The solution to all this mess is to buy good quality pans that meet your cooking needs and learn how to care for them, I have cast iron that belonged to my grandparents, I also have good nonstick pans,stainless pans and carbon steel they all have their uses. But if someone just wants a pan and doesn't cook alot I would go with carbon steel, it's more expensive, but you will probably only buy it once, (Vimes boots)and it does most thing well enough.

I lack the subtlety to tell you if my cast iron pan cooks better or makes anything taste better, but I can assure you it regularly survives abuse that would ruin a Teflon pan in days.

Metal hot. Make food hot.

Think a bit deeper. How quickly is that heat transferred, and at what peak temperatures? Does the metal keep any heat of its own and impart that into the food, or does it just convey the heat from the burner to the food? And how quickly does it do that?

but my wife seems to think cast-iron is necessary for certain things (searing a prime rib roast, for example.).

Look at the thermal mechanics of this.

Take the cast iron pot. You can throw that on the stove and let it get ripping hot, like the metal itself is carrying a ton of heat energy. When you put the prime rib in it, the metal dumps its heat into the meat much faster than a flame alone would. This helps you get a strong sear on the outside, without dumping in too much total quantity of heat to cook the meat on the inside more than you want.

then I gotta figure out gas vs. electric vs. induction vs infrared…

Heat can be transferred 3 ways- conduction (flows between two touching objects), convection (hot object heats air, air blows against cold object, air heats cold object) and radiation (hot object radiates energy through space and it warms cold object).

Electric- coils get hot, the pan touching the coils transfers heat by conduction. Downside is uneven heating- neither the pan nor the coils is perfectly flat so you get hot spots.

Infrared- coils under the glass get hot and radiate heat through the glass. This works pretty well.

Induction- coils under the glass but they don't get hot. Instead they create a magnetic field modulated at low radio frequencies (15-150 KHz). This fluctuating magnetic field interacts with any ferrous metal close to it, creating small but powerful eddy currents inside the metal and thus heating the metal up. So the stove doesn't create any heat at all, it's the pan that actually gets hot. This by the way is neither conduction convection nor radiation, because heat isn't being transferred, it's created inside the pot.

Gas- flammable gas (usually propane or natural gas, which is mostly methane) burns creating high temperature exhaust gases that rise against the pot and thus heat the pot. Many chefs like this. Gas stoves should ideally be used with an overhead hood as gas stoves have been proven to drastically reduce indoor air quality.

Of the options- induction is usually the best these days, because it's the most efficient, cleanest, and also in many cases has the highest output (in terms of watts of heat pumped into the pot).

When cooking, you want a stove capable of very high output. The more output you have, the faster it will boil water for example.

Non-stick is terrible for anything that needs real frying, because the non-stick coating breaks down at high temperatures (generally manufacturer recommendations are to keep the pan under 400f / 204c. I've had the coating start browning and changing at lower temperatures than that.

I have cast iron pans, but I can't be bothered to maintain them so they mostly sit in the cabinet. I need to sand and re-coat mine currently, as they've got some rust spots, and I don't really use them.

I swear by steel pans. They work great on any stove type (gas, electric, induction, doesn't matter), have enough heft but are lighter than cast iron, and they can handle high heat and even be baked so long as the handle is also steel. The trick to stainless is making sure it's hot enough for water to dance on, and nothing will stick. I tend to use a bit of oil and then a bit of butter when cooking in them and they're practically non-stick that way anyway, just give it a rinse and wash while it's still hot and everything comes right off.

Plus, there are some foods you actually want to stick a bit sometimes, like when you're searing meats and later using the glaze from the pan for a sauce.

If you're using steel and accidentally leave it and stuff is stuck to it, no need to panic, just put some water in the pan, heat it up (preferably with a lid on), and once it's hot, everything should come off easily.

Edit - one trick to cooking with a stainless steel pan that I've found specifically when cooking with oil (olive oil generally) - When the oil becomes thin and moves around the pan easily you're generally good, but if you leave it sit on medium heat until the oil makes a sort of sine wave pattern where the edges of the pan start to curve up, you're set, nothing will stick.

Define "better".

It's heat- when preheated properly- is much more even and it holds it quite a bit better. This of course, requires preheating (and that takes a long moment.)

when properly seasoned and oiled, the pan is genuinely nonstick to the same degree as most PTFE pan out there (without all the nasty plastics flaking off, and able to be get up to a proper temperature for searing in the first place...) But of course, this means keeping your pan properly seasoned.

I'm not a fan of lodge cast iron, though, IMO its too much work to develop and maintain that level of seasoning (because of it's surface. Victoria is a better inexpensive option if you're looking to buy new.) But I also rock a lodge when camping (Because I don't want to subject my really nice, inherited stuff to campfire cooking.) but cast iron can take the abuse of cooking right on coals and other campfire torture (like being cleaned with sand.)

Of course, you have to clean up/care for that camp pan after the fact.

The point being made is that everyone has a different understanding of what is "best", cast iron does require a significant investment in maintenance and care. For me, the effort is worth it. for many it's not.

for what cast iron does well, it's amazing. And really, the biggest problem is that it's not so good for acidic things (which eats away the seasoning, but that's more like 'don't try and make a pasta sauce' rather than "don't splash in some citrus."

I can’t comment on the various toxicities…but I was a high-end chef for 20 years. Stainless (proper stainless, with a high quality underside) and cast iron pans were essential for their respective purposes. Non-stick pans generally weren’t used outside of breakfast in kitchens without a flattop. Copper was a gimmick for homeowners…never saw one in a kitchen. My understanding was the copper was on the outside and the shtick was it was supposed to regulate heat better…BS AFAIK…it just made them look slick and therefore easier to sell.

Stainless are the go-to for searing and sautées…nothing is going to stick if you know what you’re doing and monitor the pan. Cast iron was for things you started on the stovetop and moved to the oven to finish…and/or for things you blacken or crust. In my experience the same effect can be achieved with a stainless pan (never buy a pan with a plastic handle that can’t go in the oven and always cook with a hot-cloth)…but some chefs swear by cast iron for niche purposes and they’re certainly easier to clean and last longer, even if they’re useless for sauteeing (square shape).

Oh…woks can compliment stainless pans for sauteeing if you have people who know what they’re doing with them…you pretty much can’t leave a wok unattended…but they get the best results for what they’re made for (stir fry, fried rice, etc).

Gas is the only choice for proper heat regulation. All the other elements are out of the question for proper cooking.

No one with a cast iron pan would ask this question

Reddit has a fucking hard-on for cast iron. I'm not really a fan.

I don't use teflon non-stick but have had good results with ceramic-based non-stick. My second choice would be carbon steel, which has a similar "seasoning" process as cast iron, but I find carbon steel easier to work with compared to cast iron.

For me, cast iron are by far my most used pans. You know how flannel starts out sort of awful but gets better and better as it gets older? That's cast iron. Starts out sticky PITA but over time becomes satisfying satiny nonstick surface. I've always used them a lot so that's how my cooking style evolved.

We also have one steel pan we call the Stick pan, sometimes you want food to stick so you can deglaze. My kids use it for potsticker dumplings, and they like it also because it's lighter, cast iron is heavy. And of course a rice and pasta pot, those are steel.

I don't buy "nonstick" pans, they don't last and I'm not convinced they are safe.

I don't like non-stick anymore because the coating eventually gets all scratched up and doesn't work as good. Idk how it gets scratched up, I never used metal. My ex did, so maybe it was her.

Cast Iron, if maintained well (i.e just don't cook anything too acidic. You don't usually need to re-season), lasts forever. It's also great for when you want to sear something without the pan cooling down once you put your food on it. Because it's thick and stores a bunch of heat. Yet somehow it also gets hot pretty fast.

I don't get stainless steel personally. Apparently to get things to not stick, I should be using MORE heat? But I already use a lot of heat! On the up side, they get hot really fast.

Copper and carbon steel I've never used. I hear carbon steel is similar to cast iron in many ways, but easier to maintain?

If you're doing a new build, definitely go induction. Electric sucks because it's kinda slow-ish to get started, gas sucks because either you need to have a gas line built to your house if you don't already have one, or you change out the gas container every now and then (and that thing is heavy, mine's 17 KG of gas + whatever the huge chunk of metal weighs, which is definitely more than 17 KG). Plus the whole issue of, y'know, freshly burnt hydrocarbons (yay CO2 and potentially other gases). Oh and gas explosions aren't common, but they can happen!

Only downside of induction is that if you lose power, you can't cook. A wood-burning stove as a backup is excellent in this case, because depending on what your heating system is, you may also lose heating if power is gone.

"Pan gets hot" does not fully specify how something cooks. Does it spread heat quickly and evenly? Have a high thermal capacity? Stick to meat forming a harder sear? All of these are good or bad depending on what you are trying to do.

If I could only have one pan, Le Creuset Dutch oven, no question.

Cast iron is not good for acidic foods or foods that require heat variation.

Some answers here are close.

It depends on what type of person you are.

If you're the kind of person who has a neat, clean kitchen who does all their dishes after every meal, go cast iron.

If you're the kind of person who has a messy kitchen and you really only do dishes once or twice a week, go primarily with stainless, a nonstick pan for eggs, and a 10-12 inch cast iron pan for occasional use, like that rib roast.

Your wife sounds smart, listen to heerrrrrr.

Also I don't know, but since hearing about non-stick pans leaking cancer into your food (if you scrape them with a fork, etc), I just like to use a normal pan.