Stainless steel pans are the workhorse cookware in most restaurants for many reasons: they are durable, they heat your food more evenly, you have more control over the temperature…and they are non-stick. Impossible you say. You may have tried cooking on stainless steel cookware and given up because your last attempt to fry a chicken breast somehow glued the poultry to the metal, resulting in a mangled meal and a burnt-on ring of carbonized protein firmly stuck to the bottom of the pan.
Many people have this problem….but the solution is easy. So easy, in fact, that stainless steel pans will become your go to, just like the best restaurants. A little bit of science and proper heat management, will have you exploiting the Leidenfrost effect to give your stainless steel cookware non-stick superpowers.
How to use stainless steel pans correctly
Rule Number 1: NEVER put food into a cold stainless steel pan—always pre-heat your cookware before putting anything on it, even oil.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, as cold, protein-rich food (like meat or poultry) heats up along with a cold pan, proteins bond with some of the elements in the metal, like iron atoms. This is why your ill-fated chicken ended up glued to the pan last time. There’s no scientific consensus as to why this is, but some believe the same principle applies to eggs and their shells, which is why you should always cook them by lowering them into boiling water rather than starting from cold. When you drop your eggs in cold water, the protein-rich white allegedly bonds strongly with the outer membrane, making the eggs harder to peel once they’re done. But put them straight into boiling water, the theory goes, and the proteins will bind to themselves, allowing the shell to come right off.
The second reason pre-heating your pan is so important is that, on a microscopic level, stainless steel has a porous surface. But as the pan heats and the metal expands, those pores get smaller and smaller, resulting in a much smoother surface food is less prone to stick to. Pre-heating times will depend on the make of your pan and the power of your stove, so it’s equally important to know when to start adding your ingredients. This is what the water test is for.
At the right temperature, if you toss a drop of water into the pan, it won’t evaporate instantly but roll around like an air hockey puck instead. That’s because the principle, called the Leidenfrost effect, is the same in your kitchen as at the arcade. A thin layer of gas between the puck and the surface below allows the disc to become almost frictionless, while in the case of your droplet, a thin layer of water instantly vaporizes when it touches the hot metal, creating steam and providing a gaseous coating that allows the rest of the droplet to float around on the steam. While it’s most visible using a drop of water, your food gets some of the same sliding superpowers when the moisture in it hits the pan.
Now that your pan’s hot enough, pour out that droplet and add your ingredients to the pan.
RULE Number 2: NEVER add cold or frozen food to a heated pan. The Leidenfrost effect needs a steady, high temperature, so make sure you do not add ingredients straight from the fridge, or worse, the freezer. Putting in a big cold piece of meat will drop the metal surface temperature to the point that the food will bond with the stainless steel, rendering the whole preheating process useless.
However, if you bring the food, say a piece of meat, to room temperature before adding it to the pan, that piece of meat at room temperature will hit the hot oil and quickly begin releasing its water, sizzling audibly as its moisture turns to steam and insulates its surface from the pan…just like the water did!
Adding in food at room temperature also minimizes the possibility of thermal shock, which is a double whammy of bad news. First, the drastic change in temperature could ruin your pan by warping it, but also result in splashing, dangerous hot oil.
Do I need to season my stainless steel pan?
No. Only cast iron and carbon steel pans need seasoning, which results in layers of slippery polymerized oils. This is not just to make them slicker, but because they’re extremely reactive to water and will rust rapidly without a protective barrier to seal them. A stainless steel pan isn’t reactive and you can toss them in a dishwasher without fear.
I still can’t flip this burger. Help.
On a stainless steel pan, the rule is to flip your food when you can do so easily. In other words, the pans tell you when the food is ready to flip! So if your burgers are resisting you, don’t force them. Presuming you’re using a pre-heated pan, wait, and keep cooking your patties as it takes time for the proteins to bind to each other. The process practically enforces a good sear, so it has flavor benefits, too.
Don’t worry about your burger drying out as you cook it more. In 2020, a group of Korean scientists at Seoul National University found that a good sear has negligible effect on internal moisture and it’s just more delicious.
Carico uses medical grade titanium stainless steel to ensure you have the most durable cooking surface possible. Carico is the only cookware to have an encapsulated aluminum core, meaning that they heat faster and more evenly. Contact one of our representatives to see how Carico cookware can take your cooking to a new level.
