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Le Creuset’s Ceramic Pan Just Took Over My Kitchen

It’s as good as the old stuff, without all the forever chemicals.

By Adrienne WestenfeldPublished: Nov 20, 2024

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I have a confession: I’ve been fully radicalized against nonstick cookware—and for good reason. Recently, I learned about “forever chemicals,” a class of man-made chemicals that make everyday products resistant to water, stains, and grease. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, these chemicals are linked to several health risks, including “deadly cancers, impacts to the liver and heart, and immune and developmental damage to infants and children.” Because we can’t have anything nice, normal, or healthy under late-stage capitalism, forever chemicals are all around us: in our clothes, our food packaging, and our cookware, namely the nonstick variety. The presence of forever chemicals in the kitchen alarmed me more than anything else. Could my nonstick pans be leeching harmful toxins into my omelets? While the answer varies by brand, I decided to part with my nonstick cookware and revert back to something classic, something safe.

Here’s how I started my replacement journey. Copper is expensive; stainless steel is fussy; keeping cast iron “nonstick” requires a lot of oversight. An exhaustive search led me to ceramic cookware, which functions much like nonstick but without all the harmful chemicals. After testing multiple contenders—more than I’d like to name—the clear winner was Le Creuset’s Essential Nonstick Ceramic line. The standout is the sauté pan, a multitasking workhorse that performs (and cleans up) like a dream. You need one in your kitchen, whether I’ve radicalized you or not.

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It’s Nontoxic

Let’s get this much out of the way: Le Creuset’s ceramic pan is made without PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), the big baddie of the forever-chemicals family that’s found in traditional nonstick cookware. That means you don’t have to worry about any toxins in your food. But if ceramic cookware has one flaw, it’s that the somewhat delicate coating is susceptible to scratches, meaning that gentle utensils are an absolute must. After all, your new pan won’t last long if you scrape it with abrasive metal. You can safely use nylon, silicone, and wood utensils, but I prefer silicone. GIR makes some of the best gadgets on the market: ergonomically designed, heat resistant, and dishwasher safe, they can take anything you throw at them.

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It’s a Workhorse

Your cookware needs to clear a higher bar than “won’t poison you,” of course, and Le Creuset’s sauté pan vaults over the bar. It’s a deep, spacious pan that’s quickly become my go-to at dinnertime. Similar to the company’s Dutch ovens, the sauté pan is the perfect size and shape to handle a lot of different tasks. I’ve used it to make stir-fries, simmer pasta sauces, braise stews, sauté vegetables, shallow-fry chicken, and so much more. Even the stickiest foods glide across its glossy surface during cooking, and they release from the pan with ease. When I tested omelets and scrambled eggs in the pan, they lifted off with zero resistance and left very little crusty mess behind. The tempered-glass lid makes it easy to monitor what’s going on underneath the hood, which is great news if you’re anything like me and you’ve waylaid many a recipe with overzealous peeking beneath the lid. The pan is also oven safe up to 550°F, so it’s the perfect choice for anything that calls for last-minute broiling.

After the meal, cleanup is a breeze, because the pan washes up pristinely with zero elbow grease. And if you’re one of those crazy people who runs their pots and pans through the dishwasher (couldn’t be me), you’ll be glad to know that this one is dishwasher safe.

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It’ll Last Forever

These days, it seems like every cookware brand is hawking an “everything” pan. Not all of them are built to go the distance—in fact, I was majorly disappointed by a mega-viral everything pan that shall not be named, which started breaking down on me in less than a year. Gas stovetops (the kind I cook on) are notoriously hard on cookware, but a few months into using and abusing my Le Creuset sauté pan, it still looks brand-spanking new.

I’ll admit, I’m a die-hard Le Creuset fan. (Marseille squad, rise up!) I own its Dutch oven, its cast iron-skillet, its braiser, its grill pan, its mugs, and more—hell, I even own its stoneware teabag holders. I’m thisclose to driving to its next Factory-to-Table sale to get my hands on one of those covetable mystery boxes. In the age of overhyped DTC cookware, don’t get distracted by flashy Instagram advertisements for candy-colored pans that won’t go the distance. Le Creuset is one of the best investments you can make in the kitchen. It’s a heritage brand that always performs as promised, with a generous lifetime warranty in the rare event that it doesn’t. Whether you’re worried about forever chemicals or just looking for an upgrade, this will be the last sauté pan you ever buy.

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Photographs by Joe Lingeman. Prop styling by Heather Greene.