Top 10 Best frying pans of 2022

The Danish-made Scan Pan CTX (Ceramic Titanium Extreme) has a luxurious, minimalist look. The curved edges make it easy to access from all sides and the surface is scratch-resistant even when metal tools are used. After being exposed to daily use for a long time, it still looks great.

When frying, it takes a while for the Scan Pan CTX to heat up, but once it’s reached the desired temperature, it stays even over the entire pan. The steak and burgers were evenly browned and never burned. The pancakes were also good, even though we had to test fry a few to get the browning just right. There were never problems with things getting stuck in the pan. The fact that the Scan Pan CTX can also be used in the oven up to 260 degrees is a really big plus.

Although this frying pan doesn’t weigh much, it feels sturdy and is very stable on the cooker. The handle is comfortable and the pan is easy to move around. The non-stick coating makes it easy to wash by hand, but the pan can also be washed in the dishwasher without any problems.

The only negative thing about the Scan Pan CTX is the high price. But in terms of good quality, and despite the price, it feels like a really good investment. The frying pan also comes with a 10-year guarantee (if you take care of the pan according to the accompanying instructions).

The Scan Pan CTX soon becomes the frying pan you’ll reach for in the kitchen. It performs very well, while being comfortable and easy to use. All in all, this is a really useful frying pan.

Eva Solo’s frying pan from the Professional series has a unique Slip-Let coating to make both cooking and washing easier. They guarantee that the coating will last for 5 years, and also provide a 25-year guarantee that the frying pan itself stays in shape and does not warp at the bottom.

The handle is made of stainless steel but the shape is not the most comfortable. It is positive that the handle stays cold while cooking, except when cooking on a gas stove or in the oven. The frying pan can withstand all heat sources and can also cook food in the oven up to 260 degrees.

Even temperature

The pan base is very thick, so the heat is retained for an extremely long time, which means that the food will continue to cook for a while after it has been removed from the stove top. This can have both advantages and disadvantages. If you don't want to risk eating overcooked food, you should probably move the food to another container or plate. But for those who are afraid that their food will get cold because the family, once again, hasn't turned up in time for dinner, this pan is perfect.

The temperature in the pan is very even. When we fried pancakes, they were done incredibly quickly, but not burnt.

The fried surface of steaks and meat is really nice. Thanks to the non-stick coating, we could even skip adding fat and the result was still just as good!

Unfortunately, the accompanying user manual does not provide as much practical information as its sibling from the Steel line, but focuses mainly on the construction of the frying pan. The frying pan is dishwasher-safe, but handwashing is recommended for a longer shelf life.

On the other hand, it does give detailed instructions on how to get the pan back to its original state if it has been coated, e.g. after frying eggs. To make the frying pan look new, take detergent (like for your clothes), mix it with water and simmer for 45 minutes. Then you can wash out the pan and rub it in with oil. It may seem like a strange method, but this tip can make the pan last for a long time.

Evatrio Professional is both a really nice looking frying pan and a really good one.

The Jamie Oliver Premium is a user-friendly frying pan – yes, frying pans can be just that – which simultaneously exudes luxury.

A dot in the middle of the pan indicates when it’s hot enough to start frying. The dot is almost invisible when the pan is cold, but clearly visible once the pan has become warm and ready to use.

This is especially useful if you aren’t frying in fat. Because without fat, it can be hard to know if the pan is hot enough.

The Jamie Oliver Premium has a non-stick Teflon coating that works incredibly well. So there’s no need to use any cooking fat unless you prefer the taste of the food that way.

The pan also becomes evenly hot. With other frying pans, we’ve had a few problems frying pancakes during the tests, but with this pan it’s easy.

One big advantage is that the Jamie Oliver Premium frying pan can also be washed in a dishwasher. Hand washing is recommended to maximise the lifetime, but the fact that it’s actually dishwasher safe so you don’t have to worry about it releasing dangerous substances is great for stressed families.

But the pan does have a few flaws. For a start, the frying pan is quite heavy. Not hugely so, but more than you’d probably want. It’s also quite expensive.

In terms of the plus points and the solid build quality, however, the Jamie Oliver Premium is worth its weight in gold. It’s an easy-to-use, easy to clean frying pan that gives an excellent result.

Kockums Jernverk is manufactured by Kockums, the Swedish company, who offer a lifetime guarantee on their carbon steel frying pans provided you have followed the proper care instructions.

Unlike many other carbon steel frying pans, Kockums Jernverk’s pan is factory treated, which means it can be used immediately you’ve bought it. The coating makes it like a non-stick pan and so it doesn’t require much oil for the food to be easy to lift out.

The frying pan is lighter than many cast iron frying pans of the same size, but still heavy at 2.3 kg (28 cm variant). The handle isn’t the most comfortable and tends to get unpleasantly hot after frying for a little while.

The frying pan can be used in the oven, up to 200 degrees, but the weight and the slightly uncomfortable handle make it a bit clumsy to put the pan in and remove it from the oven.

It’s recommended to heat the frying pan slowly and to start at a low temperature and increase gradually so the steel doesn’t warp. This means it takes a while before the frying pan gets hot, but once it does reach the desired temperature, it becomes really hot. And it keeps the heat too. In some cases, you may need to reduce the temperature you normally fry at.

Frying meat or mince in this frying pan works very well. Nothing sticks and the frying surface is good, although in some cases food burns a little due to the frying pan getting hotter than expected.

You can also fry things like pancakes, but the straight high edges of the pan make it a little difficult to get the spatula underneath them. But once you have succeeded in doing that, it’s easy to turn them over and nothing gets stuck.

This frying pan must never be left to soak as it risks rusting quite quickly. The pan is easily washed in hot water and no food residues remain. After the frying pan has been washed, it’s important to make sure that it is properly dried and preferably oiled a little. You can cook acidic liquids in the frying pan, but you may need to season the pan again afterwards.

Overall, carbon steel pans from Kockums Jernverk make really good frying pans and offer a long service life if you look after them correctly. But we’d have liked to have seen a more comfortable handle and one that doesn’t get quite as hot.

Eva Solo's products from their Steel line consist of 90% recycled stainless steel. They have a ceramic coating that withstands temperatures up to 400 degrees. It can be used on all types of cookers, and can also withstand being used in the oven.

The coating in the frying pan is perceived as durable, but it is recommended that you use silicone, plastic, or wood utensils. The non-stick coating means that no frying fat is required.

Slightly uncomfortable handle

The stainless steel handle is slightly uncomfortable when lifting the pan, especially if you have heavy food in it. However, a big plus is that the handle stays cold during frying, with the exception of using it on a gas stove or in an oven.

The pan fries pancakes very well, but you may want to watch the heat a little as it easily gets too hot in the pan. It’s not a problem to get your meat pieces nice either, but the same thing as with the pancakes is that it easily gets a little too hot, so a few small burned edges can occur if you don't watch the food carefully.

The frying pan is dishwasher safe, but handwashing is recommended to extend the life of the pan.

In general, the Evatrio Steel Line Collection is a really good frying pan in most situations, even if you need to watch the heat a little when frying.

The Tefal Ceramic Control is a durable ceramic frying pan. The pan is white and simple in terms of design, with a red Thermo-Spot in the middle that indicates when the pan has become hot enough to use. The Thermo-Spot stands out clearly against the white pan. The ceramic surface is extra resistant to scratches, which means that you can also use metal utensils.

It takes a while for this frying pan to get hot, but once it is hot, it distributes the heat evenly across the entire surface. The temperature doesn’t ever get quite as high as you’d like perhaps, but the meat we fried still browned nicely. With the pancakes, however, it was difficult to get browning we felt happy with. Even when the temperature was turned up on the cooker and the pancakes were fried for a long time, they still remained pale. The only difference was that they got tougher.

This is a frying pan where nothing sticks – everything comes off easily even if you only use a very small amount of fat. The pan is also very easy to wash. Both the inside and the outside have a ceramic coating, which makes it easy to clean. The pan can also be dishwashed, but if you want it to have a long lifetime, hand washing is recommended.

The handle isn’t a good shape for your hand, which makes it a bit uncomfortable to hold. You can put the pan in the oven, but it can’t withstand more than 175 degrees.

The Tefal Ceramic Control is certainly a tough frying pan, but the actual results don’t live up to expectations.

WMF Permadur Premium is a frying pan that does its job, but not much more. The plastic handle feels tidy and ergonomic. It makes the pan feel lighter than its 1.8 kg, but also gives the pan a very plastic feel.

The high edges of the frying pan are certainly good when it comes to the preparation of saucey foods. The edges minimise waste, but they are also a little too perpendicular, so unfortunately food sticks to the edge against the bottom, especially the more saucey food.

Not good for pancakes

Thanks to the non-stick coating, nothing burns to the pan, but it still feels like it’s not far off from happening.

Frying pancakes is catastrophic! Again, this is due to the edges. Despite the fact that the frying surface seems to be good, it is still not possible to fit a spatula underneath. Once successful, the pancake has started to burn.

Steaks and meat hardly have a frying surface. The non-stick coating works exceptionally well and nothing sticks, but to give the meat a chance to get a little more colour, we needed to add more fat and raise the temperature. Unfortunately, this didn't make a big difference.

However, the frying pan should get a plus for being very easy to clean. It can be put in the dishwasher, but handwashing is recommended for a longer shelf life. But all in all, you can have a lot more fun with the money that WMF wants for its Permadur Premium pan.

The De Buyers Lyonnaise Mineral frying pan is an alternative to traditional cast iron pans. The pan is made of carbon steel and, like most cast iron pans, requires some preparation before you can use it.

When you buy the De Buyer's pan, it’s a beautiful silver colour, but after you start using it, it quickly looks burnt at the bottom. This eventually turns into a reddish-brown hue, which is perfectly normal as it oxidises during use. It’s important to remember to be careful with acidic ingredients that the pan doesn’t tolerate and can cause it to rust.

Although we seasoned the De Buyer Lyonnaise Mineral for a long time, the results weren’t very good. The frying pan becomes very hot, very fast – which results in a lot of sticking and burning when the pan was tested for the first time. The second time things were a bit better. Steak browned nicely, but the burgers still stuck. The pancakes developed a good colour, however, and they came off easily with a bit of extra fat.

What reduces our score is the handle. It sticks up far too high, which makes it difficult to grip the pan in a comfortable way. The flat handle is also uncomfortable and fits oddly in the hand and this means the pan is difficult to move around. The difficulty of carrying the pan means it feels much heavier than it actually is.

Just like with cast iron pans, you should avoid using washing-up liquid in this one as well. Because quite a bit of food burned on during the first test, the frying pan was difficult to wash and it took a while to get the burnt stuff off. Even though we dried the frying pan properly afterwards, it still felt greasy and sticky.

In short, it takes a lot of work to use the De Buyer's frying pan. If you don’t mind all that, this is a pan that will surely last a very long time. But for anyone who wants an easy-to-use frying pan, this isn’t a great choice.

Le Creuset's Volcanic is without a doubt the most aesthetically pleasing frying pan in the test. The orange colour really makes it stand out in comparison with other frying pans. If you’re not a fan of orange, there are another 10 colours to choose from.

It takes quite a long time for the frying pan to get hot. Once it’s reached the desired temperature, unfortunately the heat distribution is very uneven. This is especially noticeable at the edges – when we fried steak, the browning was uneven depending on where in the pan we put the steak.

The pancakes also got stuck in the frying pan at first so we needed to add some extra fat. After that, however, it worked really well – the pancakes were surprisingly good and developed a very nice colour.

The wooden handle not only gives the frying pan an exclusive look but it’s also incredibly comfortable to hold. You get a really good grip on the handle and despite the weight, it feels pretty easy to move around. Unfortunately, the frying pan can’t be used in the oven because of the wooden handle, as this can crack in the heat.

Washing is very easy. As this is a cast iron pan, you shouldn’t use washing-up liquid should be avoided. But with really hot water immediately after you’ve finished frying, you can get rid of any burnt residues quite easily.

Given the price of the Le Creuset Volcanic, we’d have liked to see better heat distribution and the pan to heat up faster than it actually does. But it’s impossible to escape the fact that this is a really handsome frying pan.

The Fiskars Brasserie is one of the heaviest frying pans in the test. It’s made of cast iron but the coating is made of porcelain enamel. This coating protects the frying pan against rust and at the same time makes it easier to maintain.

In the test, we experienced major problems with food getting stuck to the frying pan. Despite the fact that we spent time seasoning the pan and were really generous with fat for frying, most of what we tried to fry in the Fiskars Brasserie pan got stuck.

The burgers got stuck and the bottom of them remained in the frying pan when we tried to turn them over. The steak did more or less the same thing when we tried to turn it over. With the pancakes, things weren’t much better. We had to throw away the first ones, as they stuck so much they were ruined.

The heat distribution is also quite uneven, something which becomes clear when you try to fry a steak. The browning is good as long as the steak is in the middle of the pan, but you don’t get the same results at other places in the pan.

The wooden handle is beautiful but not very comfortable for carrying the frying pan. It’s possible to put the pan in the oven, but according to the instructions, you should remove the handle before doing so. This feels really fiddly and the frying pan isn’t really all that flexible if you first want to brown something and then continue cooking it in the oven.

The weight, the difficulty of frying in the pan and the fact that it can only be used in the oven if you first remove the handle make this a frying pan you’d really rather avoid.