No, this isn’t a cast iron thing. Using stainless pans, you can get nonstick effects that, in my experience, far outperform Teflon anyway. The process is called “spot seasoning.” I have cooked crispy, cheesy rice noodles with eggs with zero sticking.
I love my cast iron pans, but stainless is my daily go-to. Added bonus: use 100% copper wool to clean your stainless pan. The copper-coated wool at most grocery stores is problematic; you might get a few uses out of the coated garbage and then it starts shedding metal bits.
I need my pans that need to be treated like a princess and then fail anyway in a few years and need to be thrown and replaced. I need to keep doing it cause those poor people at teflon plants cant have a job creating one of the most polluting chemicals out there
YSK that Teflon pans don’t need any seasoning and are still non-stick.
What’s with all the tinfoil-hattery on this site about teflon?
Thanks, T-Fal
PFOA is one of the most prominent forever-chemicals and has polluted every single living creature on earth (including you). PFTE is another one.
PFOA causes tumors and has been found in 100% of the places (including living creatures) that is has been tested for. Every human, every animal, every river, every forest, every senior, every newborn.
The real “tinfoil hat” is how we let them get away with it. Oh? They had money and were in America? You don’t say.
PFOA was banned 10 years ago in the US and 20 years ago in the UK.
Any evidence that PFTE is harmful to that level?
PFOA was banned, but PFOS and other very-slightly-different forever chemicals are not banned, therefore get around those regulations due to that technicality. Also, the current US administration is looking into removing a lot of those regulations.
DuPont/Chemours and 3M just add or subtract from the chain of the molecule and call it something new. It’s the same poisonous shit.
Wok with Tak is an awesome channel. It’s one of those “Bob Ross” style channels that show up every now and then. Full of good information and some decent recipes.
Isn’t teflon a cancer-causing “forever chemical”?
Veritasium made an interesting video about this. The teflon on pans shouldn’t be dangerous (unless heated above 350°C), but in the process of making teflon dangerous “forever chemicals” do get released
Teflon itself is perfectly safe. It’s far too large for your body to absorb.
But many of the byproducts involved in the production of teflon are much less safe.
In other words, if you already own a teflon pan, you’re fine. Keep using it. But if you’re considering buying a new pan, there are good reasons to avoid teflon.
It’s also important to note that Teflon (PTFE) is used in a multitude of stuff, and there’s no easy replacement. Got a 3D printer? The tube connecting the extruder motor to the hotend is probably PTFE.
The PTFE industry isn’t going to collapse just because we all switch to different cooking pans.
Lots of food machinery is Teflon coated, for example mozzarella machines
I have heard that coats are often covered with PTFE as well, as it makes the rain roll off rather than soak in
Veritasium just released a video about teflon and it’s impacts yesterday https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY tldw they say that it’s fine for non-stick pans at lower temperatures but the smoke it creates at high temperatures is where the danger is. Especially for pet birds.
Yes
oooohhh I was just in Nosy Be, I ordered a ravitoto once, unfortunately they didn’t have the ingredients on that day. It’s still a mystery to me. Mais j’adore le nom il me fait rigoler, j’imagine un mélange de Toto et du Ravi de la crèche
ah et je vois
1 ginger
je suis plutôt châtain j’espère que ça fout pas la recette en l’air
Haha oui, en malgache ça se prononce presque comme raftoute !
Tu peux customiser la recette comme tu veux, l’important c’est le saka saka, je suis même en train de réfléchir à l’adapter en version vegan pour les gens qui ne mangent pas de viande!
Saka saka c’est le feliki ? le manioc ?
Oui c’est ça, feuilles de manioc pilées, ça se trouve sous forme de boule surgelée
Veritasium just made a great video about the history of Teflon and related chemicals. I got claude to help me put here:
Teflon and PFAS Health Concerns
Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE) and related compounds have several health concerns:
Teflon itself
- The intact, long-chain PTFE polymer generally passes through the body without being absorbed, as you noted
- Not considered directly toxic when ingested in its stable form
Related harmful compounds
PFOA (C8) and PFOS:
- Used historically in Teflon manufacturing (not present in final product)
- Extremely persistent “forever chemicals” that bioaccumulate
- Associated with:
- Various cancers (kidney, testicular)
- Immune system impairment
- Thyroid disruption
- Reproductive issues
- Developmental problems
Shorter-chain PFAS (including C6):
- Introduced as “safer” replacements for C8 compounds
- Still very persistent in environment and bodies
- Growing evidence suggests similar health concerns to longer chains
- May be more mobile in environment
Heating concerns
Teflon breakdown:
- At normal cooking temperatures (below 500°F/260°C): minimal risk
- At high temperatures (above 500°F/260°C): Teflon begins to degrade
- At very high temperatures (above 660°F/350°C): releases toxic gases including:
- Fluorinated compounds
- Particulate matter
- Can cause “polymer fume fever” in humans (flu-like symptoms)
- Fatal to birds due to sensitive respiratory systems
Recommendations:
- Don’t preheat empty pans
- Avoid high-heat cooking with Teflon
- Replace scratched or damaged Teflon cookware
- Consider alternatives like cast iron, stainless steel, or ceramic
I have never has success with stainless steel but I will definitely try the heat/wipe/fresh technique if I get a chance.
Hey, did you hear veritasium made a video?
No I didn’t, you have a url for me? /s
Veritasium did a video on this topic a few days ago. I highly recommend it. There’s a bit of nuance here, from what I understand, regarding PTFE which is the chemical composition that Chemours markets as Teflon. The video talks about PTFE being rather inert, passing through our bodies if we ingest it. The real issue is heating the substance above 350° C (662° in freedom units).
I’m not an expert but I think it’s worth reading up on the subject. If there’s anyone else more read up on the subject please let me know if I’m wrong here.
https://lemmy.world/post/29654949
Something like that.
They are used to produce teflon and will be released if the coating is damaged.
I didn’t know about this technique, thanks!
You can also season the whole pan once and the nonstick effect will last a very long time.
Does he actually show the spot seasoning process in this video? Or is it in a different vid?
For the majority of cooking? Yes, you don’t need a non-stick pan. A properly used steel (or even aluminum) pan will work. Cast Iron is obviously loved but Carbon Steel is actually what most people want and has almost all of the same properties. But properly oiling your pan (and I actually love cooking sprays for dishes where I am using a neutral oil. Glug of “real” oil, get it up to temp, and then give a quick spritz just to make sure EVERYTHING is coated) and cooking at a high enough heat that your proteins can properly react and not “stick” to the pan will get you almost the entire way.
That said? Eggs and fish. Eggs very much are in that “nobody ever complained about too much butter” category but there is a lot to be said about a quick egg without any additional fats. And if you are cooking eggs these days, you can afford a 20 dollar specialty pan… And fish in particular is the kind of food where it is very easy to overcook it while waiting for all the appropriate reactions to occur so you can cleanly flip it.
If I were to downsize my kitchen (which I hopefully will be doing in a few months…)? That shit goes in the appropriate bin. But if you have the space? A 20-ish dollar restaurant supply store non-stick pan is AMAZING. And cheap enough that you can afford to get rid of it the moment you see any scratching.
You seem to be experienced with pans of different materials and you opened a topic I have no-one to ask about, so I’ll try here. I don’t use much oil and I like cooking on lower heat to avoid the carcinogens that are created when oil and other substances get too hot. Is it possible to do that with non-teflon pans? What material and technique?
Different oils have different temperature ranges with the “smoke point” what is commonly considered. As long as you are under that temperature, you are fine according to everyone that isn’t facebook.
Yep, I’m trying to use lower heat to not go over the smoke point. Canola oil has pretty good properties, so I use it. It is possible to overheat not just the oil, but also the other ingredients, so it’s good to limit the heat. That’s why I’m interested in the lower heat use possibilities of pans different materials.
Quick google puts Canola Oil’s smoke point at 450-ish Fahrenheit. You can do the real good stir frying with that. Even the “get a pan ridiculously hot to sear some meat” is in the 300s and MAYBE capping around 500 which isn’t great with canola but is still doable since the food will lower the pan temperature pretty quick anyway.
So if your pan is getting that hot then you are doing it wrong or are specifically trying to do restaraunt style sous vide and don’t realize they use (char)broilers for that.
I’m not doing that. As I said, I use lower temperatures.
ive been doing low fat eggs and frying fish just fine on a stainlless pan. Once throughoutly preheated, you can lower the heat and let the pan cool down a bit. Rolling oil around the pan in every direction ensures all the pores have been properly hit with oil.
My eggs stick less to my stainless than to my 3 year old very expensive teflon plan that has been treated properly and still fails cause teflon a shit.
Even easier, heat the stainless steel pan until water balls up and skitters/rolls across it instead of evaporating.
Add oil and you can fry an egg on that pan
I never used teflon because I read somewhere that you mustn’t heat it up to a certain point. I just used stainless steel all my life until I got a cast iron skillet.
Still use the stainless steel pan for 97% of cooking
What’s the consensus on ceramic pots? They seem to be easier for nonstick and I don’t think they have the same issues as Teflon.
Some people, like me, can’t possibly keep non-stick pans safe. I live on a sailboat, and the effort to keep non-stick pans (even ceramic) safe from damage is disproportionate to the advantages. Also, I am away from resupply for long periods of time. If my pan gets damaged, I can’t just hop down to the store to replace it.
I have started to hate my ceramic skillets. They started sticking a couple of years after we bought them, and it’s a pain to lose half of an egg to the pan…
Don’t know who needs to hear this but you don’t need to season stainless steel. You just need to pre-heat it correctly for it to gain non-stick properties.
You have to pre-heat to around 400 degrees Fahrenheit before you put anything in the pan - including oil. You know its good when you drop some water in and it immediately beads up and glides across the entire surface. If it boils and evaporates, the pan is still too cold. If it beads up and starts to glide but freaks out in a certain spot, you have a cold spot in your pan. You’re trying to achieve the leidenfrost effect
Keep in mind that in a lot of dishes you actually want some of the food to stick to the pan and become [frond].(https://www.thespruceeats.com/all-about-fond-995681) Then you deglaze it later with some kind of wine or stock.
Stainless steel is perfect for this kind of cooking. I’ve been using it exclusively for years. Its versatility and low maintenance is why all the best kitchens in the world use it.
Thanks for the tip about preheating! I bought a set of Allclad mostly so I could go from stove to oven to finish, but haven’t bothered to learn how to correctly cook eggs in them (have a carbon steel crepe pan that is the designated egg pan, highly recommend). The rest of the reason for them is that they are nigh on unfuck-up-able.
Fond. Fronds are parts of a tree.
In addition to the tips in this thread: Parchment paper rounds that fit inside the pan and work great for really really sticky stuff
I just use butter to cook my eggs. I also pay attention to the bonds that the bottom of the egg form with the pan. By using a stainless turner on a stainless pan you can get between the egg and the bonds it’s forming with the pan. The more often you manipulate it and make sure those bonds don’t form, the more “non-stick” the egg is.
I usually pan flip single eggs cooked with this method because the egg slides around the pan easily.
My wife has a problem doing the same though, so I buy a couple of the disposable Teflon junk pans on a recurring basis.
I’ve been looking at the pirotech pans which are supposed to be nonstick and fully recyclable, but I’ve been unable to find a lot of reviews on them.
I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say that any other cookware material outperforms Teflon nonstick, and actually harms the conversation when trying to convince people to switch to an alternative. Nothing is going to beat the nonstick performance a fresh nonstick pan, and that’s perfectly fine. I don’t need a pan so nonstick that I could start an egg in a cold pan with no oil. Well-meaning people run the risk of frustrating less experienced cooks when they assert that they’ll get the exact same or better results from a stainless steel pan, which just isn’t true, especially right from the start. Stainless has plenty of other benefits that make it more than worth the learning curve to use. Sometimes you want some stick, to build fond for a pan sauce. Or you need a pan that can go from stovetop to oven to finish cooking.
This post wasn’t aimed at you specifically, I just wanted to vent at what I feel like has been an uptick in cookware bros flexing their ability to reduce sticking on stainless steel (“I’m so smart I name dropped this little-known thing called the Leidenfrost effect”). I quite like your video and post because they show an alternative way to reduce sticking on stainless that is definitely more forgiving for a beginner than trying to hit a specific temperature range.
As a wonderful cook, I resent just about every piece of cooking advice. They’re just oft-repeated, poorly-understood concepts.
For example, I love cast iron. It’s my go-to for nearly all my cooking. I cannot stand cast iron people. They think their lump of iron is a baby that needs to be spit polished and pampered like a Fabergé egg. No, you beat the ever-loving hell out of it, abuse it, soak it in water, leave it to rust, abuse it with scouring pads… then you rub a 1/16th tsp of oil on it and get on with life/cooking.
There’s a joy with high crafted tools that you can’t really get with an average equivalent. It usually comes down to comfort and looks. Is it worth it? Depends, I suppose.
I’ve cooked every meal from scratch for 5 years
There’s one tool that was worth the $50 and that was a garlic press, the rest was money wasted
It’s much better to understand your tools and buy appropriately, instead of just assuming that lots of money is the answer
That’s my opinion and experience
I went for a cheapish knife, like £20 or so each for a few knives. My thinking was I don’t want the 20 knives in a set for £19.99 that are probably made of stamped aluminium and hollow plastic handles, but by £20 you are getting something good without spending a silly amount of money.
As for the cast iron I won’t deliberately leave mine to rust, but happily use it over a fire and then just wipe off the worst of the soot/ash. But it’s black anyway so no one is going to notice spot buildup. Just remove anything that would easily brush off on other things.
I agree with your approach
I think knife sets are a bit of a con job because a good cook really just uses one or two. I’m looking at my knife block and I’m seeing 9 different knives in there, two of them get used. Two… The $5 el-cheapo chef knife and a $1 paring knife. I haven’t used the serrated bread knife in 10 years, because my chef knife is sharp enough to shave my beard
I’m also kind of exaggerating a bit on my prices. Yes I’ve paid $5 or 6 but I time the purchases to be right after Christmas when they’re on clearance. I’d say in “real money” and with recent inflation I’m using about a $35 CAD knife
I also find the pricing of them to be completely arbitrary. I have been gifted knives that should be extraordinarily high quality based on retail price… And found the handles/plugs were falling off, or they were degrading within weeks!
I don’t understand why we live in a world where someone can sell a $500 knife that in terms of manufacture and material cost, is almost indistinguishable from a no-frills budget one. And in many cases, conspicuously worse in every measurement!
Been looking at sharpening stones a bit today, genuinely wonder if I could instead get 2 slate roof tiles and grind them against each other until the surface is flat enough to use to sharpen a knife. Would cost almost nothing.
Or bits of slate for making walls, would have more thickness to it but otherwise more irregular sizing. Could chip it to the right kind of size first and then grind the stones smooth though.
I love the wild, devil may care, DIY approach!
It’s the type of lunacy that I would try just to see how it works hahahah
I’ve said in many other threads in regards to cooking, and my knives, that I admit and confess, in full, that I am a complete rebel and sinner
I use a dual wheel Rada quick sharp to blast the correctly angled edge, knowing full-well that it shears off material, and then I quickly use my 14-in hone. I am completely aware that I am gradually eroding my knife, but I don’t care, it’s sharp enough to shave a buffalo and it takes me 8 seconds
I know by official standards and reckoning… I am abusing my knives and doing it “wrong”
But I cook every day, and it takes me 5 years to go through a knife. I completely gave up on sharpening with a stone a decade ago. My attitude is “fuck it, I’ll just get another knife in 5 years, this is a primary tool for me and I’m not going to baby them”
I would love to know how this works out for you though!!! I can absolutely envision a scenario where you angle these pieces of slate and you make yourself your own version of a quick sharp!! This is madness though, which is why I love it LOL
Knife hipsters: You must spend £200 on these whetstones!
Me: Haha, £1.50 roof tile.
Shame I don’t live near anywhere to get slate or another suitable rock type, would be a few hundred miles away. The rock here is rather crumbly sedimentary rock from what I have seen. Slate coasters could be dual purpose.
Now you’ve got me wondering what kind of materials are cheap as hell, come flat out of the production line, and are still more durable than the steel you’re sharpening.
This whole convo has got me thinking!
I agree with both your original comment and the edit, but especially the bit about cast iron. Neglecting mine for an extended period led to uneven patches of seasoning, but when I got round to giving it a proper scrub, it was like hitting a reset button. I’m going to try to be better at basic seasoning/maintenance this time, but the joy of cast iron is knowing that it’s super forgiving if you do mess it up.
Tangential to your edit: I enjoy being able to sharpen knives, but that’s mostly because I’m a nerd who has other tools I need to sharpen anyway, so I already have the stones. Something that I found striking though is that when I was learning how to sharpen knives, I asked if I could practice on various friends’ kitchen knives. Most of them were poor students, so I sharpened many cheap knives, and I was impressed by how well some of the cheaper ones performed compared once they were sharp. They held their edge for surprisingly long too.
I’m quite fond of my Wusthof chef’s knife, which was a bit of an indulgent treat for myself, but I am utterly baffled by the gear acquisition syndrome that so many seem to fall into. It’s not just that prospect of someone who barely cooks buying a $300 knife that perplexes me, but that so many of these people keep acquiring more knives. If they said that collecting knives was just their hobby, and that they were never intending to actually use them, then I’d shrug and say fair enough. That’s pretty rare though — the underlying implication that these people seem to operate under is that the fancy knives make you a better cook (and that the perfect knife will make good cooking into an effortless, joyful endeavour). It’s an odd culture that’s developed.
You’re making some great points
I like that you like sharpening, my grandfather taught me how as well and it’s a pleasure to know how. I have also been surprised how some “bargain basement” cheap ones are higher quality steel than the expensive Henkels, just as one random example
Maybe it’s my fault, but I don’t think so, I think it just revealed a deeper truth to me…
I was given professional chef knives by someone who dropped out of cooking school. I mean, you could just hold the chef knife in your hand for a second and tell you are dealing with a completely “next level” tool
I think I had that knife for all of 5 days before something took a massive chip out of the edge. I suppose a person could argue it was my fault. I really don’t think it was, I think it was just a freak incident. But the timing of it revealed to me that I’m just going to stick with my cheapos. There is too much going on with cooking to have to stress about if my little delicate knife can handle a tap against a pan edge
That chipping incident disabused me of many false notions. I can absolutely acknowledge it made prep quicker, but I did the mental math and realized I’m not going to pamper and baby knives my whole life. I need to be able to have tools that if they break, they go straight in the trash and I just get another one. In the forensic analysis, it’s much cheaper and easier to go that way.
This is for me as a home cook - I can acknowledge if I worked in a professional environment I would need pro tools that I would baby and pamper, but my home kitchen is not the place
World is a better place when we dont buy pans that are designed to give you cancer and fail in a few years… Teflon is reserved for the 1-2 dishes that require non stick at a low temperature. The few dishes that I cant think of right now but i’m sure they’re out there.
You won’t find any disagreement from me there. I just think that when you set the expectation too high (stainless steel can actually be more nonstick than Teflon), people will give up and just go back to nonstick pans when they can’t achieve those results.
Regarding dishes that are solely the domain of Teflon, I think it definitely has a place for dishes that already have a high bar for execution. A perfect French omelette is hard enough on a nonstick that adding another layer of heat management puts it out of reach for most people. But like you said, there’s not much that I’d use Teflon for, so I just don’t have one after switching to induction.
I’m glad I am reading your comments. I am that kitchen novice. And so is my husband. We’ve been trying to move away from Teflon since we had a baby, and are struggling to make stainless steel worth the extra time it takes to clean. I’ve been feeling very frustrated that despite trying to do the heat it up and use oil thing, it’s still awful, and I figured either we’re dumb and bad or everyone online is just lying. We just went back to Teflon, because people online say it should be perfectly non stick and then also that you can only clean the stainless steel with a soft cloth. It’s hell.
First of all, congratulations on the baby! :) If you don’t mind me asking, what sorts of dishes are you struggling to make on stainless steel?
I’m going to be presumptuous here and make a few suggestions, so feel free to push back if you’ve tried some of these things and they haven’t worked or aren’t as easy as I’m presenting. If you do still want to transition to stainless, it’ll be easiest to start by only doing it bit by bit, rather than all at once. Dishes that naturally contain some acidic element (like tomatoes, citrus juice, vinegars, or wine) will be easiest to cook without a bunch of sticking. I’d recommend starting with a tomato-based pasta sauce. If, as it reduces, you notice bits sticking to the sides, it’s easy enough to loosen up just by stirring a bit of the sauce onto it. Once you’re more comfortable with this, you can try sauteing vegetables in the pan. Even with preheating, it’ll might result in some stuck on bits, but adding a splash of lemon juice or champagne vinegar at the very end and agitating all of the ingredients should both brighten up the overall dish a bit as well as lift most (if not all) of those browned spots you saw. When it comes to searing meats, you might also have to adjust how often you’re flipping. If it feels stuck when trying to flip it for the first and second time, waiting a bit longer will eventually lead to the meat releasing from the pan. After the initial release on both sides, it won’t be anywhere near as sticky and you can flip as often as you’re used to. I wouldn’t worry about any browned spots either. While resting the meat, you can toss a bit of wine along with some stock in, turn up the heat, and stir continuously to loosen those bits up as well as flavor your pan sauce. Once it’s reduced to about your desired consistency, you can throw a slice or two of cold butter in and stir for a relatively low effort but still tasty pan sauce. Plus, you make washing the pan much easier. I think this tends to be easier than trying to achieve a nonstick effect with stainless, and sort of demonstrates that there’s ways to work around the issues some people have that aren’t strictly heat management.
My cat really wanted to press the submit button halfway through and force me to edit it to complete the thought as quickly as possible. Sorry if it isn’t quite helpful, and I’d be happy to follow up on any of it.
That’s all wonderful advice. I’m trying to make scrambled eggs. It’s one of the baby’s favorite foods. Any advice there?
Unfortunately, scrambled eggs are one of those things that are a bit harder to cook in stainless. If you’ve been using oil, switching to butter can help with some of the sticking, but you might end up using more butter than you’d like and some heat management is still necessary. Honestly, a lot of people keep a single nonstick frying pan just for things like eggs, seared fish, or sauteed tofu, so don’t feel pressured to make it work on stainless.
If you really feel compelled to move off Teflon completely, a carbon steel or cast iron pan will be much better suited to replacing nonstick for the instances where you’re getting excessive sticking, at the cost of needing to avoid acids in the pan. But if I were you, I’d just keep using my Teflon pans until there’s any flaking or chipping before making up my mind.
Got 2 cast iron pans, one probably needs a good reseasoning sometime but the other is really good right now. Possibly not as good as brand new Teflon, but how long does Teflon remain good as new? Mine has long passed the age at which Teflon should be disposed of too, so how much less pan waste am I making by using cast iron?
I can also use it over a firepit, just brush the ash off the base when I bring it back in.
I’d posit that your well-loved cast iron looks even better than new. For me, moving off nonstick pans was about sustainability (and money waste, who wants to buy a 2 year subscription to cooking?), but I can’t get over how beautiful some cookware gets just from being used. The patinas on cast iron/carbon steel pans reflect the dedication of their owners to a craft, which I’ll take any day over a colorful pan whose surface flakes just from looking at it.
I appreciate that people have found solutions for avoiding materials that can become dangerous when overheated. I, too, have gone on PFOA-free journeys.
But oh my god, that egg is swimming in oil! I don’t want that many calories, and I don’t want to feel a greasy egg in my mouth.
I understand this solution is great for many people, and they should be proud and happy that they have reached their Teflon-free goals.
But as a person who can’t digest high amounts of fats without consequences and watches their calories, this is only a solution for people who love bathing their food in oil. I also avoid saturated fats, which are superior for their non-stick properties. I want to use olive oil, nothing else.
But fine, I will try it on my stainless pan and see what happens. Olive oil, heat to smoke, wipe, then a small amount of olive oil again for normal cooking.
If it works I’ll be thrilled. If not, back to my trusty teflons that never fail me. Wish me luck! Got any more tips?
Yeah, don’t use that huge amount of oil. I’ve never had eggs stick in my cast iron, using 1-2 tablespoons of oil or butter. It shouldn’t need to swim in oil and if it is, you’re doing something wrong
