Photo credit: Mark Bonica
Cooking on a gas stove is quite different to cooking on an electric stove. Gas stoves heat up much more quickly than its electric counterpart and the heat is not uniformly spread over the cookware being used.
And while technically almost any sort of cookware will work on a gas range, there are certain types which certainly perform much better than others.
In this article we will look at the best cookware for gas stoves and why you should choose these over other popular options.
Article Contents
What Is The Best Cookware For Gas Stoves – The Quick Answer
If you want the detailed answer to this question, then keep reading this article. I do know however that many of you will just want the quick and easy answer without any of the “fluff”.
In our opinion the top three best cookware types of for a gas stove are:
- Copper fully clad by stainless steel
- Aluminium fully clad by stainless steel
- Stainless steel with a copper disk on the bottom
For the purpose of choosing the best cookware set quickly, you can use this comparison table which lists a few of our favorites:
Recommended Cookware For Gas Stove All-Clad 5-Ply 10 Piece Set All-Clad Tri-Ply 10 Piece Set T-fal Copper Bottom 13 Piece Set Emeril Lagasse Copper Core 14 Piece Set Cuisinart Multiclad 12 Piece Set Preview
After more product suggestions? Jump to our detailed answer here.
What Makes a Gas Stove Different?
So why is cooking on a gas range so different to cooking with an electric, or other type of stove top?
Well, there is one main reason that affects how you cook on a gas range:
Gas stoves heat up your cookware much more quickly and unevenly
Firstly think about your classic electric stove: you can turn on the heat and it takes a number of minutes before the element actually gets up to the temperature you have set it to. This in turn gives your means that the heat disperses more evenly across your cookwares surfaces and reduces the risk of having some parts of the pan that are much hotter or colder than other parts.
When you fire up your gas stove, it provides your set heat almost instantly to the bottom of the cookware.
Now if you couple this with the fact that most gas burners apply heat directly to only a very small bottom of surface to be heated, it can lead to problems cooking with some types of cookware. Compare this to the more even (yet not perfect) heating pattern of an electrical stove – cooking with gas stoves on the wrong cookware can be difficult.
So to summarize:
- gas stoves apply instant heat where as electrical stoves take some time to heat up
- gas stoves apply a much more uneven heat than an electrical stove
What We Look For In The Best Pots and Pans For A Gas Stove
This is a fairly straight forward answer, so lets get straight to the main criteria we look for when choosing the best cookware for a gas stove.
Heats Up Quickly
No-one wants to wait around for ages while your cookware comes up to temperature, so the speed at which the pots/pans come up to temperature is looked it as a selection criteria.
Heats Evenly – No Hot Spots
Ever cooked with a pan that heats up unevenly? It’s not fun and makes cooking a good meal very difficult.
This criteria is especially important for gas ranges as their heating pattern is quite condensed, so the cookwares ability to spread the heat across the entire cooking surface as evenly as possible is very important.
Reacts to Heat Changes Quickly
Any experienced cook will be able to tell you that you need to be able to adjust the heat of your cooking surfaces quickly at times. A pan that reacts to temperature changes of the range controls too slowly can result in food that is over or under-cooked.
Gas Range Cookware - Raw Material Comparison
So now we know what we look for when choosing the best cookware for a gas stove, but what materials have match our desired properties best?
Well let’s take a look at some of the most common materials used in cookware – but first a note of caution. Don’t read this section only and immediately go and buy a cookware set. This article is designed to be read as a whole. Some materials we are about to mention also have some serious downfalls, which is why manufacturers often combine materials together to get the best of both worlds.
It should also be pointed out that our analysis of each of the materials listed below is for the plain material only. We will look at cladding, and different disc types in the next section.
Copper
If you look at just criteria I mentioned we look for in the best cookware for gas stoves, then copper wins. Copper heats up quickly, disperses the heat evenly and it reacts quickly to temperature adjustments.
But there is one problem with copper:
Copper is quite reactive when it comes to cooking.
Reactivity is when the cookware material reacts with the food to modify the taste of the food we are cooking, and possibly have adverse health affects on our body.
Ingesting copper regularly or in large amounts can lead to significant health problems such as anemia, and kidney, liver and stomach problems.
But there is still safe ways to use copper when cooking, which we will look at shortly.
Pros
- Heats evenly
- Heats quickly
- Responds quickly to temperature adjustments
Cons
- Expensive
- Heavy
- Scratches and discolors easily
- Reacts with food can result in unacceptable levels of copper ingestion
Aluminium
Next on our list is Aluminium – which also fares quite well when checked against all the criteria for gas range cookware.
But once again unfortunately Aluminium is quite reactive when it comes to cooking. When Aluminium is ingested in large amounts or over a significant period of time it can affect the bones, brain, liver, heart, spleen and muscles.
There are ways to still use aluminum safely in cooking though, so keep reading!
Pros
- Low cost
- Heats up quickly
- Heats up evenly
- Reacts to heat changes quickly
Cons
- Highly reactive
- Can warp under high heat
- Prone to scratching
Cast Iron
Cast iron is next on our list and overall it is not the worst choice – but also not the best.
Cast iron cookware is quite thick and heavy, which makes it difficult to use for some cooks.
It does heat up very evenly across the cooking surface, but also requires quite a lot of heat for an extended period of time to get up to get the cookware up to your desired temperatures. And as you can imagine, this means that once it is hot, it holds that heat for some time – which makes adjusting our cooking temperature of the cooking surface difficult and slow.
Pros
- Low cost (unless enameled)
- Heats up evenly
Cons
- Takes a long time to heat up
- Slow to react to temperature adjustments
- Can crack or fracture if dropped
Carbon Steel
Carbon steel cookware is quite cheap, but has suffers from uneven cooking surface temperatures and is quite slow to heat up.
It also does not hold heat well at all, and while that means it is quite quick to adjust to temperature changes, it also means it can be hard to maintain a higher temperature when needed.
Pros
- Low cost
Cons
- Slow to heat
- Can heat unevenly
Stainless Steel
Believe it or not, stainless steel by itself is probably the worst material to use in cookware – which is why it is almost always used as a cladding over another material (this is how we can use copper and aluminum in cookware).
Stainless steel heats up unevenly, it doesn’t hold heat at all and can take some time to heat up.
On the plus side, it is corrosion resistant, easy to clean and is moderately priced.
Pros
- Corrosion resistant
- Easy to clean
Cons
- Slow to heat
- Can heat unevenly
- Reacts slowly to temperature changes
What Is The Best Cookware For a Gas Stove? - Detailed Answer
How do manufacturers get best thermal properties for gas range cookware as well as being safe to use and easy to maintain? Well they combine different types of materials to give us the best of both worlds.
Theoretically cookware made from copper with a tin/stainless internal lining is best for a gas range, but we dont rate these very highly due to the fact that they are an absolute pain to look after.
Now we will take a look at the most popular compositions of materials for cookware in order of what we think is best.
1. Copper Fully Clad By Stainless Steel
A copper layer enclosed by an inner and outer layer of stainless steel.
Some brands include other metals (such as aluminium) as inner layers as well.
This combination of materials means the cookware is easy to maintain and has good thermal properties for cooking.
Our recommended brands that use stainless steed clad copper are:
- All Clad Copper Core
- Emeril Lagasse copper core
- Calphalon Accucore
2. Aluminium Fully Clad By Stainless Steel
An aluminum layer enclosed by an inner and outer layer of stainless steel.
This combination of materials means the cookware is easy to maintain and has good thermal properties for cooking.
Our recommended brands that use stainless steel clad copper are:
- All Clad Tri-Ply
- Cuisinart Multiclad Pro
- Cooks Standard Multi-Ply
3. Stainless Steel With Copper Disk
Stainless steel cookware with a copper disk on the bottom. Means you get most of the benefits of copper (sometimes encapsulated) on at the base of the pan, without the difficult upkeep.
Not as good as fully clad copper, but if you are on a budget then this is a good option.
Our recommended brands that use stainless steel with a copper disk are:
- T-fal Stainless Steel Copper Bottom
- Revere Copper Bottom Cookware
Frequently Asked Questions
What About Colored Cookware?
Our advice is to stay away from colored cookware when it comes to cooking on a gas stove. This is due to the fact that the paint tends to discolor very easily when exposed to the gas flame resulting in cookware that always looks dirty.
What is the best skillet for a gas stove?
If you want the absolute best then go for the All-Clad 5 ply skillet.
If this is too expensive for your budget then the Emeril Lagasse copper core skillet is also a great option.
References
