Non-stick is terrible for anything that needs real frying, because the non-stick coating breaks down at high temperatures (generally manufacturer recommendations are to keep the pan under 400f / 204c. I’ve had the coating start browning and changing at lower temperatures than that.

I have cast iron pans, but I can’t be bothered to maintain them so they mostly sit in the cabinet. I need to sand and re-coat mine currently, as they’ve got some rust spots, and I don’t really use them.

I swear by steel pans. They work great on any stove type (gas, electric, induction, doesn’t matter), have enough heft but are lighter than cast iron, and they can handle high heat and even be baked so long as the handle is also steel. The trick to stainless is making sure it’s hot enough for water to dance on, and nothing will stick. I tend to use a bit of oil and then a bit of butter when cooking in them and they’re practically non-stick that way anyway, just give it a rinse and wash while it’s still hot and everything comes right off.

Plus, there are some foods you actually want to stick a bit sometimes, like when you’re searing meats and later using the glaze from the pan for a sauce.

If you’re using steel and accidentally leave it and stuff is stuck to it, no need to panic, just put some water in the pan, heat it up (preferably with a lid on), and once it’s hot, everything should come off easily.

Get a thick bottom stainless steel pan and don’t be afraid to use butter, it’ll take care of all your needs and doesn’t require special or gentle treatment.

I agree with the wife. Cast iron for steaks and searing red meats, non-stick for everything else.

At the end of the day, what you should care about most is the fact that you’re lucky enough to have a wife who knows how to cook. In my house, I have to handle all the cooking and dishes. But at least she does the dusting and the laundry—both of which I hate doing—so it evens out I guess.

Go with a carbon steel pan over cast iron. Similar performance but without the weight.

“Pan gets hot” does not fully specify how something cooks. Does it spread heat quickly and evenly? Have a high thermal capacity? Stick to meat forming a harder sear? All of these are good or bad depending on what you are trying to do.

If I could only have one pan, Le Creuset Dutch oven, no question.

Cast iron is not good for acidic foods or foods that require heat variation.

Non stick usually implies teflon coating. Throw it out.

I have some cast iron cookware. Fun to use, the end result does feel different, heat disperses well and evenly and keeps warm for longer.

It can be used over nearly any heat source, with similar results, but I do prefer induction. More efficient and less prone no mishaps.

Yes

Metal hot. Make food hot.

Think a bit deeper. How quickly is that heat transferred, and at what peak temperatures? Does the metal keep any heat of its own and impart that into the food, or does it just convey the heat from the burner to the food? And how quickly does it do that?

but my wife seems to think cast-iron is necessary for certain things (searing a prime rib roast, for example.).

Look at the thermal mechanics of this.

Take the cast iron pot. You can throw that on the stove and let it get ripping hot, like the metal itself is carrying a ton of heat energy. When you put the prime rib in it, the metal dumps its heat into the meat much faster than a flame alone would. This helps you get a strong sear on the outside, without dumping in too much total quantity of heat to cook the meat on the inside more than you want.

then I gotta figure out gas vs. electric vs. induction vs infrared…

Heat can be transferred 3 ways- conduction (flows between two touching objects), convection (hot object heats air, air blows against cold object, air heats cold object) and radiation (hot object radiates energy through space and it warms cold object).

Electric- coils get hot, the pan touching the coils transfers heat by conduction. Downside is uneven heating- neither the pan nor the coils is perfectly flat so you get hot spots.

Infrared- coils under the glass get hot and radiate heat through the glass. This works pretty well.

Induction- coils under the glass but they don’t get hot. Instead they create a magnetic field modulated at low radio frequencies (15-150 KHz). This fluctuating magnetic field interacts with any ferrous metal close to it, creating small but powerful eddy currents inside the metal and thus heating the metal up. So the stove doesn’t create any heat at all, it’s the pan that actually gets hot. This by the way is neither conduction convection nor radiation, because heat isn’t being transferred, it’s created inside the pot.

Gas- flammable gas (usually propane or natural gas, which is mostly methane) burns creating high temperature exhaust gases that rise against the pot and thus heat the pot. Many chefs like this. Gas stoves should ideally be used with an overhead hood as gas stoves have been proven to drastically reduce indoor air quality.

Of the options- induction is usually the best these days, because it’s the most efficient, cleanest, and also in many cases has the highest output (in terms of watts of heat pumped into the pot).

When cooking, you want a stove capable of very high output. The more output you have, the faster it will boil water for example.

Your wife sounds smart, listen to heerrrrrr.

Also I don’t know, but since hearing about non-stick pans leaking cancer into your food (if you scrape them with a fork, etc), I just like to use a normal pan.

They have different strengths.

Cast iron is sturdy and cheap. If it’s well conditioned it will still stick more than a non stick pan, but it’s close, certainly good enough for say eggs. Because cast iron pans are so heavy (more mass can hold more heat) they’re good at applying a lot of heat over a long time, like for searing meat. The problems with iron are the weight and possible rust.

Carbon steel conditions like cast iron but is lighter. Tends to be expensive.

Copper is finicky. It heats evenly, but if you don’t know you need a copper pan, you almost certainly don’t want a copper pan. They’re delicate and expensive.

Stainless is difficult to damage. It doesn’t heat particularly evenly, so it struggles to cook evenly. Clad stainless steel pans have a disc of aluminum or copper jacketed in the bottom that heats more evenly than just steel, so kind of best of all worlds. Medium priced.

Non-stick generally needs specific utensils, is light enough it doesn’t sear well outside some fish, and doesn’t last forever. Many non-stick coatings are probably health risks.

I bought an carbon steel pan about 5 years ago, best pan ever! Highly recommend 😊

I recently watched a video on the topic of which pans you need, and the only two that were mentioned as important are non-stick and stainless steel

Non-stick chemicals have been historically poisonous, don’t know about the modern stuff though.

Also, cooking with cast iron increases iron intake.

For gas vs. electric vs. induction vs. infrared:

I’ve never cooked on gas so I can’t speak to it. I always had normal electric ranges.

Then I got an induction stovetop and it was a game changer. Instead of using a heating element to heat the pot, it uses magnets to agitate the atoms in the cookware and that turns the pot into a heater.

For example, I can boil a pot of water in 2 minutes, faster than a microwave.

The downside is you HAVE to use magnetic pans for it to work (like cast iron.) If you have, say, an aluminum pan, you have to get a stainless steel plate, which will heat the pan and the pan heats the food, just like a normal electric stove.

Infrared works the same way as electric, it heats the pot which heats the food.

Thin hot pan get cold fast when big meat on it.

Thick hot pan get cold slower when big meat on it.

Thick pan good for make big meat hot fast.

Thin pan good for make thin meat hot or thick meat hot slow.