It’s fair to say that buying anything in the UK now is a mission. Most reviews seem like nonsense, marketing, or spam – and even companies like the BBC are taking revenue from selling products. See “BBC Good Food” recommending Tower pans.
With that in mind, let me talk you through my requirements for a pan.
Firstly, if I’m buying something like a pan, I don’t really care about the brand, I care about how long it will last. I also have a gas hob currently but may get induction in the future.
So what is the best material for a pan? There’s a very large trend for cast iron right now, but cast iron pans are heavy, can’t go in the dishwasher, need seasoning, and require careful maintenance. They’re also very poor at conducting heat. You might think “What? But metal is a good conductor of heat!” Not all metals are created equal:
| Metal | Thermal Conductivity (W/m·K) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Copper | 385-401 | Highest conductivity; excellent heat distribution but expensive and reactive |
| Aluminum | 205-237 | Very good conductivity; lightweight and affordable; often anodized or clad |
| Cast Iron | 46-52 | Low conductivity but high heat retention; slow to heat, slow to cool |
| Carbon Steel | 43-54 | Similar to cast iron; popular for woks and skillets |
| Stainless Steel | 15-25 | Poor conductor; often used in clad cookware with aluminum or copper core |
So logically, copper is the way to go. However, copper is not magnetic and doesn’t work on induction hobs. It’s also expensive and doesn’t like dishwashers. So that’s out. Aluminium also doesn’t like dishwashers – it’s the reason I’m replacing my current set of pans, as the aluminium base is dissolving.
Cast iron rusts and doesn’t go in the dishwasher; the same applies to carbon steel. So what’s left? Just stainless steel, but that has terrible heat conduction worse than cast iron.
Why does heat conduction matter so much? Heat conduction matter more for searing and frying rather than for cooking sauces, where you’re just maintaining a gentle simmer. The issue with cast iron is that it can get hot and holds that heat well due to its mass. However, when food is placed in the pan, heat is pulled out of the metal and into the food. The pan’s surface temperature drops and if the pan can’t conduct and transfer heat burner rapidly enough to replenish what’s being lost, it creates a temperature dip. So instead of a nice caramelised crust, the food steams in its own moisture. A pan with better heat conduction can recover more quickly, keeping the cooking surface consistently hot.
You might ask why carbon steel woks are good for stir fries if carbon steel has poor thermal conductivity? Essentially, it is because the metal is very thing and the heat doesn’t have to move though much metal to reach food. Woks don’t have flat bases and are unlikely to warp like saucepans and frying pans. But they are not what I am looking for.
So I am down to stainless steel which has terrible heat conductivity; however, there are a few ways to get around it.
- Stamped base: The base of the pan is made of aluminium and stamped onto the stainless steel structure.
- Encapsulated base: An aluminium disc is encased in stainless steel and stamped onto the structure.
- Fully clad: The entire pan is made of layers of aluminium sandwiched between stainless steel.
The fully clad option is widely regarded as the best choice, as it allows the pan to be dishwasher safe while taking advantage of the heat conduction properties of aluminium.
This brings us to tri-ply. Tri-ply is this stainless steel and aluminium sandwich. There is also 5-ply, but that is in reality just tri-ply trying to sound fancier.
So I just get any tri-ply pan and I’m all good? That’s what I had hoped, but it turns out there’s more to this than meets the eye.
Thickness matters. We have come across cheap pans that have warped. This is a classic example of what happens with thin materials: one side expands or contracts faster than the other, which creates a force. That force creates stress in the material, and if sufficient, it can plastically deform the metal so it bends.
Unfortunately, most manufacturers don’t mention how thick their pans are. This is because they aren’t thick, they’re poorly made, and there’s a good chance they might warp.
There are other things to consider too. For example, is the lip of the pan encapsulated? This essentially means: are the outer stainless steel layers fully rolled over the aluminium core? If they aren’t, this can apparently cause delamination over time and the pan can start to break apart. My mum had her very expensive Le Creuset pan delaminate like this. Fortunately, she had bought it for 50p at a jumble sale, but she is still outraged.
Another consideration is whether the pan handles are welded or riveted. I initially read online that welded is better because dirt can get trapped in the rivets. However, I then looked at my current pans and saw that there was no dirt in the rivets. This stopped mattering to me.
After accounting for all of these factors, I set about doing some research.
I initially looked at Stellar Eclipse pans but couldn’t get my head around their pricing. I couldn’t figure out whether they were pretending to be good value by being perpetually “half price” or whether they were actually on offer.
I also looked at various pans in TK Maxx but came to the conclusion that they didn’t have the thickness I was looking for. If I was paying for new pans, I wanted them to last, and I would be willing to pay extra to ensure that.
I also looked at the BBC Good Food Tower Tri-ply pans but realised these were essentially an advertisement.
John Lewis Thermacore was another option, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend £175 on their 3-piece set. They do look very good, however. I visited the store to look at them and the pan they had in stock, a 28cm casserole, just didn’t seem robust enough for the money. Though I do like the brushed stainless steel finish as it doesn’t show scratches as much as polished stainless.
I also looked at Proware but they didn’t list the tri-ply thickness.
That covers most options for tri-ply pans in the UK, so I began I looped back around to ProCook again with the Elite tri-ply and ProCook Professional range, which have an encapsulated base. I had considered ProCook previously and had used my friend’s ProCook pans, which are good. However, I wasn’t sure which pan to pick as I didn’t trust the reviews, there is something about having many hundreds of thousands of Trustpilot reviews that doesn’t sit right with me. I previously found a company faking reviews, and have had Emma mattress request my review was deleted for essentially calling their product rubbish. They do this by requesting a response to the review, if you don’t respond within a few days it is deleted.
My fears were assuaged when I found this Reddit post:
Cookware Buying and Explanation Guide
It’s always quite satisfying to find a bunch of people who are far more nerdy than you about a certain subject and have thought about it for years. These people have thought deeply about what pans to buy. They’re mostly American, but ProCook was on the list under “Recommended High Tier Stainless Steel” for the reason that it is 3mm tri-ply: thick and not super expensive (obviously much more than a normal cheap stainless steel pan, mind you).
So I bought this set of pans. They are £195 at the time of writing; however, my friend sent me a 15% discount link which brought them down to £165. This is still expensive but more reasonable. If you want a discount on these pans, you can use my code: ProCook referral link.
I bought that set because I wanted a reasonably sized stainless steel frying pan and because I wanted those three saucepan sizes. There is also the Procook Elite Signature which looks nicer and is brushed stainless steel instead of polished, but the are slightly squatter and I wanted the extra volume of the Procook Elite pans.
There are other ProCook sets which include stockpots and casserole dishes; however, these have narrow 20cm stockpots, which in my opinion is too small. A 20cm saucepan, yes. A 20cm casserole, no.
I might buy a chefs pan at some point, but haven’t decided which one to get yet.
A tip when buying pans: pull out your measuring tape and measure your own hands against what you are buying. I did this and it made me realise I had underestimated the pan sizes I needed. Also look at the dimensions on the web pages. Frying pans listed as 28cm might be 28cm at the top but only 24cm at the base, which is the area you actually cook on.
I bought the ProCook Elite Tri-ply cookware set because I have a gas hob. If you have an induction hob, you should probably consider the cheaper Procook Professional range instead. The reason is that they are cheaper, but also the base is very thick aluminium encapsulated in stainless steel. Induction hobs work by creating an oscillating magnetic field which induces an electric current in the metal. If the metal is very conductive, it doesn’t create much heat as there is very little resistance. The pan needs to be a relatively poor conductor of electricity, and therefore have high resistance, for the energy to be converted into heat. The thick encapsulated base also reduces vibrations and noise on induction hobs, which can be annoying. Heat won’t travel quite so well up the sides of the pans as with fully clad, but for the price they are more than adequate.
I haven’t done a full test of these pans yet. This is just a write-up of why I chose them. I’m going to do a proper test shortly.
This whole buying process has left me rather frustrated. There aren’t particularly good resources online, and most reviews seem absurd. If you read half the things on Reddit, the advice often boils down to “why don’t you just buy the most expensive pan available?” as if budget simply isn’t a consideration. There’s a strange snobbery around cookware where anything less than professional-grade is dismissed, which isn’t helpful for someone just trying to make a sensible purchase.
At the other end of the spectrum, mainstream reviews from publications and influencers are often thinly veiled advertisements. It’s difficult to find honest, practical guidance that sits somewhere in the middle: acknowledging that most people have a budget, while still caring about quality and longevity.
I hope this write-up is useful if you’re in a similar position. I’ve tried to explain my reasoning rather. The key takeaways are: look for tri-ply at least 3mm thick if you are using a gas hob or thick encapsulated bases if using induction. Though triply will still work well on induction.
Extra resources: