The Best Stainless-Steel Skillets

Our longtime favorite skillet still beats all newcomers, with a clean design that includes no unnecessary frills. We appreciate the wide cooking surface and low, flaring sides that encourage excellent browning and evaporation; a steel handle that stays cool on the stovetop and won't rotate in your hand; and an overall weight and balance that hit the sweet spot between sturdiness and maneuverable lightness. It resisted warping and withstood thermal shock and outright abuse with nary a scratch or dent. Its three layers of cladding, with aluminum sandwiched by steel, make for deep, uniform browning.

The smaller version of our longtime favorite skillet performed well in every application, whether we were searing steak, pan-roasting broccoli, or browning the top of a shepherd’s pie under the broiler. It cleaned up well, didn’t warp, and passed abuse testing with flying colors. For smaller portions or households, this skillet does the job. It is induction compatible.

Throughout testing, the small version of our winning 10- and 12-inch stainless-steel skillets proved itself to be an excellent little pan, indispensable for a range of small-volume tasks. Its fully clad construction was notably sturdy, surviving our durability tests with ease. It cooked food evenly and seared it deeply. Its handle stayed cool and its low, flared walls encouraged browning and evaporation. It is induction compatible.

Made by the same manufacturer as our winner, this skillet has a slightly longer, rounded handle; a larger cooking area; and a helper handle. Performance-wise, it’s on par with our winner, searing and roasting foods beautifully. The rounded handle was easy to grip, and the helper handle was useful when transporting the skillet. But here come the caveats: The extra features and larger cooking area make it slightly heavier and harder to maneuver than our winner. It’s also slightly pricier and doesn’t come with a lid—an accessory we find especially useful for steaming foods.

This is a five-layer version of our longtime favorite skillet, sporting a central layer of stainless steel sandwiched by two layers of aluminum and two more of steel. While it shares the favorable shape of our winner, it's a bit heavier and smaller and performs a little more sluggishly, transferring heat more slowly, which stands to reason since it's thicker and contains more steel. For the price and with no lid, we don't see the point of choosing this model over the d3 pan. Note: All-Clad sells a flat universal lid in its TK (Thomas Keller) line; you need the 15-inch lid for this 12-inch pan.

The lustrous gunmetal finish of this pricey three-layer skillet is truly lovely, and the pan browns evenly and deeply, but it was harder to monitor the color of fond against the darker finish. Low, flaring sides helped evaporate steam and reduce pan sauces. While this pan is a bit heavier than our winner, we could still fairly comfortably lift it and scoop out food. Some testers objected to the offset angle of its handle, which didn't feel like a natural extension of their arms. The shiny finish became marred every time we cooked, but an included bottle of proprietary liquid cleanser restored it. We didn't notice any particular benefits to the manufacturer's claims that “thousands of dense nano layers of molecular titanium alloys are bonded directly to stainless steel to make it 4 times harder than typical stainless.” It did dent slightly more than higher-ranked pans in our abuse testing, though it did not warp.

This three-layer pan mostly browned well, due to its roomy cooking surface and low, flaring sides. We liked that it's light and maneuverable, but we found its handle a little too round and slippery, particularly after grease had splattered it while we were searing chicken. It sometimes cooked a bit unevenly, and its shiny surface developed black spots that were difficult to remove. It also dented a bit more than higher-ranked pans and warped slightly during abuse testing.

This very roomy, sturdy five-layer pan browned well and evenly, despite higher sides than we'd prefer, and its pale silver surface cleaned up easily, especially since the interior has no rivets to trap food. It survived abuse testing with noticeable small dents. But at 4.2 pounds when empty, even with a helper handle, it's very heavy and awkward to maneuver or hold up while scooping food.

This five-layer pan is very roomy, which helped it brown food well, though sometimes less deeply than we'd prefer. It was heavy and had higher sides than was ideal. Its skinny, slightly too-short handle became hot on the stovetop and made the pan feel off-balance. It survived abuse testing with no warping and very minor dents.

This pan’s moderate weight, good balance, well-shaped handle, and low, flaring sides made it easy to use, and it had just enough surface area to cook a whole chicken or four strip steaks without crowding. It created a deep sear on both sides of our steaks, browned onions and chicken evenly, and left flavorful fond for pan sauce. Its simple lines were easy to swipe around with a spatula and to scrub clean, and it came with a proprietary cleansing powder, similar to Bar Keeper’s Friend, which helped scrub away stains. Its flaw? Even when new, its bottom doesn’t sit flat, and it warped more during testing. This is barely detectable on a gas stove, but for induction or glass-topped electric stoves, it’s not the best choice.

This sturdy pan barely dented and didn’t warp, making it a good choice, especially if you own a flat-topped stove. Its cooking surface was the narrowest in the lineup, so four steaks or eight pieces of chicken were crowded and didn’t cook as evenly. We like its low, flaring sides to promote evaporation during browning, but for a pan weighing just over 3 pounds, it felt surprisingly heavy and a bit awkward.

Despite a generous cooking surface, which made for very good browning and plenty of space to move food around, this pan warped early in routine cooking and wobbled noticeably, even on a gas stove. It felt a bit heavy and harder to hold up with one hand, though the handle was easy to grip. We liked that it came with a lid.

We liked this skillet’s wide cooking surface; low, flaring sides; and manageable weight, though some testers felt that the handle was too skinny. Steaks browned very nicely on the first side but less well on the second, as the pan seemed to lose heat. It performed better with chicken and vegetables. Its biggest flaw? The pan warped badly and dented more than others in abuse testing.

We liked the cooking surface and flaring sides of this skillet, and it was well balanced. Browning was slightly uneven but acceptable. Testers complained that the handle felt a bit shorter than preferred and seemed “fat” and a bit slippery. Though the pan didn’t warp, it became moderately dented and the handle loosened during abuse testing. The shiny steel surface took extra effort to scrub clean, even with Bar Keeper’s Friend.

We appreciated this five-layer pan's roomy cooking surface, but its browning was sometimes uneven, and overall it felt very big, heavy, and uncomfortable to handle. The sides were higher and straighter than we'd prefer on a skillet; it was built more like a sauté pan, the type of pan we'd use for braising. The pan dented during abuse testing.

We liked the broad cooking surface of this sturdy pan, which didn’t warp, though it dented and the handle loosened during abuse testing. The pan itself felt heavy, and the bulky, “bubble-shaped” handle splayed out our hands, making it more difficult to grip, especially once it was splattered with grease. Rounded, tall sides made the pan feel like a bowl or wok and discouraged evaporation. The second sides of our steaks weren’t as well browned.

While we appreciated the included lid and wide cooking surface on this pan, its walls were high and trapped steam, contributing to uneven browning on our steaks: The second side came out patchy and gray. The handle felt slippery, and the pan’s weight hampered easy maneuverability. Its surface stained and took some real elbow grease to scrub clean; worse, the pan warped during routine cooking. After abuse testing, the handle was wiggly and the pan was badly dented.

This pan felt off balance, seeming heavy and awkward to maneuver; its slippery handle lacked a secure grip. Browning was sometimes uneven: Our steaks had only one well-browned side. The higher, rounded pan sides made the cooking surface feel cramped and more like a bowl than a skillet. The pan warped before abuse testing, and afterward it was more dented than most. We did like that it came with a lid, since the pan is an irregular size.