With the successor of a sauté pan where everything sticks or the handle is loose, more matters than just the coating. What goes into your sauce also counts. Furthermore, according to our pan expert, there should always be a lid included.

Does a sauté pan without coating last longer, even with tomato sauce?

After a sauté pan where the coating is worn out, a pan without coating seems like the obvious choice. But in a sauté pan, you also make the sauce, and that’s where you see the difference between the types of pans.

A pan with a non-stick coating, ceramic or standard, is mainly convenient: your food slides right out. After years, that coating wears off, and you cannot replace it separately. Stainless Steel without coating is robust, although it requires patience when heating up, and nothing wears off. If tomato or wine goes into the sauce, neither has a baked-on layer that can come off.

Uncoated sheet steel is good for searing meat quickly. Nothing wears off there either, but you maintain the baked-on layer yourself. With tomato or wine in the sauce, that layer can come off in places, and then you see bare steel again.

With acidic sauces, a pan with coating or made of stainless steel requires less work than sheet steel.

Which sauté pan do you cook with most comfortably?

Do you want to get rid of the coating and often make sauce?

The Beka Sauté Pan Cicla ø 28 cm is made of stainless steel, without non-stick coating, and has two side handles instead of a long handle. It comes with a glass lid and is dishwasher safe. You can use it for a one-pot dish in the oven up to 200 °C.

Beka Sauté Pan Cicla ø 28 cm

Do you prefer to stick with a non-stick coating?

In addition to a long handle, the Sola Sauté Pan Ceramic Deluxe ø 28 cm has an extra handle, and it comes with a lid. It has a PFAS-free ceramic coating and is dishwasher safe.

Sola Sauté Pan Ceramic Deluxe ø 28 cm

Do you sear your meat first and don’t mind a bit of work?

In sheet steel, you can quickly brown meat, and then the sauce goes in. The De Buyer Sauté Pan Mineral B Element ø 28 cm comes with a protective layer of beeswax, which you remove before seasoning the pan for the first time. With the Cicla, you skip those two steps. This De Buyer does not come with a lid and is not dishwasher safe.

Are you looking for a smaller, lighter sauté pan?

Weighing 1.5 kilos, the De Buyer Sauté Pan Ceranoa ø 28 cm is about half as heavy as the sheet steel pan above. The coating is ceramic, without PFAS. Like the Mineral B Element, it does not come with a lid and is not dishwasher safe.

De Buyer Sauté Pan / Sauteuse Ceranoa - ø 28cm

How many litres does it hold, and which pans come with a lid?

For the same size of 28 cm, the Mineral B Element has a capacity of 4 litres and the Cicla 5.1 litres. Almost every pan here has such a litre value in its name or features, and that says more than the diameter.

The largest capacity, 5.5 litres, is found in a 32 cm pan, such as the De Buyer Sauté Pan Mineral B Pro with 2 handles ø 32 cm. The two pans of that size here are made of sheet steel and do not come with a lid. Almost as much capacity, with a lid included, is the Cicla.

De Buyer Sauté Pan Mineral B Pro with 2 handles ø 32 cm

A sauté pan with a handle on each side resembles what some call a shallow casserole. For a stew that needs to simmer for hours, grab one of the casseroles.

Sola, Beka, and SCANPAN provide their sauté pans here with a lid; De Buyer does not, not even with the ceramic Ceranoa. On a De Buyer of 24 or 28 cm, you can place a glass lid of the same size from our separate pot lids. If you choose Sola, Beka, or SCANPAN in the Brand filter, you will only see sauté pans with a lid.

What changes if you spend more on a sauté pan?

Sorted by price, from cheap to expensive, the offer looks like this:

Under €75: pans with a non-stick coating and a lid included.
€75 to €100: ceramic, stainless steel, and sheet steel side by side, so here you already choose between with and without coating.
€100 to €150: sheet steel up to 32 cm, and ceramic pans of 28 cm that can also go in the oven.
From €150: pans with a standard non-stick coating and a lid, the most expensive made of five layers of stainless steel and aluminium.

Ceramic and uncoated overlap in price here, and even the most expensive pans have a non-stick coating.