The 4 Best Egg Pans of 2025, Tested and Reviewed

Mar 03, 2025

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A jaded former brunch cook gives these pans a stamp of approval.

In This Article

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A 16-year-old me showed up for his Friday night dishwashing shift at a 24-hour diner chain, and something was off. There were no cooks. Well, not until the kitchen manager arrived and gave me a field commission, promoting me to line cook because everyone else had quit. I got a crash course in egg cookery that evening, which followed me for decades. My next few cooking jobs were breakfast shifts at slightly more refined places that taught me the nuances of properly cooked eggs. An egg should be white, with non-crispy edges and no traces of brown. Those are for diners or campfire cooking. I had dozens of omelets rejected from the pass because of a hint of browning. Eggs are elegant and delicate when properly done, and those places weren’t going to settle for diner cook aesthetics. From there, whenever a chef learned of my experience, I earned the prime shift of leading brunch service.

Line cooks almost universally hate brunch for reasons outside the scope of this article. One reason I’ll reveal is that you must protect your egg pans from your non-brunch-cook coworkers during the rest of the week. They will not show these vital tools their proper respect and will even abuse them before the next brunch shift.

The best egg pans are nonstick, allowing you to follow omelet recipes and other egg recipes efficiently, but the coating is typically fragile and fickle. These pans can’t take contact abuse, like using metal utensils or stacking them together, and they, more often than not, can’t take sustained, direct, high heat. But, treating an egg pan well will ensure its faithful service for a long time. In the past, most egg pans were Teflon-coated, but a now-discontinued chemical in the substance led manufacturers to seek alternative nonstick coatings for safety and longevity. I tested seven egg pans with various nonstick coatings to find the best, dusting off my brunch skills to fry, scramble, and roll nearly five dozen eggs. Here are the results.

The Caraway 10.5-Inch Ceramic Frying Pan was our favorite for its nonstick properties and heat responsiveness. The Le Creuset Essential Non-Stick Ceramic Fry Pan was a close second for the same reasons, plus the design extends its life and makes sliding eggs from the pan very easy.

The Caraway pan had excellent ceramic nonstick coating and remarkable heat responsiveness.

It’s not dishwasher-safe.

I was very impressed with the nonstick properties and heat responsiveness of the ceramic-coated Caraway pan. The listed diameter of the pans I tested is the top diameter, and the pans all slope or curve to meet the narrower bottom. In this case, the Caraway pan had 6.5 inches of cooking space, which could hold three to four eggs over-easy or sunny-side-up, and the 2.75-inch height is enough to handle enough eggs for a sizable frittata. The 8-inch stainless steel handle was a rounded rectangular shape with a finger grip on the bottom, and it was comfortable to grip and stayed cool during cooking.

The heat responsiveness was excellent, quickly switching between medium and low heat. The eggs I cooked were textbook perfect, without crisping, browning, or sticking. Cleaning the ceramic interior was a matter of wiping it with a soft sponge, and removing a little egg that stuck to the exterior as I slid the omelet out took just slightly more effort.

Materials: Aluminum, stainless steel, ceramic | Oven-Safe: Up to 550°F | Sizes Available: 10.5-inch, 8-inch | Dishwasher-Safe: No

The Le Creuset is well-designed and has excellent heat responsiveness and nonstick qualities.

The egg tests showed tiny traces of crispness and browning.

This ceramic-coated pan from Le Creuset was a close second for design and performance. It had an 8-inch cooking area for its 10.5-inch overall diameter, easily fitting three to four eggs at once. The sides rose to a height of 2 inches, gently curving up from the bottom. The 7.75-inch stainless steel handle was a rounded rectangle design that was comfortable to hold and remained cool during cooking. A reinforced rounded lip at the edges provided warping resistance and helped make sliding the omelet from the pan easier.

The Le Creuset pan was very responsive to heat changes, and the nonstick ceramic coating was noteworthy. The only reason that I would rate this pan just behind Caraway is that I found the slightest traces of crisp edges on the sunny-side-up eggs and the slightest trace of browning on the omelet, and I had to look very closely to notice those.

Materials: Aluminum, stainless steel, ceramic | Oven-Safe: Up to 550°F | Sizes Available: 8-inch, 10-inch, 11-inch, 12-inch | Dishwasher-Safe: Yes, but handwashing is recommended

The HA1 pan performed very well at medium heat, especially given the price for a two-pan set.

The inverted V-shaped handle is a little uncomfortable to hold.

This pan from All-Clad features an anodized aluminum nonstick finish that produced good, if not excellent, results. Its steep walls resulted in a larger, 9.25-inch cooking area that could accommodate four to five eggs. The 2.25-inch sides rose tall enough to handle multiple eggs for a frittata or similar dish. The inverted V-shaped handle wasn’t very comfortable to hold off the stove, but it was fine when cooking and stayed cool to touch.

The steep curve of the sides gave me concerns about flipping eggs without a spatula, but the over-easy egg flipped with no difficulty. The pan was responsive to heat increases, but not necessarily cooling: The eggs I cooked at medium heat (over-easy, scrambled, and omelet) came out nearly picture-perfect, but the low-heat, sunny-side-up eggs had slightly crispy edges.

To keep the testing equal, I only tested the 10-inch pan so that I was working with pans of similar size throughout the process, but it comes with an 8-inch pan too. I consider the two pans a great value for the performance.

Materials: Aluminum, stainless steel | Oven-Safe: Up to 500°F | Sizes Available: 8-inch, 10-inch | Dishwasher-Safe: Yes

The D5’s cladding makes it very heat responsive and evenly distributes the heat, preventing hot spots.

It’s expensive, and I saw some browning on the omelet.

The All-Clad D5 differs from the other pans I tested. First, it’s constructed of bonded stainless steel, which sandwiches layers of stainless and aluminum like All-Clad’s stainless steel skillets for great heat conductivity and even heating. The next is that it has a PTFE nonstick coating: PTFE is the non-brand name of Teflon. While the coating is safe at temperatures up to 500°F, you don’t want to cook with it on high, but this goes for all non-stick pans, even ceramic-coated, non-toxic cookware. (The difference with PTFE is that it can release fumes that cause the so-called "Teflon flu" if you expose it to extra-hot temperatures.) With that said, we consider nonstick cookware safe when used right.

The aluminum and stainless cladding made the D5 very responsive to temperature changes and the nonstick coating was very good. The sunny-side-up egg had no browning or crispness, but the omelet did have a trace of browning. The positive side was that it was evenly browned, indicating excellent heat distribution. It has 9.25 inches of cooking area with the same inverted V-shaped handle the HA1 has.

Materials: Aluminum, stainless steel, PTFE | Oven-Safe: Up to 500°F | Sizes Available: 10.5-inch | Dishwasher-Safe: No

I evaluated the physical qualities of each pan before getting on to performance testing. I measured each pan for its overall diameter to get the overall size, the bottom diameter to determine its cooking area and height for overall capacity. I then examined and measured each pan’s handle for grip comfort and balance. Finally, I decided whether the overall construction felt solidly made or potentially flimsy. Then, I put them through the following functional tests.

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Most of the pans we reviewed are some type of aluminum, except an aluminum- and stainless steel-clad pan. Aluminum offers good heat responsiveness and even distribution but it isn’t great at being nonstick. These pans have a nonstick interior coating, typically ceramic, anodized aluminum, granite, or PTFE (Teflon, minus the brand name).

The ideal pan size depends on what you will use the pan for. An 8-inch pan is a perfect choice to quickly cook two “fried” eggs: over-easy (or medium or hard) or sunny-side-up. The smaller size restrains the eggs from spreading and allows you to flip them as a unit, saving fumbling with flipping them individually. For scrambled eggs and omelets, a 10- to 11-inch pan offers enough surface area for eggs to cook quickly before browning. You can cook fried eggs in a larger pan, too, so if you see yourself cooking all styles, go for the bigger pan or perhaps a two-pan set.

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As I’ve mentioned, many nonstick coatings suffer damage when subjected to high, direct heat. Manufacturers also provide maximum oven temperatures to prevent damage from indirect heat. As a rough translation, don’t use your egg pans for searing or high-heat oven applications.

Nonstick pans require special handling. Although some are dishwasher-safe, most manufacturers recommend hand-washing them with mild dish soap and a soft sponge or cloth to preserve the surface. When clean, storage is another important consideration, as you don’t want to stack anything on the nonstick surface of these pans. Ideally, hang them, but if you can’t, ensure they stay on top of your stack of pans to increase their lifespan.

Three factors affect eggs sticking to the pan. The first is heat. If your pan isn’t hot enough, the eggs will displace the oil and sit on the pan’s surface, bonding to it as they cook. While that may seem antithetical to claims of being nonstick, these pans are nonstick when the food starts to cook before it can bond to the pan. The next is oil. The eggs need to sit on enough oil as they cook. Adding too little oil increases the chances of your eggs sticking to the pan, while adding the oil when the pan is cool increases the possibility of the oil breaking down and forming a gummy surface on the pan for the eggs to stick to. Finally, you need a smooth surface. If you have a nonstick pan with chips or cracks, the eggs will find it; the same with a dirty pan or unseasoned cast iron or carbon steel pan.

First things first: Ensure your stainless steel skillet is clean and smooth. Any remnants of previous meals will make a surface for sticking. Then, preheat the pan over medium-low heat before adding a little oil. Adding the oil after the pan is hot gives the oil less time to break down and create a gummy surface to which the eggs will stick. Then, add your eggs over the oil, and not on a bare spot of metal. This placement will keep your eggs cooking on top of the oil rather than the pan’s surface, preventing sticking.

You absolutely can. Heat your water to 180°F and add a splash of vinegar or other acidic liquid to help the whites set quickly. Then, stir the water in a circular motion to create convection (this will help keep your eggs from sticking to the pan’s bottom) and add your egg.

Egg pans are excellent for cooking foods that are prone to sticking. While you can do most of these tasks in other pans, taking the proper measures, like properly heating them before adding oil, the nonstick properties of egg pans make them excellent for crepes, frittata recipes, tuiles, pancakes, vegetables, and French toast. Because nonstick pans aren’t particularly tolerant to direct high heat, try to avoid searing in them, although they’re great for pan-roasting delicate fish.

Zwilling Forte Plus 10-inch Ceramic Nonstick Fry Pan ($120 at Williams Sonoma)The Forte Plus performed well, giving good results in most of the testing, save for some browning on the omelet. It had the smallest cooking area of any of the pans I tested, though.

Zwilling Madura Plus 10-inch Nonstick Fry Pan ($70 at Zwilling)The Madura Plus is a granite-coated pan that met with middling results. It made a nice over-easy egg, but there was a little browning on the sunny-side-up and browning on the omelet while leaving strands of scrambled eggs across the pan that I couldn’t bring into the fold with the rest of them.

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The 10-inch GreenPan™ Reserve Ceramic Nonstick Fry Pan, which comes with an 8-inch pan, too, was nicely designed with a comfortable handle, albeit a bit front-heavy when holding it off the burner. I experienced some sticking when cooking the over-easy eggs that I needed a spatula to release. In the omelet test, I got some disappointing results. While the omelet’s edges released easily, the center stuck to the pan, ripped, and ultimately browned to an unacceptable level.

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Greg Baker is a former award-winning chef and restaurateur turned food writer with four decades of experience in the food industry. His written work appears in Food & Wine, Serious Eats, and other publications. His early years as a breakfast and brunch cook served him well in this testing.