Types of Cookware

Choosing what type of cookware you are going to buy can be a long and painstaking task if you don't know exactly what you want. We've put together a glossary of our categories explaining each type of cookware and bakeware. The difference between an OK meal and a fantastic meal can all lie in the right frying pan or the perfect roasting pan.

Braiser
Meat tastes great when it is slow cooked. Braisers allow meat to tenderize and soak in flavor. They are available with or without a lid. Braiser pans look very similar to stockpots, but have lower sides to cook meat. Handles on either side make it easy for you to take them off the stove when they are done.

Casserole
A casserole is a large, deep, covered pot or dish used both in the oven and as a serving dish. The foods usually prepared in this pan consist of vegetables and sometimes meats, pastas, or rice that is cooked slowly in sauce or another liquid. Depending on the material it is made from, it may be used on the stovetop but is generally used in the oven. Unlike a roasting pan, a casserole is usually round or oval shaped, and it is available with a lid and is often sized by quart capacity.

Chefs Pan / Saucer
This pan is equipped with a wide mouth and rounded, flared sides that can easily acgemodate whisks and spatulas and eliminates tight corners where food can stick and burn. The flat bottom and wide mouth helps accelerates the evaporation of liquids. A chef's pan most often will have a long handle and a tight fitting cover. It is made of a metal with a thick ground base that allows temperature changes to occur rapidly as the level of the heat applied to it changes, either increasing or decreasing for the best heat conduction. This makes this pan a great choice for sauces, risotto, pastry cream, or anything else that requires constant attention and frequent stirring. Chef's pans are available in a variety of sizes ranging from 2-6 quarts.

Crepe Pan
Crepe pans have a very similar design as frying pans. They are perfect for making breakfast. The biggest advantage crepe pans have over other types of cookware is that they heat up very quickly because of their very low sides in relation to the cooking surface. They are typically around 10 in diameter in order to fit multiple crepes or pancakes.

Double Boiler
A double boiler consists of two pans where one sits inside of the other. The bottom pan is slightly larger so the top pan can fit inside. The bottom pan contains hot water and the top pan holds the ingredients that are being cooked. They usually have attached loop handles. This pot is useful for steaming vegetables, meats, and fish. Sometimes it's also used for melting chocolate.

Dutch Oven
Dutch ovens are heavy, relatively deep, pots with a heavy lid, designed to re-create oven conditions on the stovetop. The Dutch oven is wider and shorter than a stockpot. Other variations of this type of pan include casseroles and braziers. The pans name is mainly the choice of the manufacturer and is usually based on the relationship of height to width and the material it is made of. This pot can be used for stews, braised meats, soups, and a large variety of other dishes that benefit from low heat, slow cooking. Its capacity is usually measured in quarts and run from about 2 to 8-quarts in size.

Fondue Set
Fondue sets can be used in a variety of ways. Smaller versions are best equipped for heating up dips or melting chocolate. Larger models can be used to slow cook meat in sauce. They are typically heated with a burner that is fueled by either gel or a special alcohol. Smaller fondu sets can simply be heated from the small flame of a candle.

Grill Pan / Griddle
This is a flat pan that has moderately sized ridges spaced evenly across the bottom that closely resemble an outdoor grill surface. They can be used like a frying pan for grilling meats, fish, and vegetables. The ridges raise the food off the bottom surface of the pan, which helps prevent the food from steaming as it cooks. The ridges also serve as a method for allowing the fat contained in some foods to drain away from the food and collect in the spaces between the raised ridges. Many materials are used for making stovetop grill pans but those made of cast iron are considered the best because it retains heat more consistently. This pan is available in round, square and rectangular shapes and range in size from 9 to 12 inches. There are also double burner sizes available.

Pressure Cooker
Pressure cookers look like other kitchen pots, except their lids are a bit more elaborate. How they work is that they gepletely seal the pot. When the liquid inside boils, it is trapped inside the pot. Having nowhere else to go, steam builds up pressure. This results in higher cooking temperatures and shorter cooking times. This pot helps to reduce cooking time by as much as 50% without destroying the nutritional value of the food. A good pressure cooker is made of a highly conductive metal, like aluminum, or is made of stainless steel with a heavy aluminum or copper sandwiched base. It will have a number of safety features, such as safety valves and automatic lid locks, and two or more pressure settings for versatility. You can cook most anything in the pressure cooker, although to be sure, it is better suited for foods that require long cooking times, such as soups, stews, beans and grain dishes.

Roasting Pan
Roasting pans are large, wide and shallow, to provide space to cook a roast chicken, beef, or pork. They typically have two loop or tab handles, and may have a cover. Roasters are usually made of heavy gauge metal so that they may be used safely on a stovetop following roasting in an oven. The shape of this pan and its low sides, allow the heat from the oven to expose the entire surface of what you are cooking. These pans are gemonly equipped with a rack for mounting meat as well as a nonstick surface suitable for oven use.

Sauce Pan
The saucepan is considered a kitchen essential and will usually be the most frequently used pan. This pan ranges in size from less than 1-quart to approximately 6-quarts. Though the name precludes it to be designed for preparing sauces, it is used for cooking fruits, vegetables, soups, and stews. These pans are round with an elongated handle, and they may be sold with or without a lid. Larger pots of the same shape generally have two handles close to the sides of the pot, and are called sauce pots or soup pots.

Saut Pan
Saut pans share some of the attributes of a frying pan, except that its bottom is flat, and its sides are straight and deeper, allowing the food to be in more direct contact with the heat source so that cooking is quicker. They are also equipped with a long handle and a lid, and sometimes you'll find them with a short helper handle opposite the long handle. Saut pans are available in a variety of sizes ranging from 1-quart to 7-quarts. As the name suggests, a saut pan efficiently browns and cooks meats and a variety of other foods.

Skillet / Frying Pan
The skillet and fry pan are used primarily for frying and sauting. Although the two names are often used to describe the same pan, the major difference is a skillet will have a lip on one or both sides that facilitates pouring, a fry pan does not. Frying pans offer a large flat heating surface and shallow sides, and are best for frying meats, fish, and vegetables. Many people also use it for preparing scrambled eggs and omelets. It is very gemon for a frying pan to gee with a nonstick surface. Sizes range from 6 inches to about 14 inches in diameter, and about 2 to 4 inches high. They are usually equipped with an elongated handle. These pans are primarily made of heavyweight material that is responsive to heat, such as lined copper, stainless steel with a copper or aluminum core, anodized aluminum or cast iron. Frying pans may be sold with or without a lid.

Steamer
This pan is equipped with holes on the bottom and is designed to be inserted into a larger pan. It should be is placed over a larger pan partially filled with water or stock below the level of the smaller pan, causing the steam to cook the food in the top pan. A cover is necessary to contain the steam. Some steamers are available with multiple tiers, allowing you to steam two or more foods at once, always placing the food that requires less cooking at the top.

Stir-fry Pan
This is a deep pan that has a round base and sides that slope out and upward. This pan efficiently distributes heat across the base while the sloping sides make it easier to stir and turn ingredients as they cook. Stir fry pans are available with several different sized handle lengths that can be selected to match your cooking needs. Stir fry pans are often used to prepare and quickly sear multiple ingredients that go well together including various meats and vegetables mixed with sauces. The stir fry pan is good for cooking food in a small quantity of oil and for retaining the colors and textures of the various ingredients.

Stockpot
Stockpots are a bigger version of sauce pans. Their large volumes, ranging from 2 quarts to over 50 quarts, require handles on either side instead of one long one. Stockpots are most often used for cooking pasta, but are versatile enough to handle almost anything.

Wok
Woks are typically lens-shaped. This allows a small pool of cooking oil to be heated to a high heat using relatively little fuel, while the outer areas of the wok are used to keep food warm after it has been fried in the oil. This pan is typically used only for stir-frying, but they can actually be used for anything from steaming to deep frying. There are two different types of Woks available for use at home. There is the traditional wok which has a rounded bottom and is used over a flame heat source, such as a gas burner. Then there is the flat bottom wok which was designed to use on an electric burner or a ceramic stovetop but can also be used on a gas stove. The wok is excellent for preparing large quantities of food with relatively little time.