat. Just like any other tool, it has to be used properly.
Pans get scratched on the bottom too. Idk what your doing eith yours, but after a few uses, the metal gets scuffed up from the high heat combined with the common cast iron grates on gas stoves. Even electric ranges will have imperfections that can scratch the metal.
Well op said he was putting it in the dishwasher with detergent powder instead of hand washing, so id said there's a little bit of user error instead of cooking knowledge
No intentionally added PFAS. Saying it then may still have PFAS and shouldn’t be used is at that rate “
Like putting something on the Prop 65 list. Just because it may have it, doesn’t mean that it does have it, and just because it may not have it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have it. No less. It’s a lot better than it outright having it.
Unless you don’t drink coffee because it may cause cancer, can’t help you there.
Yeah I'm gonna guess this is on you, man. With nonstick pans: 1. never heat them more than medium, 2. always use oil, 3. wash them by hand every time, 4. never use metal utensils in them.
1) your heat was too high. You should cook eggs on medium - low always
2) you probably didn't use enough (if any) fat. Whether that's oil or butter, it's up to you, but you need to use it and you need to let it preheat
Edit : also idk if you're showing the bottom to show the brand or the condition of it, but if it's the latter, the way the bottom of a pan looks doesn't really matter as long as it isn't warped or deeply pitted or something
Learn to properly use stainless and you'll never go back. My non stick is a pancake and crepe pan only. That being said, people really underestimate how much oil or fats they should use even with non stick. Relying on just the teflon degrades it faster as does too high a heat
May have been too hot. I make eggs in a nonstick all the time and very rarely have issues. My mom cooks eggs in the same pan, and always burns them to the pan. The only difference is she has the heat a lot higher.
I know someone who buys brand new sets of non stick pans every couple of months because they "stop working and didn't work very well anyway". But this same doofus will use a fork and leave gouges in CERAMIC COATED PANS after their eggs stick a little because they dropped them in cold on cold and then blasted them on high heat. I've stopped correcting them.
Imma be REAL honest here... if this is what you got out of cooking, you don't need a nonstick pan, you need a wok. You are cooking things hard and loose with next to no aftercare for the pan itself. You may as well just abandon the idea because it seems like the function is lost on this endeavor. At least with a wok, you can basically do the cooking equivalent of beating the ever loving shit out of it and it will still be functional for ages. But this? This is just sad.
do you have any recommendations for a good wok brand? my old one (15+ years of service) is pretty battered and I've been looking for a new one. I have a shitty glass-top electric stove so I need one that's flat on the bottom but all the woks I've found locally are non-stick coated (yuck). I'm willing to buy online but Amazon reviews are kinda hit or miss and I'd prefer the opinion of an actual human.
Not really. Mine has been in my family for over 30+ years and I'm still using it to this day. My recommendation is to get one from a local Chinese outlet and season it yourself. There's no magic answer I have in regards to brand because I would not have thought of it when buying a new one.
thanks! I've been looking at our local Asian market but I'm in a fairly small town and there's not a lot of selection. I'll definitely check around next time I'm in a bigger city.
I don't know where you are, but if you are coastal on the stateside, you should have a lot of options to choose from. The funny thing about Amazon is that a lot of products in there are also straight from China... They are literally selling you worse versions of what we would have used...
But I digress, I have gone to China and the options are great. I just never brought one back here because ours has not seen any level of decline. (it is a very well used wok)
You still need oil. Plus if you use that hard side of sponges that scratches your pan and removes the non stick. You have to use the soft side of the sponge only.
This is a steel pan, and Tramontina is a good brand. I have a set and have used them for like a decade. There’s definitely a learning curve.
You have to cook on steel in a specific manner. It is nonstick, but you need oil and you have to have the pan at the right temperature. You have to let the food crust just a bit and shake loose. It’s a bit more active of an experience I think.
You can’t compare this to a Teflon or ceramic “non stick” pan. This is user error. Just soak it, clean it and try again.
Do yourself a favor, pick up a couple Lodge cast iron pans. Easier to cook and clean with, no toxicity, and you get a little extra iron in your diet 😉
No matter what you cook with though, always start low and slow before upping the temp. I put my skillets on 'low' while prepping, and then turn it up to what I need. Food is fickle. If the temp is too high, it sticks. If the temp is too low, it sticks. If there's not enough oil/butter, it sticks (although less so with cast iron). Look at it wrong? It sticks.
Oil, high heat, and non-stick pans are not a good combo - the temps should never get anywhere near the smoke point of whatever cooking oil you're using. Cooking spray, like Pam, is usually a no-go with non-sticks as well.
And always handwash non-sticks with soap and a soft cloth - you don't want to scruff it up and make it lose its non-stickiness. (If its in good shape, there isn't really a lot to clean off anyway)
Use the water test. If the water beads and moves around the pan, it's ready to go! If it evaporates, it needs to keep heating. The add the food. But never crowd the pan.
Fellas I've cooked raw egg and nothing else on a good non stick pan and you can avoid this if you keep stirring. You don't need butter or oil in a good pan. It definitely helps but the pan has a little bit to blame I say.
I added this below in another comment but that's not a for sure thing. Now again I'm not saying every cheap pan is suspect, or going to poison you or anything. But it's possible, and one place that would give me concern is a pan that shows it's not up to the quality marketed.
Even if they aren’t ceramic, they are most likely Teflon, which as long as you follow the instructions and don’t go all bobby flay on the thing are just fine. The biggest thing being not using metal utensils.
Nope, "better" but most of them are still plastic coated and you just cant avoid it, they just changed how they were made so they werent using the chemicals we know was bad, but to new ones we dont know are bad yet basically. Its like getting BPA out of bottles, they just had to use a different plasticiser.
You can get ceramic ones but they are dog shit for non-stick.
The only real solution is one of two.
Just get a cheapish classically non-stick pan and use it as a wear item for really sensitive things ONLY. And only use plastic/silicone on it. And the moment you see any signs of wear, toss it.
The other is cast-iron or carbon steel that is seasoned (which is basically turning cooked fats into a type of plastic as well, but a known risk) AND cooking with fats. You can get the same non-stick performance but it does require technique and maintenance.
Assuming it's from a reputable source. There's heaps of evidence out there that huge swathes of the industry do not fall into that reputable category. The coating is also not the only part of the pan that needs consideration.
ETA: I don't mean costco. I mean the manufacturer. Added some resources below. Far from all encompassing. Note: I'm not saying buying cheap pans is GOING to poison you, or that there's inherently something wrong with all of them. But it's well documented by reputable sources that SOME manufacturers provide products that leech harmful chemicals from either the base material of the pan or the coating. This includes lead from aluminum based cookware. Cadmium etc from certain ceramic glazes.
Inert? Yes. No chemistry in your body will be displacing any of that flourine from that carbon.
But that means there is a high likelihood that polymer is going to stay inside of you essentially forever if it find somewhere to get stuck, and we don’t know what the consequences of that are yet.
Just get steel pans, let them preheat until you can drop little droplets of water in the pan and they seem to glide over the surface. Then put in a little oil.
Learning how to use steel pans correctly has been a gamechanger. I swear those things are more nonstick than nonstick pans and are probably better for your health in the long term.
Yep. Warm runny yolk, mostly set white. I serve them on oil warmed/barely fried corn tortillas kinda huevos rancheros style and soaking up the yolk after with the tortilla is great.
That’s the ceramic on stainless steel. We have the same ones. While they are somewhat nonstick they aren’t like teflon pans. It doesn’t leach any forever chemicals onto your food though. You need to learn to use them with oil.
Non stick pans in general are really the biggest scam since bottled water.
Spent 10 years of my life buying new pans until I stumbled upon a carbon steel one.
Burnt in once, be set for life - and can use metal objects to stir argain!
Stainless is also fine! Or cast iron!
All three will probably outlast you and do not put forever chemicals in the environment for absolutely no reason.
Non stick does not mean eggs won't stick to it without some oil coating. This is basic cooking 101 and I am honestly shocked somehow new adults come out not knowing this as kids.
They never seem to work with eggs. A quick tip though. While the pan is still piping hot. Put in a little water, not a lot. It’ll immediately loosen the stuck eggs. Then quickly scrape with the spatula.
Hey OP, I work in the corporate sector these days but spent over a decade in the restaurant industry. If i can offer my advice is to get some stainless steel and some olive oil/butter.
I don’t know if you have any formal training or experience in the kitchen, but these pans are notorious for being considered “training wheels” for cooking. Theyre good for learning, but stainless will teach you how to better manage heat and cooking times. Hopefully the next purchase doesnt go this way lol. and yes, as others have said…no dishwasher.
Yes, stainless is one of the best pans/pots you can get for catch all cooking. Based on the comments, this individual put it through the dishwasher, this removes any non stick properties the pan had.
This won’t happen with stainless. But that also tells me this person might not have a lot of experience or knowledge in cooking, so pointers to the right tools will help. The end result here isn’t that they burnt eggs in nonstick, it’s that they didn’t know how to take care of a nonstick the best way which resulted in burnt eggs. Hope this explains my rationale in why i said what i said, and i stand by it.
Scrambled eggs are pretty easy to get stuck like that. Even in my hex clads. But maybe it got overheated over scrubbed and damaged the non stick. I had a set of cheap ones my kids still use from Costco that worked great.
That said. It’s Costco. Take them back and try a different set.
OP I won't roast you because there is already a decent amount of flaming in comments lol. I assume you're still new-ish to cooking, eggs are by far one of the stickiest things to cook. I keep a teflon pan on hand largely for eggs. Pretty sure what you have is a ceramic non-stick which kind of works but not nearly as non-stick as teflon. Don't use dishwasher- nonstick pans should be super easy to handwash if maintained, most of the food just wipes out with almost no effort. If it degrades, toss it and get a new one (nonstick usually ~1-2 year lifespan depending on use).
If you're worried about chemicals, carbon steel is the way to go and if properly maintained, work almost as well as teflon. If not properly maintained however, it sticks like crazy. You have to season it and maintain seasoning which is not very beginner friendly, but once it's properly seasoned (basically a plasticized layer forms from heating oil) then it's the best, safest, lasts forever nonstick option. Heat control is also your friend- look up "water bead test" on Youtube
I hate those smooth "non-stick" pans. I have slowly shelled out for hex clad part by part, no disappointment so far. Does still scratch if you use force with metal utensils, but I try not to. Haven't had anything truly stick where it doesn't clean off easy
I've never used their non stick stuff, but I have a bunch of their stainless steel pans and they work great. No problem with sticking, good heat distribution. You just have to know how to cook.
You know, you bring up a valid point. Knowing the fundamentals of cooking and heat distribution is key.
But the point you've kinda made is about stainless steel pans. Cheap or pricey, I don't think I've ever had a bad experience. Stainless steel is absolutely goated, but there is a slight learning curve for people coming from using non-stick or ceramic.
The only good nonstick is Teflon. All the crap out today is garbage. The toxins make the difference 😤
You're going to have to learn how to Cook on cast iron. They're the closest you're going to get to nonstick. You can cook eggs on stainless or carbon steel but the learning curve is higher.
Worst part is, the teflon itself isnt toxic, its how they make the teflon which makes it toxic, if they just changed the recipe to not have the toxic thing it would be fine, that or hand making the teflon which wouldnt happen because its slower
Use cast iron. If correctly seasoned and taken care of, they will be non stick. And bonus, if you accidentally abuse the thing, ruin the seasoning, let it get rusty or whatever, you just clean it really well and season it again. It's a junk of raw iron, you really can't destroy it completely even if you tried.
For probably less than a set of those you can get ceramic coated Cuisinart pans that nothing sticks to, without PFAS/OS/OA that require about 30% less heat than a standard stainless pan.
I’m sure the higher end ceramics are even better but I’ve never told anyone about my cookware so much until I got a set (not sure I ever even talked about cookware at all) and honestly when I replace them I’ll probably just go to a higher end version of the same.
EDIT: Ceramica XT is the set I have currently, if anyone is interested. Looks like you can get a whole set for about $150.
417
u/danny_ish 10h ago
Yeah, op you still need to learn how to cook