Nicole (she/her) is the director of the Good Housekeeping Institute’s Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, where she has overseen content and testing related to kitchen and cooking appliances, tools and gear since 2019. She’s an experienced product tester and recipe creator, trained in cuisinart knife classic culinary arts and culinary nutrition. She has worked in test kitchens for small kitchen appliance brands and national magazines, including Family Circle and Ladies’ Home Journal. A cookware set combines various sizes so you can choose the ones best suited to your cooking needs.
Using our pro experience, we’ve picked the perfect gotham steel cookware sets for all kinds of cooks. Nicole Papantoniou runs the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, where she oversees all content and testing related to cooking products. She started testing and developing cooking tools, gadgets, gear and appliances in 2014.
They look gorgeous, last a lifetime, and can be used for everything from steaming rice to braising chicken to simmering soup. Every set will also include one or two saucepans and, again, larger ones are more useful as you can warm a cup of soup in a 3-quart pot but might not be able to make enough rice for the whole family in a 1-quart. Although there is no evidence that traditional nonstick coatings are toxic or harmful to cook in, they can release fumes if they overheat, which can happen if you preheat an empty nonstick pan or use it over very high heat. If you want the benefits of a nonstick coating but want to minimize any risks, you can opt for a ceramic nonstick coating. While these finishes, which are derived from sand, are not quite as good at releasing food and not as long-lasting, they can be safely used at higher heats.
Time and time again, testing shows that All-Clad browns perfectly evenly and keeps stews and sauces at a perfect simmer. What that means to you is that you won’t have to vigilantly rearrange, stir and adjust the heat during cooking. All gleaming stainless steel inside and out, it has a core of aluminum that’s responsible for its great results. We love the sloped shape of the skillets which make it easy to roll out an omelet.
This easy-to-clean set from GreenPan is a personal favorite among our kitchen pros. It has a hard-anodized exterior and a ceramic nonstick interior, which the company claims is free of PFOA, PFAS, lead and cadmium. This Scandinavian style set received was awarded the Prestige International RedDot Design & IF Design Award in 2020, and not without reason.
Designed with your health in mind, our ceramic cookware is free of toxic materials for guilt-free cooking. They’re lightweight and should be used over low to medium heat, and the thermo-heat indicator lets you know when it’s ready to use. In our tests, scrambled eggs and pancakes cooked evenly with zero sticking. Plus, the griddle was a fun addition for breakfast items, especially bacon. Cast aluminium – Cast aluminium cookware is lightweight, affordable and offers good heat retention.