Stainless steel aluminum-clad pans are unbeatable for their value and reliability. They are supremely durable and have excellent heat distribution and retention. They also cool down more quickly than a cast iron pan which can be unsuitable for more delicate cooking jobs. But, stainless steel pans stick! Most people avoid cooking eggs in them completely. Some people say you can make a stainless steel pan completely nonstick and even be able to cook an egg in one as if it is Teflon coated. Is it possible to get your stainless steel pan to not stick? And, can you make it completely nonstick?
I’ve seen dozens of videos on how you can make a steel pan nonstick. They usually involve some combination of the “Leidenfrost effect” and oil. Explanations as to how this works tend to be fluid. To some, it’s all about the Leidenfrost effect, and to others, it’s about the oil “seasoning” the pan. Sometimes it is a combination of both.
It is possible to cook in a steel pan in a way that your food will not stick. But is it possible to have a steel pan be completely nonstick?
First, let’s state the obvious. When you see somebody cooking in a steel pan in a video and nothing whatsoever sticks to the pan, you have no way of knowing how many tries it took them to achieve this. You don’t know if it worked 100% of the time.
The other thing I’ve noticed is the people making these videos are using very expensive pans that cost over 200 dollars and the pans are brand new. A perfectly smooth new steel pan will stick less than an old and well-used one. All the scratches, pits, and other imperfections on the surface of the steel will cause food to stick. In addition to the new pans, the pans used have perfectly flat bottoms. Not all steel frying pans have perfectly flat bottoms.
Again, to be clear, when I and almost everyone else say “steel pan” we mean a clad aluminum pan. These are pans made out of a layer of aluminum sandwiched between two layers of steel. Trying to cook anything on a 100% stainless steel skillet would not be good as stainless steel alone heats up very unevenly causing hot spots.
The Magical Leidenfrost Effect
The Leidenfrost effect is a phenomenon whereby a drop of water making contact with the hot surface of a pan will instantly form a layer of steam on the bottom of the drop. This layer of steam insulates the water from the heat and causes the water droplets to dance around the pan and even jump off the surface of the pan. At the same time, energy transfer to the water is delayed so it takes a bit longer to evaporate. The same thing can happen if a drop of liquid nitrogen hits your skin. Your skin’s heat will cause it to flash to vapor and this will insulate your skin from the cold (this only works for a tiny drop!)
Before reaching the proper temperature for the Leidenfrost effect to occur, drops of water will evaporate almost instantly. So, even though this will make it seem like the pan is super hot, it’s not quite hot enough for the effect to occur. The full effect occurs when the drops form and keep dancing around for a few seconds rather than forming for one second and evaporating.
This effect is credited for keeping food from sticking. First, the effect is on water, not the proteins or sugars in food. Second, anything added to or wrong with a pan will inhibit the Leidenfrost effect or cause it not to happen. If there is any food in the pan, any imperfections, scratches, etc. the effect will be inhibited. And if there is oil on the pan it will not happen at all.
In one popular video about making a steel pan nonstick, the creator uses an expensive pan that is obviously new. He heats the pan until the Leidenfrost temperature is reached. The proper temperature is usually reported to be somewhere around 390° F and 400° F but for the full effect, you’ll probably need a temperature of 420° F or over. That is a very high temperature that would cause many of the foods we sauté to burn. It’s certainly too high for eggs!
In the video, after he heats the oil and demonstrates the effect with water drops, he adds oil to the pan! He lets the pan cool down and adds some butter. He then cooks some scrambled eggs in the pan. They do not stick. They are being cooked on a heat that is much too high and look completely dried out (although he calls them perfect) but, hey, they didn’t stick.
It’s Not the Leidenfrost Effect
Here’s the problem. The Leidenfrost effect had nothing to do with the eggs not sticking. Spending ten minutes preheating a pan to just the right temperature and then adding oil to the pan completely undermines the whole purpose of the effect. Of course, if he had added the eggs straight into the dry hot pan, they would have stuck horribly!
Not only did the host add oil to the pan but allowed the pan to cool down. So, again, the explanations are fluid. If the Leidenfrost effect is at work, requiring a very hot temperature of at least 390° but perhaps upwards of 400° F, then letting the pan cool back down would cause the pan to be too cool to achieve the effect. In other words, heating the pan up so hot in the first place is a waste of time.
Even those who don’t agree that the Leidenfrost effect will keep eggs from sticking to a stainless steel pan will still say to preheat the pan up to the range of the effect, add the oil, and let the pan cool back down to the proper temperature. None of this makes any sense. If you heat your pan to 350° F and add oil, the oil will reach the proper temperature. Making the pan and the oil initially hotter and then cooling them back down cannot be expected to make a difference.
Pre-Seasoning the Pan
To steer around this contradiction, others say that heating the pan so hot and then adding oil is “pre-seasoning” the pan. Putting the oil into the very hot pan causes the oil to get down into any pores or imperfections and create a nonstick surface.
You cannot instantly season a stainless steel pan simply by overheating some oil in it and then cooking with that same oil. It’s nonsense. This is not how seasoning works and stainless steel pans cannot truly be seasoned in this way.
You can temporarily season a stainless steel pan by heating oil in it until the oil reaches its smoking point. This is not a permanent seasoning and must be repeated often. It is fine to do but whether it really helps is up for grabs.
For true seasoning, oil must be heated until it polymerizes and forms a permanently bonded layer on the pan. This works with porous metals like cast iron. Carbon steel pans also need to be seasoned to keep them from corroding and rusting but this seasoning is only a surface layer and is not as permanent as the seasoning that can be achieved on a cast iron pan.
One of the biggest misconceptions about seasoning pans is that it is meant to make the pan nonstick. Seasoning is done to keep pans from rusting. Stainless steel doesn’t rust.
So what is happening here?
All the detailed steps talked about come down to one thing: Preheating your pan. And for eggs, there is one other crucial thing: They should be room temperature. If you add cold eggs to a hot pan they are almost certainly going to stick.
To illustrate the contradiction, here is a passage from an article on Sur La Table:
Place the pan on medium heat and allow it to heat up for a few minutes. You can test the heat by splashing a few drops of water onto the pan. If the water “dances” across the pan, sizzles and beads up, the pan is ready. This is known as the Leidenfrost Effect.
However, be careful that the pan doesn’t become too hot. If the water immediately separates into tiny beads, it means you need to lower the heat and let the pan cool off.
As you can see, this is a complete contradiction in terms. The article instructs you to reach the Leidenfrost temperature and then tells you that this temperature is too high! Make up your mind!
Even if we accept that the oil is somehow seasoning the pan and forming a nonstick barrier, it has nothing at all to do with the Leidenfrost effect. Why demonstrate that water droplets will dance around your pan when all you are trying to do is heat up some oil until it gets very hot (but doesn’t smoke or burn). You would just put your heat on medium-high, heat up the pan for a good ten minutes, and put in the oil. After all, the oil is not subject to any Leidenfrost effect.
So, we can forget about the Leidenfrost effect. That’s good because I don’t want to type it again.
A popular explanation says that pre-heating the pan to a sufficient temperature opens up the microscopic pores and lets the oil get into them, creating a nonstick barrier. I suspect that people mention the effect I refuse to type again because they can’t explain how the oil should create this barrier, and this effect sounds like “science.”
Heating Stainless Steel Pans Does Not “Open the Pores”
Here is a true scientific explanation. Heating up a stainless steel pan does not open the microscopic pores. It closes them. Heating the metal causes the metal to expand. This expansion “pushes” on the little holes causing them to close up, at least somewhat. So, the oil is not getting into the pores because you are overheating your pan.
Instead, preheating the pan and ensuring that it is evenly heated all over its surface helps close up any small pores and creates a smoother surface. However, if your pan is scratched, pitted, beat up, etc. none of this will matter. That’s why you only see super nice pans in these videos.
Butter Is Better
Another factor may be the type of oil you use. Butter helps super sticky foods like eggs not stick. A plant oil like canola or grapeseed will more likely let your egg stick. A plastic fat like butter, margarine, shortening, bacon dripping, or duck fat, in my experience, works best. If you are concerned with the butter burning, you can use clarified butter which is fantastic for frying eggs.
Yes, the oil does create a “barrier.” The food is on top of the oil. But, you have to be careful not move the food around too much until it naturally ‘releases’ on its own.
After all the technical details are dispensed with, this all comes down to having a very clean pan without a lot of pits and scratches. Preheating your pan to medium-low to medium heat, but not to a super-egg-scorching 400° F. Adding your oil or butter. Adding your egg. Letting the egg sit until it releases before trying to move it. If you are using a smaller pan use a lower heat as the pan will heat up much more quickly and become too hot.
In the video I talked about above, the host did not really “scramble” the eggs in the pan. He let them sit and gently moved them around. The reason for this is that had he stirred the eggs the way most people do when scrambling, the uncooked eggs coming into contact with the pan would have stuck.
How to Cook An Egg in a Stainless Steel Pan
The video below from All-Clad shows how to cook an egg in a stainless steel pan. It doesn’t have millions of views because it doesn’t make any fantastic claims about making a stainless steel pan ‘completely nonstick.’ However, you’ll notice the chef 1) heats the pan over medium-low heat, 2) uses a water evaporation test to check the temperature, but not the Leidenfrost effect, 3) never mentions the Leidenfrost effect, and 4) uses only butter. He leaves the egg alone until he feels it’s ready to move. The eggs does not stick. Had he moved it too soon, it would have.
You are most likely only going to be successful if you cook one or two eggs at a time. Any number over that and all bets are off.
You cannot make a stainless steel pan completely nonstick. You can take certain steps to make it stick as little as possible. Once a stainless steel pan is very old and used, with deep scratches and pits, it’s going to stick more than it did when it was used. Superficial scratches that happen from scrubbing with scouring pads or harsh abrasives will not likely affect the performance of the pan. Generally if you the basic steps of pre-heating the oil and letting food reach room temperature, your stainless steel pan will not stick very much if at all.
You do not have to follow a list of precise steps and achieve a precise temperature. This “exactness” is used on YouTube videos because it seems more “proof.” If start with a very clean pan and follow the basic steps outlined in the video above, you should not have any problem getting your stainless steel pan not to stick. I make eggs in my stainless steel pan all the time with absolutely no sticking and it is not complicated at all. The pan I usually use is over 20 years old with a surface full of scratches. Nobody can guarantee your results, but chances are, you can solve your stainless steel sticking problems with just a few minor changes to your cooking routine.
