Cookware and Food Storage: What to Cook In, What to Store In
Written By Kevin Wallace.
Cookware is simpler than the ads. There are about ten materials. Each one has a job, a lifespan, and a washing rule. This page uses the same five lines for every one: the plus, the minus, how long the money lasts, whether it needs oil, and how to wash it.
If you do not cook with oil, you do not have to buy a different pan for every meal. Clad stainless releases most food with a splash of water or broth. A ceramic nonstick pan is only for the few foods that still fight a dry steel surface, and that pan is a repeating purchase.
The biggest single change is not a pan. Stop heating food in plastic.
Some product names link to Amazon. I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. That does not change the evidence, and it does not mean you need the product. The general shop page is here.
1. Read this first
Definite avoid
Imported aluminum, brass, or alloy pots sold as Hindalium, Hindolium, Indalium, or Indolium, and anything on FDA’s lead list. Throw them out. Do not donate them (11).
Vintage, handmade, or cheap imported glazed pottery used for acidic food, unless it has been tested. Chipped or crazed glaze retires the piece (12).
PTFE, the Teflon-type coating, in a house with birds. The fumes can kill a bird with no warning (3).
Heating food in plastic. Microwave-safe means the tub will not melt. It does not mean nothing leaves it (17).
Buy once, if the budget allows
Clad stainless, 18/10, for the pans used every day. No coating. No oil required.
Enameled cast iron, black or cream interior, for soups, stews, and the oven.
Wide-mouth glass canning jars, and stainless boxes, for storage and the freezer.
Buy knowing you will replace it
One ceramic nonstick pan for eggs. Plan on one to three years, then retire it. Do not buy a set.
2. The map
| Material | Verdict | Needs oil? | Wash | Money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PTFE nonstick | Phase out. Avoid with birds. | No | Hand. Cool first. | 1 to 5 years, then replace |
| Ceramic or “titanium ceramic” | Eggs only. Not the kitchen. | No | Hand. Cool first. | 1 to 3 years, then replace |
| Bare cast iron | Excellent if you will oil it. | Yes, to season | Hand. Dry on the burner. | Generations |
| Carbon steel | Same as cast iron, lighter. | Yes, to season | Hand. Dry on the burner. | Decades |
| Clad stainless, 18/10 | Everyday pan. | No. Water or broth. | Dishwasher is acceptable. Cool first. | Decades |
| Enameled cast iron | Soups and the oven. | No | Hand. Cool first. | Decades, if enamel stays whole |
| Bare aluminum | Not for tomato or salt. | No | Either. Line sheet pans. | Long, but reactive |
| Lined copper | Optional, if the lining stays whole. | No | Hand. Do not scour the lining off. | Long, with re-tinning |
| Glass | Baking and storage. | No | Dishwasher. Cool first. | Long, until it breaks |
| Silicone | Not the high-heat default. | No | Dishwasher. Pre-bake new pieces. | Years, not decades |
3. One rule for every pan
Let it cool before it meets water. A hot pan under cold water can warp steel, crack enamel, and craze a ceramic coating. Off the burner, onto a trivet, then wash.
Dishwasher detergent is alkaline and abrasive. A label that says dishwasher-safe means the pan survives the machine. It does not mean the coating lasts. Uncoated stainless is the one we put in the machine without a second thought.
4. PTFE nonstick
Teflon is a brand. The coating is PTFE, a fluoropolymer in the PFAS family. TVS and many others sell the same coating under their own names.
Plus. Food releases with no oil. Easy cleanup while the coating is intact.
Minus. Above about 500 F the coating breaks down and the fumes cause polymer fume fever, a flu-like illness. An empty pan on a high burner can get there in a few minutes (2). Pet birds are the line I would underline as a veterinarian. The Merck Veterinary Manual lists PTFE-fume poisoning as a known kitchen hazard, and sudden death may be the only sign (3). A 2022 Australian study counted about 9,100 particles from one crack, and about 2.3 million from a badly broken coating (4). What those particles do in the body is not known.
PFOA-free is not PFAS-free. PFOA was a processing aid. EPA’s stewardship program had major makers out of it by 2015 (1). The coating itself is still a fluoropolymer. TVS says its PTFE line is made without PFOA and PFOS. Its ceramic line is the one it calls made without PFAS. Those are different claims (20).
Money. A cheap pan is done in one to three years. A thicker coating may reach three to five. Scratches, metal tools, and the dishwasher shorten that. It is a repeating bill, and the worn pan is the particle problem.
Oil. No.
Wash. Hand wash after it is fully cool. Wood or silicone only. No aerosol spray. Hood on. Replace at the first scratch. Never preheat empty.
Verdict. Phase out. Definite avoid in a house with birds.
Minnesota banned the sale of cookware with intentionally added PFAS on January 1, 2025. Maine and Colorado did the same on January 1, 2026 (5). Rhode Island follows in 2027. New York has not banned cookware sales. A ban stops new sales in that state. It does not make a pan already in a drawer illegal. We live in New York. The reason to retire PTFE is the fumes, the particles, and the birds.
5. Ceramic nonstick, including “titanium ceramic”
This is not a ceramic pan, and it is not a titanium pan. The body is aluminum, sometimes stainless. The food surface is a thin sol-gel coating, mostly silica. “Titanium” on the label usually means titanium particles or titanium dioxide mixed in to harden that coating. Solid titanium cookware exists. It is a different, expensive product, and it is not what the ads show.
The word titanium is also used on PTFE pans. T-fal and others mix titanium particles into a fluoropolymer. Read the product page. If it names PTFE, PFAS, or fluoropolymer, titanium did not remove it. If those words are absent and the maker says ceramic or sol-gel, it is in the GreenPan family.
Plus. No PTFE fumes. An egg releases without oil. GreenPan says Thermolon is made without PTFE, PFOA, other intentionally added PFAS, lead, or cadmium, and that the coating contains no nanoparticles (19).
Minus. The coating wears out. A European study found intact ceramic coatings released titanium into hot acid, and that scratching released far more titanium-containing particles, many of them nano-sized (6). A NIST study found titanium and silicon migration rose with washing, scouring, and scratching (7). GreenPan’s no-nanoparticle line is the maker’s statement. The studies are on this class of coating, not a lifetime trial of one Valencia Pro. Australian testing has also found total fluorine on a GreenPan air fryer sold as PFAS-free. Total fluorine is not proof of PFAS. It is a reason not to treat a marketing line as a lab certificate.
Money. This is the financial trap. One to three years of regular use, then the release is gone. Titanium may add a little scratch resistance. It does not put the pan in the class of steel. A set replaced twice a decade costs more than one clad skillet that is still in service. Gotham Steel’s titanium ceramic line has a mixed record, and some of those pans were discontinued. Buy a known maker.
Oil. No.
Wash. Hand wash, even if the label allows a dishwasher. Cool completely first. Cold water on a hot ceramic pan can warp the body or crack the coating. Wood or silicone only. No cooking spray. No steel wool. Retire it when eggs stick or the surface dulls. Do not scrub it back to life.
Verdict. One pan, for eggs and delicate food. We have used a GreenPan Valencia Pro for that. It is not the pan to build the kitchen on.
6. Bare cast iron
Plus. No synthetic coating. Holds heat. Lasts generations. A little extra iron is harmless or useful for most people eating plants.
Minus. The nonstick surface is seasoning, a thin film of oil heated until it bonds. Acidic food pulls iron out of the pan, more from a new or lightly seasoned one. Applesauce and spaghetti sauce cooked in the same skillet 50 times still took up significant iron at the end (9). Long tomato sauce can taste metallic. Hemochromatosis is the exception, and that belongs with a physician.
Money. Cheap up front, and the last pan you buy, if you oil it.
Oil. Yes. A teaspoon in the pan is what makes the surface work. We do not like cooking with oil, so this is not our daily path. Readers who will use that teaspoon should keep cast iron on the list.
Wash. Hand wash. Soap is fine. Dry on a warm burner. Wipe a thin film of oil. A soaking pan is a rusting pan. Not dishwasher-safe.
Verdict. Excellent if you will oil it. Not our daily pan.
7. Carbon steel
The same material family as cast iron, rolled thin. It heats faster and weighs less. Seasoning is still oil. Acidic sauce still belongs elsewhere. Washing is the same: hand wash, dry on the burner, thin film of oil. Decades of service if you maintain it. Same verdict as cast iron.
8. Clad stainless, 18/10
This is the everyday pan if you do not want oil and do not want a coating.
Tri-ply, the All-Clad D3 and Heritage Steel type, is an aluminum core sealed between layers of 18/10 stainless. Food touches stainless, not aluminum. It works on induction.
Plus. No PFAS, no enamel pigments, no seasoning. Dishwasher-acceptable. Decades of service. A splash of water or broth releases most food. You do not have to buy a nonstick pan to cook without oil.
Minus. It sticks more than a coated pan if the surface is dry and screaming hot. Stainless is not inert. An Oregon State study simmered tomato sauce for six hours. Nickel rose as much as 26-fold and chromium as much as 7-fold, depending on the grade. New pans leached the most. Leaching fell with use and leveled off after about six cycles. It did not reach zero (8). For most people the amounts are small. A nickel allergy is the flag, because swallowed nickel can trigger a skin reaction. Cookware grades are often 18/10 or 18/8: about 18 percent chromium and 8 to 10 percent nickel.
Money. More up front than a nonstick skillet. One pan, still here in twenty years, is the cheaper kitchen.
Oil. No. Heat the pan, add the food with a splash of water or broth, and let it release. A teaspoon of oil works too, for readers who use it. Deglaze with water while the pan is warm.
Wash. Cool first, so it does not warp. Dishwasher is acceptable. Bar Keepers Friend takes off rainbow heat tint, which is not rust. Do not store acidic food in the pot overnight. Break in a new pot by boiling water, or water with a splash of vinegar, a few times before its first long tomato simmer.
Verdict. The daily skillet and the daily saucepan.
9. Enameled cast iron
Cast iron with a glass coating fired on. No seasoning.
Plus. Soups, stews, braises, and the oven, with no oil and no iron taste. Lasts decades if the enamel stays whole. Staub’s black matte interior has come through independent XRF screens without detectable lead or cadmium on the food surface. That is a screening gun, not a leach test. It is the cleaner record among the pots people argue about. Le Creuset’s sand and cream interiors are the ones I would choose in that brand.
Minus. The company has disclosed cadmium in some red, orange, and yellow exterior enamels. Those colors are not the food-contact surface, and the pots meet U.S. and European leach limits. I would still not buy a brightly colored vintage or unknown enamel. Chips on the food surface retire the pot. Thermal shock cracks enamel.
Money. A real Dutch oven is a one-time buy. A chipped one is scrap.
Oil. No.
Wash. Cool completely. Hand wash. Soak, do not scour. No metal tools. No empty pan on high. No cold water into a hot pot.
Verdict. The soup and oven pot. Black, sand, or cream on the inside.
10. Bare aluminum, hard-anodized aluminum, and copper
Bare aluminum. Reacts with acidic and salty food. The old fear that aluminum pans cause Alzheimer’s has not held up. It dates to a 1965 rabbit experiment, and later work has not confirmed it (10). The group to caution is people with advanced kidney disease, who clear aluminum poorly. For everyone else I still line a sheet pan with parchment and keep tomato sauce out of bare aluminum.
Hard-anodized aluminum. Less reactive. Many of these pans also carry a nonstick coating. Read which coating. The body and the coating are two different questions.
Copper. A superb conductor. Bare copper can leach into acidic food, which is why cooking copper is lined with tin or stainless. Keep the lining intact. Have tin re-lined when copper shows through. Hand wash. Do not scour the lining off.
The lead pots are a different category. In 2025 FDA warned consumers not to use certain imported pots made from aluminum, brass, and alloys sold as Hindalium, Hindolium, Indalium, or Indolium, after FDA and state testing found they can leach lead. FDA’s advice is to throw them away, not donate them. The agency has kept adding products to the list (11). No safe level of lead exposure is known. If suspect cookware was used regularly, especially around children or in pregnancy, ask a doctor about a blood lead test.
11. Glass and stoneware
Plus. About as inert as a cooking surface gets. No coating. No flavor carryover. The right jar is also the storage container.
Minus. Thermal shock. Do not move a hot glass dish onto a cold wet counter, or from the freezer into a hot oven.
Money. Inexpensive, and it lasts until it breaks. A broken dish is the whole cost.
Oil. No. Parchment if something sticks.
Wash. Cool first. Dishwasher is fine for canning jars and most baking dishes.
Stoneware and porcelain from makers who test to U.S. standards are fine. The lead cautions apply to vintage, handmade, and cheap imported glaze. The United States did not limit leachable lead in ceramics until 1971.
12. Silicone
Plus. Flexible. No PTFE. Useful for a few baking jobs.
Minus. Not inert. A 2025 Canadian study of 25 silicone baking products found cyclic siloxanes released into fatty food simulants and into kitchen air. Release was highest from new pieces and dropped over the first uses (13). Health effects at these doses are largely unknown.
Money. Moderate, and it ages. Not a forever material.
Oil. No.
Wash. Usually dishwasher-safe. Bake new pieces empty a few times in a ventilated kitchen. Stay inside the rated temperature. For high-heat roasting I prefer steel or glass.
13. Solid titanium
A real titanium pan is titanium, not a silica coating with titanium dust in it. It is light, strong, and expensive, and it is not what a “titanium ceramic” ad is selling. We have no reason to buy one. Stainless does the daily job.
14. Cooking without oil
You do not need a coated pan for this.
Heat a clad stainless skillet over medium.
Add the food with a splash of water or broth, not a dry pan.
Let it sit. The liquid steams the surface loose. Stir too soon and it sticks.
Add another splash if the pan goes dry. That is the whole method.
Deglaze the fond with water while the pan is still warm.
Eggs and a few delicate foods still fight this. That is the one job for the ceramic pan. Readers who will use a teaspoon of oil can ignore this section and keep cast iron.
15. What we would buy
Some product names link to Amazon. I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. That does not change the evidence, and it does not mean you need the product. The general shop page is here.
Confirm the current model before you order.
Skillet, 10 or 12 inch. All-Clad D3 or Heritage Steel tri-ply, 18/10. Food touches stainless only.
Saucepan, 2 to 3 quart. Same clad stainless. Oatmeal, sauces, grains. Break it in before a long tomato simmer.
Dutch oven. Staub, black matte interior, or Le Creuset with a sand or cream interior.
Sheet pan. Stainless, or borosilicate glass. Parchment if something sticks. No bare aluminum for tomato or anything salty.
Egg pan. The GreenPan Valencia Pro we already have, or another Thermolon pan, replaced when it dulls. Wooden or silicone tools only.
Freezer. Wide-mouth straight-sided mason jars, and stainless boxes.
16. Food storage
Food spends more time in the container than in the pan. What moves into food depends on heat, fat, and time. Hot, fatty food left in plastic is the worst case. Cold vegetables in glass for a day is close to the best.
Researchers at the Food Packaging Forum compared more than 14,000 known food-contact chemicals with human biomonitoring data. They found evidence for 3,601 of them, about a quarter, in blood, urine, or breast milk (14). Not every one came from a container. Their practical advice was to shorten contact time and avoid heating food in its package.
In 2023 the European Food Safety Authority cut its tolerable daily intake for BPA about 20,000-fold, citing immune effects, and concluded that typical dietary exposure is a health concern (15). The European Union then banned BPA and other hazardous bisphenols in food-contact materials (16). BPA-free is better than nothing. Covering the related bisphenols says the replacements are not automatically safe.
A University of Nebraska team tested polypropylene baby-food containers labeled microwave-safe. Three minutes of microwaving released up to 4.22 million microplastic and 2.11 billion nanoplastic particles per square centimeter (17). Refrigerated storage released particles too.
The one habit. Never heat food in plastic. Transfer it to glass or ceramic. Cover it with a plate.
If plastic is still in the kitchen
Let hot food cool before it goes into any plastic.
Keep plastics out of the dishwasher.
Retire containers that are scratched, cloudy, or stained.
Do not reuse single-use tubs for hot food.
Cold slows migration, so the freezer is the least worrying place for plastic. The catch is the reheat. Food often goes in warm and comes out to be heated, so the freeze container becomes the heat container. That is why storage here is glass and steel.
Glass in the freezer. Two rules from the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Use wide-mouth jars made for canning and freezing. Ordinary sauce jars break. Leave headspace, about half an inch in wide-mouth pints and an inch in wide-mouth quarts, because food expands. Straight sides let a frozen block slide out. Shouldered jars are a poor freezer choice (18).
Stainless boxes. No coating, no plastic in the reheat step. Cool the food first so the box is not asked to take a thermal shock with a full load of soup.
17. Our kitchen
Years ago we cooked on Teflon. We moved to stainless with an aluminum core. We have also cooked with TVS, made in Italy, and with a GreenPan Valencia Pro for the foods that want a slick surface. The nonstick baking pans are gone. The microwave has been cleared of plastic as far as we can push it. Canning and the Excalibur dehydrators run on glass mason jars. The Ninja ice-cream maker uses a stainless bowl.
We still fall short. Most of the fruit from the food forest goes into the freezer in gallon plastic bags. The Blendtec jar is plastic. We have asked the company for a glass or stainless jar.
The next purchases are clad stainless skillets and saucepans, a Staub or a cream-interior Le Creuset, and more wide-mouth jars so the freezer bags can shrink. The GreenPan stays for eggs until it wears out. We are not going back to a pan that has to be oiled.
18. Honest caveats
Detection is not harm. Many of these studies measure what leaves a pan, not what it does in the body. For microplastics, nanoparticles, and siloxanes, the health effects at these doses are largely unknown.
Lab conditions are often harsh. Six-hour tomato simulations and hard abrasion are built to find a worst case. Everyday exposure is usually lower.
Lead is the exception. The harms are established, and no safe level is known.
XRF screens of enamel are not leach tests. They are a reason to prefer a light or black interior from a maker that publishes standards.
Europe has moved faster than the United States on BPA. Several states have moved faster than Washington on PFAS in cookware. New York is not one of the states with a cookware sales ban.
This is not medical advice. I am a veterinarian and a board-certified internist. I am not your physician. Iron overload, a nickel allergy, or kidney disease belongs with your own doctor.
19. Where we land
Stop heating food in plastic. Microwave and reheat in glass or ceramic.
Get rid of lead risks. Imported aluminum or brass of unknown origin, anything on FDA’s list, and vintage glaze used for acidic food.
Retire scratched PTFE. If you keep birds, keep PTFE out of the house.
Buy clad stainless for the pans you use every day. Water or broth replaces the oil. You do not need a different pan for that.
Buy enameled cast iron, black or cream interior, for soups and the oven.
Keep one ceramic nonstick pan for eggs. Replace it when it dulls. Do not buy a set. The short life is the cost.
Cast iron and carbon steel stay on the list for anyone who will oil them. They are off our daily list for that reason alone.
Store and freeze in wide-mouth glass and stainless. Leave headspace. Cool every pan before it meets water.
20. Further reading
21. On our website
PFAS and Microplastics in Tap Water: The same family of chemicals, in the water rather than the pan.
Home Water Filtration: How to match a filter to what the test actually found.
22. References
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Risk management for PFAS under TSCA: PFOA Stewardship Program. https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/risk-management-and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas
Polymer fume fever from overheated PTFE. Clinical summaries place onset near 500 F. Empty pans reach that range in minutes.
Merck Veterinary Manual. Toxicoses of pet birds: polytetrafluoroethylene toxicosis. https://www.merckvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals/pet-birds/toxicoses-of-pet-birds
Luo Y, Gibson CT, Chuah C, Tang Y, Naidu R, Fang C. Raman imaging of Teflon microplastics and nanoplastics released from non-stick cookware. Sci Total Environ. 2022;851:158293.
Maine Department of Environmental Protection. PFAS in products. Cookware sales prohibition effective January 1, 2026. Minnesota’s cookware ban took effect January 1, 2025. Colorado’s cookware prohibition took effect January 1, 2026. https://www.maine.gov/dep/spills/topics/pfas/PFAS-products/
Characterisation of food contact non-stick coatings containing TiO2 nanoparticles and study of their possible release into food. Food Addit Contam Part A. 2017. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27931180/
Addo Ntim S, et al. Consumer use effects on nanoparticle release from commercially available nanoceramic cookware. Food Control. 2018. https://www.nist.gov/publications/consumer-use-effects-nanoparticle-release-commercially-available-nanoceramic-cookware
Kamerud KL, Hobbie KA, Anderson KA. Stainless steel leaches nickel and chromium into foods during cooking. J Agric Food Chem. 2013;61(39):9495-9501. https://superfund.oregonstate.edu/our-research/publications/stainless-steel-leaches-nickel-and-chromium-foods-during-cooking
Cheng YJ, Brittin HC. Iron in food: effect of continued use of iron cookware. J Food Sci. 1991.
Lidsky TI. Is the aluminum hypothesis dead? J Occup Environ Med. 2014. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4131942/
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA issues warning about imported cookware that may leach lead. Updated through December 2025. https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/fda-issues-warning-about-imported-cookware-may-leach-lead-august-2025
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Questions and answers on lead-glazed traditional pottery. https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/questions-and-answers-lead-glazed-traditional-pottery
Silicone bakeware as a source of human exposure to cyclic siloxanes. J Hazard Mater. 2025. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389425025105
Geueke B, Parkinson LV, Groh KJ, et al. Evidence for widespread human exposure to food contact chemicals. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2024. https://foodpackagingforum.org/news/new-fpf-study-and-database-food-contact-chemicals-in-humans
European Food Safety Authority. Re-evaluation of bisphenol A. 2023. https://foodpackagingforum.org/news/efsa-dietary-exposure-to-bpa-is-unsafe
European Commission ban on bisphenol A in food-contact materials, adopted December 2024. https://foodpackagingforum.org/news/european-commission-bans-bisphenol-a-in-food-contact-materials
Hussain KA, et al. Assessing the release of microplastics and nanoplastics from plastic containers and reusable food pouches. Environ Sci Technol. 2023.
National Center for Home Food Preservation. Containers for freezing. https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/freeze/freeze-general-information/containers-for-freezing/
GreenPan. Thermolon coating statement: no PTFE, no intentionally added PFAS, no added lead or cadmium, no nanoparticles in the coating. Maker’s claim. https://help.greenpan.com/hc/en-us/articles/19527454068114-Does-GreenPan-contain-PTFE-PFAS-PFOA-Lead-or-Cadmium
TVS. PTFE coatings described as made without PFOA or PFOS. Ceramic coatings described as made without PFAS. https://www.tvs-spa.it/en/pages/garanzie
