Since 2024, this publication has tested fourteen nonstick pans. As of this writing, eleven of them have been retired — coatings scratched, flaking, or simply worn smooth into stickiness — and the longest-lived survivor is on borrowed time at month nineteen. Meanwhile, the cast iron skillet in our test kitchen was made sometime before the Second World War, cost $11 at an estate sale, and released a fried egg this morning without complaint.

This is the entire argument, really. But let's make it properly.

The economics are absurd

A good new cast iron skillet costs $25–45. Premium nonstick costs $60–130 and is, by the manufacturers' own care instructions, a consumable: coatings degrade with heat, metal utensils, and time, typically within two to five years. Amortized over a decade, the cast iron pan costs a few dollars a year and is appreciating — vintage smooth-finish skillets now sell for multiples of their original price. The nonstick pan costs $20–50 a year forever. We review products for a living; we rarely see a comparison this lopsided.

It does the one thing thin pans can't

Cast iron's heat retention is its superpower. All that thermal mass means the pan barely flinches when food hits it — which is the difference between searing a steak and gray-steaming one. In our tests, a preheated 10-inch cast iron skillet dropped just 14°F when a room-temperature strip steak went in; a premium tri-ply stainless pan dropped 47°F, and a lightweight nonstick dropped over 100°F. Crust is just chemistry plus sustained heat. Cast iron supplies the sustained part.

The maintenance myth has gotten out of hand

The internet has convinced a generation that cast iron is a tamagotchi. Our test kitchen's actual routine: wash it with soap (yes, soap — modern dish soap contains no lye and harms nothing), dry it on a warm burner for a minute, wipe on a half-teaspoon of oil. Total added effort versus any other pan: roughly sixty seconds. The elaborate rituals — flaxseed oil polymerization schedules, never-touch-water doctrine — are hobbyist maximalism, not requirements.

The honest caveats

• It's heavy. A 12-inch skillet runs 7–8 pounds. For anyone with wrist or strength limitations, this is a real constraint, not a quirk.
• It's slow to heat. The thermal mass works both ways — preheating takes five-plus minutes, and it responds lazily when you lower the burner.
• Eggs require a learned skill. A well-seasoned pan releases eggs beautifully, but "well-seasoned" takes weeks of regular use. Keep one cheap nonstick for eggs while you get there; even we do.
• Acidic braises — long-simmered tomato sauce, wine reductions — will strip seasoning and can pick up metallic notes. That's what enameled cast iron or stainless is for.

The bottom line

No pan does everything, but one pan does more things, for longer, for less money than any other piece of cookware sold today, and it was already true when your great-grandmother owned one. Buy a $30 skillet, cook fatty things in it for a month, and wash it like a normal dish. In two years it will be better than the day you bought it — which is a sentence no nonstick pan we have ever tested gets to have written about it.