The Misen Nitrided Carbon Nonstick pan seems like a massive sea change in cookware
This doesn’t come up very often, but I think we’ve just had a major revolution in cookware.
A little about me: I cook a lot, mostly dinner at home for my family and friends but sometimes for massive parties of upwards of 200 people. I’ve been doing sous vide cooking since 2010. I run a food blog called Unselling Convenience (also @unsellingconvenience on Instagram if you’d rather follow along there), which is mostly an inspiration board and memory database of things I’ve enjoyed cooking and probably want to cook again. I believe that shortcuts are great, but not at the expense of quality. I administer the Everyday Sous Vide and Instant Pot Love groups on Facebook. I’ve been writing about food for a few decades and have started collecting the good stuff at https://counter.kitchen. If you buy something from one of the links, I probably get a small commission which won’t even come close to defraying the amount of money I’ve spent on these things over the years but which will make me happy anyway.
~~
I have an extensive collection of home cookware. I’ve been trying to rid myself of teflon for years. The material itself is relatively inert and harmless itself (though it will kill birds if you overheat it), but it is fairly toxic to make and while it basically never breaks down in the environment, the pans themselves have a limited lifespan. It has, however, been the absolute best way to cook eggs, with no clear acceptable substitute.
Ceramic cookware looked for a while like it might be “the future”, but as I dug further into what they were actually made of, it became clear that they aren’t a single thing, and most manufacturers aren’t really talking about their composition. (See my piece on “What the heck is ceramic cookware?”) Sol-gel ceramics seem like the most non-stick alternative, but they also have substantial drawbacks and even less lifespan than teflon.
Enter the Misen Carbon Nonstick pan. A few months ago, Misen announced their kickstarter for a new kind of carbon steel pan, with a nitrided layer for durability and rust resistance with a nonstick surface, and an aluminum clad core for better heat distribution and lighter weight. I received my pan a few weeks ago, and this combination is killer. The pan is light, it heats evenly, it develops a great fond if you want it, and it is pretty nonstick.
It’s more or less the holy grail of nonstick:
- nonstick properties as good as teflon (to be established, but looks pretty good initially)
- can use metal utensils
- uncoated / no toxic chemicals
- heats evenly
- not fussy about cleaning
- doesn’t require seasoning
- works with induction
Longevity is the only real unknown here for me, and otherwise this is a stellar replacement for teflon. I think it’s going to sell like hotcakes. Speaking of which, it made an outstanding upside-down peach cake and it released and cleaned up easily.
Nonstick is a weird thing — for many kinds of cooking, you want some sticking, as that develops flavors, and properly cooked food will release on its own. But for eggs, you usually don’t want that. (I haven’t tried pancakes yet, but they do cook very well on hard ceramic. That will be a future test.) [update: pancakes were flawless]
I did some initial tests of a fried egg without oil, a classic french omelet (which I haven’t even attempted in years), scrambled eggs, and lower-temperature scrambled eggs. This last one is important — it seems to be more nonstick at lower temperatures and I need to adjust a little bit to the lack of insulation that a teflon pan has. But the pan itself has great temperature regulation and heats and cools evenly.
[ Update: A really important interlude about heat ]
One of the very important things I’ve realized when working with this pan (12 weeks in at this writing) is that it has heating properties that are far different from most other similar pans. Teflon pans are essentially covered in insulating plastic, so even at higher heat levels, they do not generally encourage browning and cook things more gently. Ceramic pans of many types also have some of this insulating effect. Traditional carbon steel pans heat up much more slowly and are less efficient at conducting heat, though they carry a lot of thermal mass — a lot of the heat you’re putting into the pan, especially if it’s not fully preheated, goes into heating the pan itself. This pan doesn’t behave that way. It heats up very quickly, and it transfers a lot of that heat to the food, pretty evenly across the whole surface. As a result, I’ve found that for most things I need to turn the heat down compared to what I would use on another pan. Food burns, or at least scorches, much faster than I expect, but it also cooks quickly and efficiently. This isn’t a bad thing, but it is a thing you need to be aware of an accommodate. I recommend turning the heat down a notch from where you think you need, you can always turn it back up if the food isn’t cooking as fast as you’d like.
[ Update: videos ]
I’ve been compiling all of the testing videos into their own playlist. Check them out!
Misen claims that the pan starts out sorta-nonstick, and will develop a seasoning layer over time that will make it even moreso. I haven’t gotten to that point yet, but even still, it’s acceptably nonstick for the things I want to use it for. Nothing has thus far taken more than about 60 seconds of scrubbing with a nylon brush and hot water to remove. [ Update: at 12 weeks, it has developed a pretty nice patina and is pretty nonstick. ]
It’s lighter and easier to work with than any comparable metal pan I have:
- My wrought-iron 12” Solidteknics pan: 2202g (with silicone handle)
- 12” Cuisinart green gourmet stainless exterior: 1687g
- Misen 12” Teflon (with silicone handle): 1444g
- Misen 12” nitrided carbon steel: 1382g
Also some of this “lightweight” is likely because the sides are relatively low (but I do like that shape as well for these uses).
A bunch of brands have since announced nitrided carbon steel pans, but the Misen is the only one I’ve seen that has an aluminum core, and that seems very important for the performance of this pan. Carbon steel is traditionally not very heat conductive — it holds a lot of heat for searing, but it doesn’t heat evenly and it doesn’t have good heat control. I don’t understand why nitrided carbon steel is all the rage right now even though it has apparently been around for a while. I’m curious about why this didn’t take off sooner and who actually realized that this would be a good material to make pans out of.
It’s early days, and I still have a lot more testing to do. I am, however, very close to recommending this as the choice if you have to choose only one pan. It doesn’t hold heat as well as wrought-iron or traditional carbon steel or cast iron for high heat searing. The sides are relatively shallow, making it not ideal for things with a lot of sauce. It’s not quite as good all-around as stainless steel or have quite as good heat control as All-Clad or copper pans. But it is acceptably good at all of these things, and it looks like it can absolutely fully knock teflon pans out of the rotation entirely. I’m very excited to continue playing with it and I look forward to seeing what else it can do and how it develops over time.
Feedback is welcomed! Leave a comment here, or find me @fields@hachyderm.io on mastodon or @unsellingconvenience on instagram or threads. If you found this helpful, check out my other writing about food and home cooking at counter.kitchen.
