How to make a Stainless Steel Pan NONSTICK
Ever since we started sharing our stainless steel pan journey, we’ve received so many DMs on Instagram about it. “How to make it non-stick?” is the most asked question, alongside general usage and cleaning questions. We’ll be covering everything you need to know in this post!
Why should you use a stainless steel pan?
Before I jump into the how-tos, I think knowing the “why” is more important.
Stainless steel pans/cookware are one of the longest lasting cookware you can keep in the kitchen. It’s also much safer for our well-being as compared to cookware with coating. And yes, the ever-popular ceramic cookware is also actually coated.
For your eggs and food to slide gracefully, there has to be a coating. If you use such cookware often, you’ll start to feel the surface deteriorating overtime. It’s always going to feel amazing in the first few cooks, and then you start to experience gentle sticking.
You’d also notice that brands tend to mention the same things about their products:
Do not use on high heat
Handwashing recommended
Do not use cooking utensils that will scratch the cookware
You don’t have to worry about any of the above with stainless steel. Even if you don’t cook often, knowing that you may be ingesting non-stick coating should be enough to get you to consider keeping stainless steel in your kitchen. Besides that, you most likely only have to buy it once, so it’s financially-wiser in the long run.
It’s actually easier than you think
I need to mention that you don’t have to feel bad about using nonstick cookware. I’ve been an avid user of nonstick cookware for years! I still use it sometimes, especially when I am counting on 100% success when I’m cooking for guests.
But the benefits of using a stainless steel pan are clear, so let’s keep practicing!
Like most humans, my first few attempts at using stainless steel were an utter failure. We all start somewhere and I know how demoralising it feels! Just know it is temporary and all part of the learning process!
How to make a stainless steel pan NONSTICK?
We hear that the pan needs to be hot enough but no one ever shares what is “hot enough” right? So as amateurs, we crank up the heat - “this should heat it up till its hot enough!”
Speaking from my failures, if you see your oil smoke up immediately after adding it to the pan, or your minced garlic and onions becoming burnt in a matter of seconds, you’ve cranked up the heat on your pan way too high.
So here are my tips (cooking over easy eggs as an example):
Heat up an empty pan on medium heat. Take out your eggs to let them rise in temperature if they are in the fridge.
Let it go for several minutes, you can do some food prep in the mean time. Personally, letting mine heat up for 7-8 mins is perfect, but only use this as an indicator on your stove or hob. Unfortunately, this is something I can’t 100% share accurately as heat level 6 on my hob is not the same heat intensity as yours.
Then add a good amount of oil. You want it to evenly coat the entire surface of the pan. If you’re perceptive, oil is hot enough and ready for cooking when you swirl it slowly in the pan and you see dune-like lines. At this point, it shouldn’t really be smoking, at least not in my experience.
The time between having oil in the pan and cracking your eggs should be less than 1 minute. During this time, if your oil starts to smoke up heavily, you will know to lower the heat on your pan in Step 1 slightly, or to shorten the duration of pre-heating next time.
For sunny side up or over easy eggs, do not touch the eggs in the pan until you see a good crust forming. When food is cooked sufficiently, it naturally releases itself from the pan.
I’ll also highly recommend using a flat and wide spatula when it comes to eggs, something like a fish spatula.
Additional tips:
My guidelines are based on a 28cm pan, if you have a smaller or larger pan, you will most likely have to adjust the heat setting and timing appropriate to the size.
I rarely change the heat setting throughout my cooking, unless I’m cooking a large amount of protein fresh out of the fridge. When cold food touches the pan, the temperature drops slightly so you can increase the heat to offset it. But meats are also pretty forgiving in stainless steel pans, unlike eggs. I stick to the same heat setting from start to finish for eggs.
The water drop test is often used to gauge if the stainless steel has become sufficiently hot for cooking. I left it out because I’ve found more success doing minor tweaks to the heat setting & duration than doing this test. I also feel it’s not a long-term method I want to rely on. Also to some extent, there can be discrepancies when it comes to deciphering if your pan has passed the test.
Cleaning & Maintaining
Unlike other cookware, you can scrub a stainless steel pan with a steel wool if it has stains. We personally use a steel cloth at home and highly recommend it as opposed to steel wool.
I’ve also found adding water and boiling the pan for a few minutes to be helpful in lifting all the food bits that are stuck to the pan. I use a silicon spatula to gently scrape after the boiling and its always clean as can be for my next cook (we only use one pan for every meal in a day)!
We wash our pan in the dishwasher too, and no aftercare is required.
Stainless steel pans are actually very fuss-free, there are no special rules when it comes to cleaning & maintenance!
In the rare event none of the above works for you, you might want to try this non-toxic kitchen cleaning paste that has never failed us: