Walk into any fine-dining restaurant kitchen and you’ll probably see copper pans hanging like trophies—gleaming, glamorous, and undeniably pricey. It’s easy to assume that better-looking or more expensive cookware automatically means better results in the kitchen. But when it comes to pots and pans, performance depends on a lot more than the material or the price tag.
Let’s start with the basics. All the heat flowing upward from beneath a pan must go somewhere. At first, most of it goes into raising the temperature of the pan. As that occurs, conduction spreads the heat throughout the pan, from hot spots to cool spots.
You might think that eventually the temperature across the bottom of the pan evens out, but it doesn’t because the pan is so much wider than it is thick. So fluctuations in heat from the burner reach the cooking surface before they have time to average out across the pan.
Let’s break down what actually matters when choosing and using cookware—and why your humble steel pan (or even a $20 wok) might be just as good as that $400 showpiece.
It’s Not about the Metal
When it comes to heating food evenly, the metal the pan is made from is the least important factor. Yes, copper heats up fast. Yes, it reacts quickly when you turn the burner up or down. But it doesn’t spread heat evenly across the pan. That might sound like a fatal flaw—but here’s the kicker: no pan does that perfectly. Because pans are much wider than they are thick, there just isn’t enough time or space for the heat to spread uniformly from edge to edge before it hits your food.
What makes a real difference? Thickness. A thicker pan spreads heat more evenly than a thin one, regardless of whether it’s made from copper, steel, or aluminum. The thicker the pan, the more uniform the temperature across its surface. But there’s a trade-off. A thicker pan takes longer to heat up and cool down, so it reacts more slowly to changes in burner temperature.
Still, most of us don’t need or want a 7 cm (nearly 3-inch) thick steel pan (which would weigh a ton anyway). Fortunately, bonding a lightweight, 6 mm / ¼ in plate of inexpensive aluminum to the bottom of the thinnest, cheapest stainless-steel pan produces a pan with nearly the same performance as that of the copper pan.
Burner Size Matters
More importantly than the type of pan is actually the size of the burner. Even the best pan can underperform if it’s sitting on the wrong burner. A tiny gas flame under a wide pan won’t distribute heat evenly, no matter what the pan is made of. Hot spots near the center and cool edges can lead to uneven cooking.
For the best results, match the burner size to the pan size. A burner that’s roughly as wide as the base of the pan ensures more even heating—even in a cheap, thin pan.
So What Matters Most?
It is undeniable that copper heats and cools faster than aluminum, which in turn is more responsive to heat than iron-based metals. But does it really matter if one pan responds twice as fast as another to an adjusted burner? Is this more nimble performance worth a few hundred dollars? We don’t think so. An expensive copper pan doesn’t save you if your burner is underpowered for the amount of food you’re trying to cook. And a cheap steel pan heats more than fast enough if your burner is up to the job.
When it comes to everyday tasks like sweating vegetables or stir-frying, what matters most is how you use the pan, not how much you paid for it. Look no further than the humble wok. Made from thin, inexpensive iron or steel, it still beats high-tech pans in the speed-and-sear department. It’s designed to work fast, get blazing hot, and move food around constantly—exactly what good sautéing is all about.
We also suggest that you have a few pans in a variety of sizes so you can always choose one that is appropriate for the amount of food you want to sauté—large pans for lots of food, smaller pans for individual portions. Cover the surface of the pan evenly with food, and hot spots are then much less likely to develop and scorch the food.
If you love your copper pans, great. They’re beautiful and responsive. But if you’re shopping on a budget or wondering whether a better pan will make you a better cook, remember this:
- Even heating comes from thickness, not the metal itself.
- Burner size plays a huge role in performance.
- Pan shape and size matter more than the material.
- Technique can make up for most pan shortcomings.
The bottom line is that with a properly sized burner (ideally one that is about as wide as the pan itself) any pan, even a cheap and thin one, can be heated fairly evenly.
FURTHER READING
- Safety Tips for Deep-Frying in a Pot—Modernist Cuisine at Home, p. 26
- Six Steps for Deep-Frying Without a Deep Fryer
- Choosing a Sauté Pan—Modernist Cuisine Vol. 2:45
- Searing Sous Vide Steak in a Pan—Modernist Cuisine at Home, p. 193