13 Mistakes Everyone Makes Cooking In A Pan

Pans are arguably the most fundamental of all cooking tools, and they're one of the first things we encounter when we start spending time in the kitchen. Virtually everyone owns one — so it's kinda amazing how drastically pans can be misused on a daily basis. Mastering the pan technique is essential if you want to make food properly, and yet so often we forget the basics. Then, we wonder why our meals don't turn out the way we want to.

It can be hard to unpick bad habits when it comes to pans, but going back to the ground floor on our technique and usage can help us improve our meals in a big way. From learning how much food to put in our pan at a time, to when a pan needs preheating and when it doesn't, to remembering which utensils work for which pots and pans: Figuring all of these out can be the difference between our dishes being incredible or being ruined. Plus, it's crucial to remember that different pans require different techniques and approaches, and treating two materials in the same way can lead to poor results. Let's get rid of these key mistakes once and for all.

Learning how much food to put in our pans to achieve the best result is a matter of trial and error, but unfortunately, a lot of people never quite learn from their mistakes. Countless people around the world routinely overcrowd their pans, adding too much food to too small of a surface space. They then wonder why their food doesn't brown properly, or ends up waterlogged and soggy, or why it takes too long to cook.

The problem with overcrowding a pan is that when your food releases moisture, it isn't able to escape properly. Instead, that moisture is trapped around your food, generating steam which then turns to water. The water prevents your food from browning, and instead you end up essentially boiling your food.

Instead, you should always aim to give your food a good amount of surface area. Ensure that you're using a big enough pan to allow all of your food to make contact with the bottom of it, and each ingredient space to brown and fry. Be especially careful when you're doubling up on recipes without using a larger pan than you normally would.

Exactly when to add your food to your pan will vary depending on what you're making. Some meals will require a high heat, to generate a quick sear on your food; others will need a low one, to allow your ingredients to gently sizzle and warm through. What most recipes need, though, is immediate heat — and a lot of the time people forget to provide this. Too many people forget to heat up their pan properly before cooking, and then they're upset when their food doesn't brown or cook through sufficiently. The best thing to do is to give yourself an extra minute or two before you start cooking, to check exactly how hot your pan should be before adding food, and then heat your pan accordingly.

Importantly, though, some foods are way better when you start with a cold pan. Foods like scrambled eggs or garlic benefit from a slow increase in heat, to prevent them from burning or becoming too tough. In these situations, avoid throwing them on the heat too quickly, and give them space and time to warm up slowly.

All pans are not created equal, and different types will give your food different results. While not all of us can afford to go out and buy pans made from every available material, it is vital that you're aware of how the pans you do have will affect your food — and how you may be better served by using a different one entirely. For example, most of us have a nonstick pan somewhere in our kitchen, but using them to do certain things like brown vegetables that you're deglazing for a sauce will give you a worse result than other types. Conversely, foods like scrambled eggs do excellently in nonstick pans, but are a nightmare to make in cast iron cookware (unless it's properly seasoned, and even then it's pretty tricky).

It's therefore useful to try to match your food with your pans wherever possible. If you're looking for a catch-all material that suits everyday cooking, stainless steel pans can be a great choice. These pans can combine the searing ability of cast iron with the lightness of nonstick. If your budget stretches to it, it can also be a good investment to grab one quality pan in each different material. If you treat cast iron and stainless steel pans right, they'll last for a while.

Nonstick pans are an ideal choice for no-fuss cooking, and while they can't cook every food to perfection, they can do a fairly good job with most things. However, these pans can be fairly flimsy and temperamental, and the nonstick coating they come with can easily be destroyed. One speedy way to do this is by preheating your nonstick pans. Preheating these pans with nothing in them can cause their nonstick coating to begin to burn away, leaving your fancy equipment virtually redundant. Nonstick coating begins to break down at around 500 degrees Fahrenheit, and leaving them on the stove for a few minutes at medium-high heat can easily get them up to this temperature.

Naturally, though, there will be recipes that call for a preheated pan. So, what do you do in these situations? The best move is to add a little oil to your pan before heating it up. This won't necessarily prevent the breakdown of the nonstick coating, but it will stop the heat from affecting it too intensely, and will help support the nonstick qualities of the pan itself.

Not all pans come ready to use out of the box. Some pans, like those made of ceramic and cast iron, need to be seasoned. Seasoning essentially prepares the pan for cooking, giving it a nonstick coating that ensures that your food doesn't adhere to it. It also allows your pan to last longer: Cast iron pans will rust unless they're properly seasoned, ruining the equipment and any food you cook in it.

Sadly, though, too many people forget to season their pans, and then fret when they start to deteriorate. Furthermore, a lot of folks forget that it's not just cast iron that needs to be seasoned. Certain ceramic pans may require seasoning after a few months of use, as they begin to lose their naturally nonstick coating, leaving food catching on them. Luckily, seasoning a ceramic pan is as simple as seasoning a cast iron one: You just have to apply some oil and heat it for a few minutes. Your ceramic pan should be as good as new.

Cooking with a pan is the perfect opportunity to show off your skills, with flipping and tossing your food just a part of the fun. However, it's important to remember that flipping and tossing are two different things, and trying to do one when you really should be doing the other may lead you to disaster. You should flip larger food that needs to cook on each side, where you should toss smaller pieces of food that need heating and browning from every angle.

This isn't just a distinction we're making for the point of it: the hand movements required for each of these moves are a little different, and doing one when you meant to do the other will lead to disaster. Flipping food, for example, requires a deft shake of the wrist and an upward motion with your pan, whereas tossing food requires a light flicking motion. If you accidentally toss your omelet when you should be flipping it, you may end up scrunching it up at the end of the pan, ruining the whole thing. Don't be scared, too, to find your spatula when you need to flip things. You don't have to be a pro here — you just have to turn the food over.

Most people who have owned a nonstick pan will know how quickly they can deteriorate. What was once a shiny, blemish-free pan with no marks on it can soon become a scarred, ragged sight covered in rips and tears. Unfortunately, all nonstick pans will break down eventually, and cheaper models could lose their stickiness quicker than you think. You can speed up that process enormously, though, by using metal utensils when cooking with your pan. Metal utensils are just too hard, and their sharp edges can quickly rip your nonstick coating — leading to it both breaking down and potentially ending up in your food.

Instead, you should stick to using silicone, wooden, or plastic utensils when cooking with a nonstick pan. Bear in mind that especially hard plastic or angular wooden spatulas can still tear the nonstick coating, so go for options that are as soft and round as possible. Additionally, you should watch how you're treating your nonstick pans when you're not cooking with them. Avoid stacking them below other pans, as their undersides may scratch the nonstick surface.

Pans aren't just for shallow-frying or sautéing food. Certain types can also be used to deep-fry your food, provided that they're deep enough and won't cause any risk of spillage. However, if you're doing this, there's one step you shouldn't be skipping – and yet everyone somehow manages to. When deep-frying food in a pan, you should always be swirling your food slightly when lowering it in with tongs, before you let go of it for good (or until you pull it back out, that is).

Swirling your food in the hot oil helps to set any batter or breading it might have on its outside, which then stops it from sticking to the bottom of your pan. This is particularly important when deep-frying in a pan, as they're generally way shallower than a high-sided pot, meaning that they're more likely to come into contact with the bottom. By swirling, you then don't have to jimmy them off the base, leaving trails of leftover batter everywhere. Bear in mind, though, that you shouldn't swirl too vigorously. Doing this can increase the risk of oil spilling everywhere, which can be very dangerous. A light swirl will do, ensuring that your food doesn't clatter into any other pieces in the pan as you do so.

We love a good searing moment. Pan-searing meat is, in our opinion, the best way to cook it, giving you a beautifully browned exterior without overcooking the inside. However, the art of searing is a tricky one — and it's tricky because our natural tendency is to start poking, prodding, and lifting the meat as soon as it enters the pan, to check how much it's browned on its underside. We then often flip it way more quickly than we should, leaving your food paler than it should be.

So, whatever you do, avoid flipping your meat until it's properly seared. Once your meat is placed in the pan (at a high heat, mind you), you should leave it for three to five minutes before even touching it. Only then can you check its underside. You'll generally find that after this amount of time, the meat will release easily: If your meat isn't ready to be flipped, it'll still be stuck to the bottom of the pan. Trying to flip it at this point may result in your meat ripping and its juices leaking out everywhere. Once you've flipped it, you can then cook it for another few minutes on the other side to brown it up before serving.

It's important to remember that not all pans will suit all stoves, and a rookie error is getting yourself a set that doesn't work with the stovetop you have. This can be a particular problem if you're cooking on an induction stovetop. These flat stovetops require flat-bottomed pans, as the pan needs to create a solid seal with the induction surface to warm up. If you're working with a rounded or curved pan (like a wok), it'll never heat up properly.

This can also be an issue if you're working with an electric stovetop, which again needs flat-bottomed pans to work to its best abilities. Thankfully, if you're working with gas burners, things get much simpler. Gas burners are well-equipped to handle both round and flat pans, so you can buy pretty much any shape you want. Thankfully, if you have an induction or electric top, you're not prohibited from using pans like woks: You just need to find versions that have a flat base.

We reach for pans when we need a flat surface to cook things on. However, that flat surface can sometimes be accompanied by sides that are surprisingly high — and there are some pans out there that are pretty deep. Now, a lot of the time this may not be an issue, but if you're trying to brown or sear items then things can get a little tricky. If you're doing this, you need to be using a shallow pan, as high-sided pans can trap steam and generate condensation on their sides. This leads to your food becoming way more moist, which can then prohibit any browning action from occurring.

On the other hand, there are a fair few situations where you might need a deep pan. If you're braising meat, opting for a higher-sided pan can help contain your liquid more effectively, and stop things from spilling over (you'll likely want a pan with a lid for this, too). If you're deep-frying or even shallow-frying in a lot of hot oil, reach for a deep pan that will prevent any fat from splattering all over you and your countertop.

It feels logical that you should put a small pan on a small burner, and a big pan on a big one — but trust us when we say that a lot of people don't actually do this. "It's a common mistake for people to misuse the different size burners on a gas stove," says chef Shelley Blechar, owner of Elegant Eats, to Business Insider. Instead, they just stick their pans on whichever burner is closest, or the burners that are available on the stovetop.

Well, not thinking about how your pan corresponds to your burner is a surefire way to ruin your food, people. Blechar points out that these different burners are for different pans: The small ones are for your tiniest cookware, and the big ones are for your large skillets. If you stick a small pan on a large burner, you run the risk of heating it way too much. This will burn your food quickly, but it can also deteriorate the pan or make it riskier to work with. On the flip side, using a small burner with a massive pan means that you won't be creating enough heat to properly warm the metal. Your food won't cook properly, and you may end up with inadequate browning or too much moisture generated in the pan itself.

Copper pans aren't the most common type out there, but we gotta say, we love them. They're effortlessly stylish, hugely responsive to temperature changes, and heat evenly across their surface. However, some copper pans can be a little challenging to cook with, and unlined copper pans are unsuited for use with acidic foods. The acidity in ingredients like tomatoes, citrus, or vinegar can leach the copper from the unlined pan into the food itself. This may then result in copper ingestion, which can be dangerous and potentially fatal, according to WebMD.

Instead, you should reserve the use of unlined copper pans for completely non-acidic foods, or else dry foods that have no risk of causing leaching. In our opinion, though, it might be safer to avoid unlined copper pans entirely. Rather than risk it, opt for lined copper pans. Lined copper pans usually have a tin interior, making them safe to use with acidic foods, and pretty much any food you care to toss in them. Don't worry, people: They'll still look pretty in your kitchen. They'll just be way safer.