Best Frying Pans of 2025
Most home cooks rely on more than one frying pan, from nonstick to cast iron. Which should you add to your repertoire?
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There’s a reason the frying pan is the go-to piece of equipment for so many cooks: its versatility. You can use it to make everything from a grilled cheese sandwich to a gourmet sauce.
Consumer Reports rates six types of frying pans: nonstick, uncoated cast iron, coated cast iron, stainless steel, carbon steel, and copper. With our experience testing, we can help you choose the right frying pan.
“We test all frying pans for cooking evenness, but many of the other tests are type-specific,” says Breann Chai, who oversees our frying pan testing. “For example, we test cast-iron and carbon steel pans for cornbread baking and searing steaks, since they’re suited to high temperatures. Nonstick pans, on the other hand, are tested for their food-release performance and the durability of the nonstick coating.”
Nonstick frying pans are the most popular type by far, but cast-iron skillets are making a comeback. If you’re stocking your kitchen from scratch, you can’t go wrong with either one. As you raise your cooking game, you may want to branch out into stainless, carbon steel, or copper—but don’t feel like you have to own every type just to make a good meal.
To find out which frying pan is best for you, check our guide to the best frying pans for your cooking style. Below are the best frying pans of each type, based on their Overall Score in our tests. For more information and choices, see our cookware buying guide and complete frying pan ratings.
Best Nonstick Frying Pan
This nonstick pan from Caraway, a popular internet brand, is impressive. In our tests, fried eggs easily slid out one after another, and the surface heats evenly, so there are no hot spots. The handle is supersturdy, so it won’t get wobbly, and it stays cool to the touch as you cook. The nonstick coating is ceramic and stood up well in our durability test, in which we abrade the surface with steel wool (something you shouldn’t do at home!).
See our full ratings for nonstick frying pans for other models.
Best Uncoated Cast-Iron Frying Pan
You can’t beat the price of Calphalon’s Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron frying pan, and only one other pan we tested (the pricey and now-discontinued Butter Pat Joan) beat its performance. This pan got excellent marks in searing and very good marks in our baking, cooking evenness, and cleanup tests. At 6.5 pounds, it’s a bit lighter than other pans in our tests, and it comes with a 10-year warranty.
See our full ratings for uncoated cast-iron frying pans for other models.
Best Coated Cast-Iron Frying Pan
The Tramontina Enameled Cast-Iron Series 1000 excelled at searing a New York strip steak in our tests. We also baked cornbread in it, and this pan earned a very good rating for heating evenness. We found it very easy to clean, too—even after cooking eggs, cornbread, and steak.
See our full ratings for coated cast-iron frying pans for other models.
Best Stainless Steel Frying Pan
The nifty Oxo Stainless Steel Mira Series stainless steel pan would be a worthy addition to anyone’s kitchen. Cooking evenness is superb, so you won’t get a pancake that’s cooked in one place and underdone in another. The handles are comfortable and supersturdy, and don’t get too hot as you cook. It’s pretty easy to clean, too. And like all stainless pans, you can use it on an induction cooktop.
See our full ratings for stainless steel frying pans for other models.
Best Carbon Steel Frying Pan
Like cast-iron frying pans, carbon steel frying pans—like the Matfer Bourgeat Black Carbon Steel—can take high heat and are great for searing. They need to be seasoned, but they’re lighter than cast iron and easier to lift when shifting from stovetop to oven, which is a great use for this pan. The Matfer Bourgeat Black Carbon Steel is very good for baking, cooking evenness, and ease of cleaning, though its handle isn’t as sturdy as we’d like.
See our full ratings for carbon steel frying pans for other models.
Best Copper Frying Pan
The Brooklyn Copper Sauté pan is made by a small company in Brooklyn, N.Y. Each piece is handmade, which accounts for its high price and limited availability. (The cookware is sold only on the company website, and pieces sell out quickly during the company’s periodic "selling windows.") The 9.5-inch pan is the only one in our copper skillet tests to earn an excellent rating for cooking evenness. Sautéing performance was good, not great. The handle is sturdy and stays cool to the touch when the pan is in use.
See our full ratings for copper frying pans for other models.
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