Pots & Pans

Typically used for searing meat, making pancakes, and cooking vegetables, frying pans and skillets are versatile kitchen essentials. Some frying pans are specially crafted for specific tasks such as baking and candy making. To help you match the decor of your kitchen, frying pan handles and exteriors can be beautifully coated in a wide variety of colors.

Saute pans are frying pans designed with rounded edges that allow you to flip food in the pan without stirring. Sautes can do almost anything a frying pan can do, but they may also be used to prepare small batches of sauce. Saute pans are usually sold with lids to retain moisture when heating liquids and cooking moist foods.

Like saute pans, saucepans are almost always sold with lids. They are generally deeper than sautes but not as wide. As the name suggests, they are most often used for preparing sauce, but they can also be used to make soup, boil eggs, deep fry food, and cook pasta.

Typically used to steam vegetables, steamers can also cook rice, steam proteins, and hard boil eggs as well. A steamer is usually constructed with a deep pot beneath a lidded basket. When water is boiled in the pot, steam rises and cooks food in the basket.

Perfect for cooking large amounts of sauce, soup, gravy, stock, boiled potatoes, and pasta, stockpots are usually the largest pots found in home kitchens. They almost always come with a lid for slow-cooking, and some even feature handy spigots so contents can be poured without tipping the pot.

One of the most common materials for cookware, stainless steel is highly durable and versatile. Stainless-steel cookware can be used in an oven as well as on a stove if the handles can withstand extreme heat. Additionally, stainless steel is nonreactive so it won’t stain or discolor when you cook acidic things such as tomatoes or wine.

Lightweight and durable, anodized-aluminum pots and pans are great options for any home kitchen. Aluminum is an excellent heat conductor, meaning that aluminum pots and pans distribute heat equally across the surface of the pan to cook food evenly.

Highly durable cast-iron cookware, if properly cared for and seasoned, can last you a lifetime. However, cast iron is susceptible to rusting, so it is important to make sure your cast iron pan is completely dry after every use and rinse. Cast iron is particularly good at searing and baking, and it can be used in ovens and on stovetops alike.

Though it can be very expensive, copper cookware is an excellent option for anyone who wants to take their cooking skills to the next level. It is used for delicate cooking that requires careful precision because it heats evenly and conducts better than steel, aluminum, and cast iron. This responsiveness makes copper cookware a premium option for making candy.