I’ve Owned the Always Pan for 8 Months. Here’s What I (Finally) Think About It

Last Black Friday shopping season, I splurged on a few things for myself and for the home, including the Instagram- and influencer-famous Always Pan from Our Place. I was actually a bit annoyed at myself for giving into the hype. I have a great non-stick pan from Misen that performs really well (once it heats up…it’s a slow heater-upper), plenty of cast iron pieces, and a stainless steel set I’ve owned since I moved into my first apartment in 2011. Trust me when I say I didn’t need another pan. More importantly, I didn’t have room for another pan. But alas, I bought it anyway, because I am a sucker. A SUCKER.

My version of going “against the grain” was skipping the Spice colorway (an earthy pink) I saw everywhere, instead opting for Blue Salt. That’ll show ’em! At the time, it was discounted $50, making it $99 before taxes. A little part of me justified the purchase as a “work” purchase, something I could write about on the blog, but here we are, 8 months later, and I’m only now feeling confident enough in my assessment of it to write about the thing. You might be wondering…8 months? But Black Friday was nearly 10 months ago. Ah yes, but there was a several-month-long wait on nearly every color at the time, and I didn’t receive it until mid-February.

First Impressions

I have to be honest; I didn’t really love it when I first got it. Was it pretty and looked good sitting out on my stove because there was nowhere else to store it? Yeah, it did. But I know good kitchenware and cookware are far more than just looking good. In fact, some of the best things in my kitchen are very utilitarian as far as aesthetics go, and I’m perfectly okay with that. But aside from it being pleasing to the eye, I was underwhelmed, likely because everyone said it was the greatest thing since refrigeration that ever hit the kitchen, and I’m one to mentally push back against fanfare that doesn’t seem earned.

If you aren’t familiar, the Always Pan claims to be the only pan you need. Marketing hyperbole, sure, but when you have limited storage or a small apartment kitchen, you certainly want to believe in a one-product-fits-all-things solution. The pan comes with a steamer basket that nests well into the basin of the pot, a wooden spoon/spatula thing that has a notch to rest right on the pot while cooking or storing, and is both shallow and deep enough to work for many dishes. The website claims it “replaces 8 pieces of cookware.” Our Place also offers a plethora of handy accessories to extend the functionality of the pan. It’s smart, it’s clever, but…does it do what it says? Well…

The Always Pan in Practice

The first few months, I used the Always Pan mostly for eggs. It was a formidable ceramic nonstick surface, and since it was always already out on the stove, it saved me time from digging around for my Misen nonstick pan. As a cooking vehicle to my morning scramble, it was solid. Like I said, the nonstick worked well (though I wondered how long it would last…this isn’t my first nonstick rodeo, after all), but it would quickly get pushed to the side when dinner rolled around and things got serious. The instructions that came with the (very well-packaged) pan noted it was best not to push the cooking temperature too far above medium, so I didn’t feel comfortable boiling anything, searing anything, or, well, doing anything besides making eggs. But surely, a $99 pan to make eggs is not worth it, because it’s absolutely not.

Little by little, I started using it for a few more things, mostly out of laziness and convenience. I got risky and boiled pasta in it, using the steamer basket. Okay…that was interesting. While I wouldn’t recommend making more than two or so servings of pasta in it, it was very handy to just pull the basket up when it was done, pour the water out, and plop the pasta back in, without having to grab my colander.

Then, I ventured into saute land. Making chicken breasts, browning ground beef, searing fish and finishing it in a puddle of sauces. I started gaining an appreciation for the nice height of the pan. Not too deep, not too shallow. It worked well as a “frying” pan but also for stewier things. Before I knew it, I was pretty much using it for almost everything except for larger quantities or soup, grabbing my Staub Cocottes in its place.

Limitations

Now, the pan isn’t perfect, and it certainly isn’t the end all be all of pans, especially priced at $145 full retail. That is PRICY, and you could buy some great All-Clad pieces for that kind of money. But, it’s become one of those pieces in my kitchen that snuck up on me. Like I mentioned, I use it nearly every day, for most meals. It cleans really easily, stores really nicely, looks really good (if you care about that kind of thing). But all that said, here are where I think its limitations are, besides the price tag:

• Size: At 10-inches, it’s a pretty standard size, which is fine, but if you’re cooking for anymore than three or four people, it may be too small for you.
• Steamer Basket: While yes, this is a plus (great for steaming veggies, dumplings, boiling pasta, etc.), I also find it incredibly annoying to figure out what to do with the steamer basket while I’m cooking and not using it. It normally ends up teetering on the edge of something on my stove or shoved inconveniently on my very limited counter space. While it stores nicely when the whole pan system is not in use, when you’re using the pan but not the basket, it’s quite cumbersome.
• Heat Sensitivity: Yeah…I’m still not convinced I should be cooking in this thing on anything above medium heat. So when I boil pasta in it on high, I worry I’m leeching bad stuff into my food. The pan claims it’s free of “toxic materials like PFOAs, PTFEs, other PFAs, lead, cadmium, toxic metals, and nanoparticles,” but you know…I’m skeptical. At the very least, I’m likely ruining the nonstick quality by pushing the heat. So, that said, I tend not to use this if I need to really brown something (steaks, burgers…that kind of thing). For that, I grab my handy Lodge cast iron or my stainless steel pans.
• Top doesn’t “seal” like they say it does: So, the top has a little notch in it, specifically for the spoon to go through, but when the wooden spoon isn’t there, it can be used to release steam if you need that when cooking. In theory, the pain claims you can just twist the top to “lock it in” but I find that the top is very lightweight and doesn’t do the best job of creating a tight seal. That works for most things, but some dishes need a heavy lid. The lid does, however, work really well with the pour spouts on both sides of the pan, which is a great feature for draining liquids, fats, etc. That’s surely a plus.
• Not oven safe: I hate using anything that isn’t dishwasher or oven safe, because that’s very limiting. This cannot go in the oven (most nonstick things can’t, so pish posh) but just something of note. A properly seasoned cast iron piece is both nonstick and ovensafe so…just saying.

My Final Judgement

While I know I just rattled off all the reasons the Always Pan isn’t the best, all in all, I give it a solid 7/10, mostly because of its sheer convenience and everyday usability. If you’re an ambitious cook with lots of gadgets and copper-core pans and tons of storage, you do not need this pan. But if you’re someone who whips up some eggs, pasta, the occasional mac and cheese, a grilled cheese, chili and the like on a regular basis without steering too far from things in that realm—oh, and you have limited space—I do think it’s worth it, or at the very least it’s worth considering. Or, maybe you don’t care about any of that, but you just want something pretty to use whenever you heat up random take-out leftovers and you have some money to spend…then it’s also great.

I’m glad I waited all these months to give my full report on it, because had I written this back in February, the post would have ended a few sentences in with a big “meh” and that would have been that. But like I said, it’s really grown on me. And by the way, the nonstick is still working well enough, though sometimes when I turn the heat up a bit too much, my scrambled eggs do stick a little (fried eggs always seem to be okay). It’s a clever product, from a cool company (their emails are really great, I recommend their newsletters, FYI), that had a lot of thought put into it, which I appreciate. They recently released a new product called the Perfect Pot, which I think if you have an Always Pan and love it, that would be a nice addition to round out your kitchen, without needing much else. That one seems to be oven-safe, phew!

So…that’s where I stand on the Always Pan…close to a year after I purchased it.

I’d love to hear if you have one, what your thoughts are on it. Am I off-base? Right-on? Anything to add?

See you tomorrow, FOAS!