Can You Use a Saucepan as a Frying Pan?

For some families, Saturday nights call for a movie marathon.

But binge-watching your favorite television series will never be complete without fried foods and soda on the side.

Potato chips or fries can lighten up your night, especially if they are nicely fried.

When you utilize the right cookware, ingredients, and temperature, expect to eat fried foods with the highest-quality taste.

Can you use a saucepan as a frying pan? Yes, you can. However, saucepans are usually small. If you need to fry more quantities, utilize a frying pan instead.

What Is a Saucepan?

A saucepan is a type of pan that features a deep bottom and long lid or handle. This kind of pan is typically round and is made out of metal.

The purpose of a saucepan is to heat food and reduce sauces. They may come with stainless steel or aluminum materials and some of this cookware has a non-stick coating.

One of the tips that everyone needs to know when buying saucepans is to choose those with a heavier metal gauge, particularly at the base.

These are better because they allow for more distribution of heat. What makes this advantageous?

The even distribution of heat prevents burning and sticking inside the pan.

On the other hand, some saucepans come with a thick thermally conductive aluminum sheet that is laminated into the pan’s base.

This allows for an even distribution of heat but doesn’t prevent the food you cook from burning and sticking.

In the same way, some saucepans also contain a coating of copper material on the base. However, it should be of sufficient thickness to provide the best result.

Although a saucepan is a kind of pan, its high sides allow it to be more useful for heating delicacies that come with high liquid content.

There are also low-sided as well as flare-sided saucepans, which you can use for reducing liquids like sauces.

Choose a Frying Pan

If you need to fry eggs, your favorite ham, or other popular fried foods, a saucepan is not suitable for the job.

Instead, get a high-quality frying pan to get the result you expect. Below are some of the things you need to check off when choosing the best frying pan for your needs.

Knowing these things can help you avoid wasting your money.

Types of Frying Pan Materials

Frying pans are available in stainless steel, aluminum, aluminum-clad stainless steel, carbon steel, hardcoat/anodized aluminum, copper/stainless steel, and much more.

All of these materials have excellent performance in terms of heat conduction.

On the other hand, only the aluminum-clad stainless steel, stainless steel/aluminum, and carbon steel are induction ready.

Aside from that, those who want to get a scratch-and-dent-resistant frying pan should choose the hardcoat/anodized aluminum.

Those who don’t want their pans to get rusty should choose aluminum.

Steel/aluminum is the only dishwasher safe version in this category. So, if you want to get the most out of your money, before making a decision, consider the materials that are used to make a particular frying pan.

Thickness of the Frying Pan

It is always important to consider the thickness of the frying pans that you are planning to invest in.

This is something beyond the construction of the materials, yet it is a critical step to choosing the best frying pan.

But how do you determine the thickness of a product? Cookware thickness is usually measured in either mils or gauge, but the manner in which you read both numbers is very significant.

In fact, -1 mil is equal to 1/1000, so the higher the mil, the thicker the metal.

Gauge, on the other hand, works in the opposite way. If the gauge is higher, the metal is thinner.

Most cookware available today has about 10 gauge thicker construction and 22 gauge thinner construction.

If you are trying to select the best frying pan, usually, thicker metal is the best. However, this will depend on the purpose it will serve.

Different thicknesses of frying pans will always have advantages and disadvantages.

Induction-Ready Frying Pan

Have you ever heard of these? Induction-ready pans are made of magnetic materials like iron and steel.

Unlike other cooking methods, in which the cooktop produces heat that will pass to your pan through contact, induction cooking utilizes magnetic energy to provide the same result.

The difference is, it delivers direct heat into the cookware and not to the cooktop. The result is lowered energy consumption, faster heating, and safer cooking.

Non-Stick & Natural Finish Frying Pan

There are two kinds of frying pans that you can choose from. First, the non-stick pan provides convenient frying that doesn’t leave a mess.

Unlike the natural finish, this kind of pan will allow you to lessen the use of oil, which makes your food healthier.

Non-stick pans also come in varying coats. Some non-stick pan coats include regular non-stick, PowerCoat 2, Excalibur, steel coat x3, and ceramiguard II.

The pans included in the “good” category are the Excalibur and the regular non-stick frying pan.

In the “better” category are the steel coat x3 and PowerCoat 2. It is said that the best non-stick coat is ceramiguard II.

A natural finish frying pan, on the other hand, is ideal for preparing your menu offerings.

The design of this pan is good for searing meat and it at an economical price.

Conclusion

If you want to fry foods, it is possible to use a saucepan but you’ll never get the same quality of cooking that frying pans provide.

Saucepans and frying pans are in the same category, yet they serve different purposes because of their design.

Aside from that, this cookware comes with features that are intended to produce better results when used appropriately.

You can check out the good qualities to search for in a frying pan above.