So you on an induction stove, and you’re looking for the best pans and pots manufactured by All-Clad for cooking on it?
You came to the right place, as this is precisely why I wrote this post.
Induction stoves, as most of you probably know, only work with ferromagnetic cookware (pans and pots that contain enough iron for a magnet to stick to them).
When shopping for ferromagnetic cookware, home cooks like you and me have a few options, including cast iron, carbon steel, and aluminum with an iron base. But none of them offers the ease of use and hassle-free cleaning of stainless steel.
When it comes to induction cookware, few brands (if any) can rival All-Clad’s utility, quality, and longevity. All-Clad pans and pots don’t warp, heat quickly and evenly, can be cooked with in the stove or baked with in the oven, and are generally safe to clean in the dishwasher.
So, what essential pieces of cookware do you need?
If you’re looking for my advice, I recommend you get (1) a frying pan for most of your daily cooking, (2) a saucepan, which doubles down as a pot for soups and stews, and (3) a pasta pot that you can also use for blanching vegetables and seafood.
For searing and sauteing
All-Clad D3 Stainless Tri-Ply 12-Inch Fry Pan
This staple All-Clad frying pan comes from the company’s iconic D3 collection.
Its Canadian website says that the collection is designed for “new cooks looking to discover new possibilities in the kitchen.” But, if you’re looking for my two cents, this piece is just as suitable for beginners in cooking as it is for seasoned home cooks.
All-Clad also has a five-ply cookware collection called D5, comprising three layers of stainless steel clad around two layers of aluminum. While professional chefs will probably notice the difference, that’s not quite the case when you’re cooking for your family at home.
And, as America’s Test Kitchen established when they compared 15 stainless steel frying pans from the store, All-Clad’s tri-ply frying pan “performs beautifully, is easy to use, and it proved itself to be tough as nails.”
They weren’t kidding. Their team put each frying pan through a series of tests, from browning steak and making pan sauce to submerging them hot in ice water and hitting them against a concrete slab to simulate years of use. Guess which make and model won!
All-Clad’s tri-ply stainless steel frying pan is made from one layer of 18/10 stainless steel on the interior and another layer of magnetic 18/0 stainless steel on the exterior (making it induction-friendly), clad around an aluminum core for quick and even heating.
That fraction represents the percentages of chromium and nickel added to the steel alloy (respectively, 18% and 10% on the interior and 18% and 0% on the exterior).
18/10 stainless steel is considered to be the highest-grade type of steel for producing cookware. It’s sturdy, durable, and rust-resistant. It’s also dishwasher-safe, so you can keep your frying pan spotless without having to put in a ton of elbow grease leaning over the kitchen sink.
Its cooking surface is coated with All-Clad’s “starburst finish,” a special type of coating on the frying pan’s interior that makes it less sticky for high-protein, low-fat foods (don’t expect it to be as slick as PTFE or ceramic).
It’s oven-safe up to 600°F (315°C), allowing you to start a recipe on the stovetop and finish cooking it in the oven. You can even try my stainless steel pizza recipe and make the most delicious 12-inch pie.
As all cookware pieces made of fully-clad stainless steel, this frying pan is hand-crafted in the USA in All-Clad’s Pennsylvania factory. It comes with the company’s limited lifetime warranty (which I’ll tell you more about below my picks).
With a diameter of 12 inches, the thick and wide base of this frying pan gives you enough space for cooking daily for 2-3 persons. So you’ll have enough room for comfortably cooking a large steak, chicken breasts, or a few eggs at a time. This model also comes in a smaller size of 10 inches, which will set you back roughly 1/4 less than its bigger counterpart.
Go for the smaller size you cook for yourself or a household of two, and you’re buying cookware on a budget. But know that you’ll probably struggle to feed a family larger than that with a 10-inch pan.
For sauces, soups, stews, and deep-frying
All-Clad D3 Stainless Tri-Ply 4-Quart Saucepan
All-Clad’s 4-quart (3.78-liter) saucepan comes in handy whenever you need to simmer tomato sauce for pizza or pasta, make gravy for Swedish meatballs, or boil potatoes for a hearty salad.
Like my previous pick, this piece comes from All-Clad’s D3 Stainless collection. It has a tri-ply construction of two layers of stainless steel, an 18/10 interior and a magnetic 18/0 exterior, clad around an aluminum core, which allows it to heat up fast and retain that heat exceptionally well.
Thanks to the rugged build and high-quality U.S. steel used for its construction, this saucepan will go in your oven at temperatures as high as 600°F (315°C) without warping. It’s also dishwasher-safe, making clean-up, the part of home cooking so few of us like, into a breeze.
All-Clad offers this saucepan in six sizes: 1-quart, 1.5-quart, 2-quart, 3-quart, 3.5-quart, and 4-quart.
The biggest size, as you can expect, provides you with the most cooking space and versatility. But it’s also the most expensive—and price is often a limiting factor when shopping for cookware. If that’s also the case for you, go for the 3-quart size or less; it will roughly cut the price in 1/2.
For pasta, noodles, and crawfish
All-Clad D3 Stainless Steel Tri-Ply Pasta Pot
This All-Clad pasta pot weighs 9 pounds, has a capacity of 7 quarts (6.62 liters), and comes with a perforated pasta insert. The pot is made of 18/10 and magnetic 18/0 stainless steel clad around an aluminum core.
The pasta insert is a helpful accessory that keeps pasta shapes (fresh or dried) and asian noodles confined as they cook, allowing you to lift and strain them in a matter of 5-6 seconds.
People underappreciate the amount of utility that they get from something as simple as a pasta pot. With it, you can forget about carrying around a few quarts of steaming water from your stove to the sink or having to fish out noodles from the pot.
This pasta pentola doubles up as a tall pot for cooking chilis, soups, and stews. Thanks to its dimensions and even heating, you can also use it to steam vegetables and blanch crawfish.
Like the rest of my picks in this list, it’s oven- and broiler-friendly up to 600°F (315°C). The construction is tri-ply (stainless steel around clad around an aluminum core), and it’s dishwasher-safe.
Who Makes All-Clad Cookware?
Eighteen miles southwest of Pittsburgh is the small town of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, where U.S. company All-Clad has been manufacturing some of the best stainless steel cookware on the market since 1971.
All-Clad was founded by John Ulam, a renowned metallurgist with 75 patents who knew all about the art and craft of shaping metals. Early on in his career, Ulam found that “the combination of different metals created composites that yielded superior results,” the company’s website says.
To turn his discovery into a business, Ulan founded the company as a general producer of clad steel.
At first, All-Clad made dimes, quarters, and fifty cents for the government, and its technology helped the United States shift from solid silver coins to the layered metals in coins used today, the Trib Live reports.
Ulam loved to cook, so, one day, he decided to turn a leftover piece of metal in his factory into a frying pan. He ended up liking it so much, he made a few more and sold them to his friends. He even sold a few at a local fair. In 1988, All-Clad focused solely on producing cookware.
In 2004, Ulam’s company became part of the French cookware consortium Groupe SEB, which owns some of the best-known cookware and consumer appliance brands on the market, including Tefal, WMF, Krups, Rowenta, and Moulinex, to name a few.
What Makes All-Clad Cookware So Good?
Those of you into cookware know that not all frying pans are created equal. Even among those made of stainless steel, the difference between makes and models can be as big as night and day.
In general, there are two types of stainless steel cookware. The first type is made of 100% stainless steel, and the other of stainless steel layers clad around another metal that more capable of conducting heat.
The consensus in the cookware community is that clad cookware is generally better than its 100% stainless steel cousin, as it heats up faster and holds on to that heat more evenly.
What makes All-Clad pans and pots different from those of most other brands is the fact that their cladding isn’t just limited to the bottom of the vessel (a cheaper technology also known as “disc bottom cookware”) but extends all the way to its sides.
Cladding all the way to the edge (hence the name for All-Clad) yields cookware that heats up remarkably even, which won’t overheat on the bottom or scorch food all around the edges.
It’s also about the technical expertise and quality of inputs. All-Clad’s pans and pots continue to be made in the United States today, with high-quality American steel and following John Ulam’s production processes.
They come with a limited lifetime warranty. Any defective cookware will get repaired or replaced, as long as you’ve used it in a usual way and you followed the care instructions in the owner’s guide.
This is why All-Clad products are so expensive at the end of the day, especially compared to Chinese cookware brands in the store. When you buy from this brand, you’re not just paying for a single piece of cookware.
You’re signing up for the lifetime of convenience, reliability, and service that comes with it.
