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Nowadays, when awareness about a healthy diet is getting more and more important, in a world where we became surrounded by fast food and bad eating habits, we are trying to improve our diets and reduce the number of unhealthy oils, carbs, and sugars that we take.
We are trying to introduce new routines in our daily cooking to achieve this, and preparing food without oil is commonly one of them. However, it can be a great challenge, especially if we want to avoid cooking with conventional non-stick cookware that brings its own health concerns.
Stainless steel can be a durable, scratch-resistant, and convenient alternative to non-stick cookware. However, one question often pops out.
Can we cook on stainless steel without using oil?
In general, some food ingredients can be very efficiently fried in stainless steel without any oil such as meat, mushrooms, or non-starchy vegetables. On the other side frying delicate food like pancakes, eggs, or starch reach veggies like potatoes requires some amount of oils to be applied before frying.
In this post, I will share with you some home experiments with stainless steel cookware where I have fired various food ingredients without oil. Moreover, I will compare the results of cooking with the same ingredients with and without oil, and provide you with some comparison pictures and insides in the differences in taste, texture, and more.
Additionally, for the ingredients where I found that cooking with oil is making a big difference(in a positive way), I will provide you with exact quantities of oil that I have used, so you can decide if these quantities are something that would be applicable in your case also.
Finally, I will cover some of the important FAQs on frying with stainless steel. This will include topics from deciding which oil/fats will be best to use for frying to the step-by-step strategies on how to make your stainless steel nonstick.
So let’s jump straight to the article.
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1. Do you need oil to cook on stainless steel?
In my experiments, I have tested the frying of several different ingredients with and without oil including
-3 types of veggies(brussels sprouts, eggplant and zucchinis)
-2 types of meat cuts(chicken breast and pork shoulder steak)
–Eggs on 2 ways(sunny eggs and scrambled ones)
For frying, I used my 12-inch Misen stainless steel pan, which has shown great performance in my previous cooking, so I decided to use it also in this experiment. Moreover, n I wrote down the in-depth review after half a year of using this great skillet, so you can take a look at it here in case you are planning to add a new stainless steel skillet to your kitchen at one point.
For each of the ingredients, I have used a similar pan heating setup, where I preheated the pan for around 3 minutes on the highest heat( 6 out of 6).
After this time I reach the point where I could have splashed some cold water onto the pan bottom, and observed water balls that dances across the skillet’s surface.
This was the point when I would have started adding up the food straight to the pan(or the oil first and the food just after). After this, I would have reduced the heat to medium-high (3-4 out of 6) till the end of the cooking process
*Mentioned practices are something that I commonly use to make stainless steel more non-stick about which I have written more in detail in the second subheading.
Nevertheless, let’s see what were the results of the experiments:
1.1.Nonstarchy veggies:
I have chosen several common nonstarchy vegetables to see how each of them behaves. I fried eggplant, zucchini, and Brussels sprouts chopped on the way shown in the pictures below.
Veggies fried with 10g of Raphined sunflower oil
Veggies without any oil
Results
Sticking of food– I found out that both veggies fried without oil and the ones with oil didn’t stick to the pan surface almost at all, and I could wash the pan after it easily with a few moves of a sponge and a soap. The oiled frying pan took a little more care to remove the remaining oil, but in both cases, washing didn’t take me more than 2-3min to finish.
The flavor and texture of the food– Both veggies fried in an oiled and nonoiled pan got a nice brown crust. The oiled pan gave a more distinctive and crunchy crust, but just a bit. Veggies fired without oil were a little more dry compared to the ones prepared on an oiled pan. However, this can be easily adjusted by splashing a little water( e.g. quarter cup in this case) on top of the veggies, which turns back moisture to them.
Conclusion- Frying nonstarchy veggies like broccoli, chary tomatoes (noncut), bruxellsprouts, eggplant, zucchinis, and others is quite convenient in the frying pan. Actually, this is one of the practices that I take quite often in my kitchen. You just need to be careful that you don't burn veggies when you cook without oil since they can stick quite harder to a pa compared to when there is some oil (Find more about adjusting the right frying temperature with stainless steel in the next chapter). Finally, if you notice that your veggies are getting a little dry you can sprinkle some water to keep them juicy.
1.2.Meat cuts
I have chosen to do the test with bone-in pork shoulder steak as a representative of the meat cut that has some inner fat and the chicken breast as a meat cut without almost any internal grease.
The internal grease could be a great source of frying fat for frying without the need to add any additional oil, so I wanted to demonstrate that.
Additionally, I wanted to show how meat cut without almost any fat(chicken breast) behaves when fried without oil.
*Both types of meat cuts used in the experiment have been seasoned with little table salt, while the chicken breast has been additionally covered with green pepper flakes for purpose of adding aroma.
Pork shoulder steaks fired with 10g of Extra virgin olive
Pork shoulder steaks fired without any oil
Left -Chicken breast fired with 10g of sunflower oil
Right-Chicken breast fried without an oil
Results
Sticking of food-Both types of meat cuts didn’t stick at all in an oiled and nonoiled fry pan.
However, I would once again highlight the importance of a proper heating setup for getting the best stainless steel nonstick performance. (See the second chapter).
In addition, regardless of the meat cut I use(chicken or pork), both nonoiled and oiled pan setups left the beautiful meat fond after frying. This is something commonly observed with meat frying on stainless steel(but also cast iron, carbon steel, and other non-coated metal cookware)
Fond is the term for the pieces of meat, and meat liquids that passed through a Browning reaction(proteins and sugars reacting under high heat) which brings amazing aroma.
The best way to valorize the fond is to add a bit of water, stock, or wine to the pan, which turns into an amazing sauce for your meat and side dish. This is exactly what I did after cooking.
After this, the cleaning in both oiled and nonold versions of the pan went easy as explained for cleaning after veggies. Additionally, you can clean the pan while the fond is still on it, and it won’t take any additional effort. The only thing is that in this case, you will lose the delicious fond.
The flavor and texture of the food– The pork shoulder steak has a certain amount of fat which was released during the cooking process. This gave the dish an amazing crunchy crust just like in the case of the pork meat cuts prepared with oil. In the case of the Chicken breast, the nonoiled version gave a little more crunchy crust and more juicy meat.
Conclusion- Frying meta cuts that contain some fat in them is quite convenient when it comes to frying without oil in stainless steel. This is something that I apply commonly, and get repeatedly good results from my point of view. Additionally, keep in mind that if you fry e.g. chicken thighs or breast with the skin on(Where the grease is below the skin) you can put the meat cuts in the cold pan without preheating up. Additionally, you can stab the skin several times with a knife before cooking. This will allow the grease to pass the skin slowly. Frying fatless meat cuts without fat on the nonoiled pan is also possible, but they get a little less crunchy and juicy compared to the oiled fry pan setup.
1.3. Eggs
I have compared the frying of 3 eggs in the sunny-side-up form or as scrambled eggs.
Scrambled eggs with 10ml of sunflower oil(picture 1) and without oil (picture2)
Sunny-side-up eggs with 10ml of sunflower oil
Sunny side-up eggs with 10ml of sunflower oil
Sunny side-up eggs without any oil
Results
Sticking of food In both cases(scrambled and sunny-side-up eggs) sticking occurred more distinctively in the non-oiled fry pan setup compared to the oiled one. It seemed that scrambled eggs stuck less.
My explanation for this is that in the case of scrambled effs the egg yolk that contains some fat is mixed with egg white(Mainly water and proteins). This potentially provides additional lubrication(nonsticking effect). Moreover, in the sunny-side-up eggs mainly egg white, poor in lipids, is in contact with the pan surface which can cause sticking.
The cleaning after the scrambled eggs cooked without oil required sponge soap and some effort more than in the case of veggies and meat. Cleaning after sunny eggs required much more effort and elbow grease. However, in both cases, steel wool was making cleaning much easier compared to using just soap and a sponge.
The flavor and texture of the food– The texture and taste were kind of the same for egg versions(scrambled or sunny-side-up) between nonoiled and oiled pan setups. However, I noticed that scrambled eggs got a little burnt taste when cooked without oil.
Conclusion-Frying delicate food like eggs with little oil(5ml on a 12-inch pan) makes a big difference compared to frying without any oil. When a bit of oil is not applied eggs stick much more and they get burned more easily.
1.4.Final Conclusions-Frying in Stainless steel With oil Vs Without oil
Flying on delicate food pancakes, eggs, starchy food like potato fries, or even making popcorn is something where I found a very distinctive difference when applying oil and when not. In the first place, this is related to food sticking and the effort required for cleaning after.
However, with some food, it also affects the taste, and the possibility to make a satisfying dish at all(pancakes, scrambled eggs, or potato fries). So adding just a little of the oil(5-10g ) is usually enough to get many better results.
In the end, if you are wondering, which oils are good to use for frying with stainless steel pans, do they lose their nutritious value(or even become harmful) after being exposed to heat you can read more in the following FAQ part of the post.
Finally, if you are wondering about the proper stainless steel heating setup, and the explanation behind it you can go straight to the following subheading.
2. Why does preheating stainless steel make it nonstick?
If you have just started to use stainless steel, or you still haven’t but you read some of the reviews about stainless steel cookware, you probably came across the problem of food sticking.
Additionally, if you searched more about this topic, you may see some blog posts and videos showing how to make your stainless steel pan nonstick with a short preheating step and adding up a little oil.
However, some questions pop up here. For instance, why does preheating the stainless steel pan help with its nonstick effect, and when is the exact moment when you should add the oil and food to get the best nonstick performance?
In this chapter, I will answer both questions starting with the first one.
The preheating of stainless steel cookware causes the closing of the micro pores that exist on the metal exterior due to heat expansion of the material. This provides a smoother and sleeker surface which prevents food from getting into the pores which cause sticking.
Finally, when the food makes the first touch with the hot surface it usually changes its structure and forms a crust. This prevents food from later sticking when even when the cools down and pores open up again.
Now the explanation is there, however, in case you have some doubts about how to preheat your stainless steel pan and make it nonstick, then the upcoming guide is right for you.
There I will give you a step-by-step guide on the process I optimized to make my stainless steel pans nonstick after years of cooking with this type of cookware.
2.1.How to preheat stainless steel at the right temperature to make it nonstick? (Step-By-Step guide)
One common test is applied by cooks around the world.
Moreover, after many years of using stainless steel, I could say that I found it very practical in my kitchen also.
It is called the “Water ball test” or, Mercury ball test”. However, it is quite a simple thing, why most of the cooks use it in the end.
First step– It all starts with preheating the pan on high or high middle heat( e.g. 4-6 out of 6 on the stove).
Second step– After 2-3 min of heating up you start by splashing some tap water onto the pan. Furthermore, you repeat sprinkling a few water drops of water every 15-30 sec.
When the pan is still not heated enough you will see that the water droplets start to form bubbles after touching the preheated surface and evaporates slowly.
Third step– In one moment you will observe that water forms balls and dances across the surface. This is called the Leiden frost effect and it starts at temperatures over 150C. Moreover, this is the best moment for adding oil followed immediately by food.
If oil is left on the preheated pan for longer than a few seconds it can start to smoke and degradation which I was writing in detail in the next chapter, where I addressed the example of olive oil.
To illustrate the water behavior better I have created a little video guide, which you can find below.
* This is one of the first videos that I published on youtube back in time when I was just starting to learn about making a good video composition. It has some drawbacks like not being too dynamic but I believe it can give a good visual representation of how to preheat stainless steel properly 🙂
However, you may come to the question if the pan can be preheated too high?
The short answer will be yes. Moreover, the preheating of the pan will bring to food burning which causes more serious sticking.
However, the overheated pan can be also spotted easily by using the presented “Water ball test”.
In case you preheated the pan and sprinkle a little water, the water drops will act by immediately dispersing into a lot of small droplets on the pan surface(Also demonstrated in the video above).
However, it is not a big deal. This means you only need to put your pan on a side for 5-10 seconds before testing it again with the water balls.
It is good to say that there is no clear line when the pan is overheated when using the “Water ball test“.
A good tip here will be to start adding up the food in the pan as soon as you observe the water balls dancing(Leidenfrost effect) or some seconds later (e.g. 5-10 sec). In most cases, this will keep you at the perfect temperature.
Finally, A few tips regarding adding the food to the preheated pan can be quite useful, especially if you are just starting to cook with stainless steel.
- Reducing heat after adding food– After putting the food in I would reduce the heat from high(5-6 out of 6) to medium-high (3-4 out of 6) till the end of the cooking process. Otherwise, the food sticks and gets burned because of too high temperature.
Initial heat-up is there to compensate for the temperature reduction that will haven when you put food (obviously food is usually much colder than the surface of the pan), and keep the pan enough hot so that the pores on the surface are still closed.
Additionally, this initial touch of food with a very hot surface helps the the formation of initial food crust so there won’t be sticking later.
*The exceptions of this initial heating up and then reduction of temperature can be the case when you constantly move the food and fry for a very short period (common for sauteing or stir fry). - All ingredients prepared for frying– Before heating the pan it is good to be sure you have all of the food prepared(chopped and seasoned if you are paned) so you can add it to the pan just after adding oil.
- Avoiding cold shock– To avoid big differences between pan temperatures and food, avoid frying the food directly from the fridge. Contact with cold food will cause a big drop in pan temperature and consequently lose the nonstick effect due to the opening of the pores.
So, It’s better to let your food rest at room temperature for a bit (e.g. 1-2h) before putting it in your properly heated pan.
Now when we passed through the tips on how to make your stainless steel pan non-stick by preheating it will be important also to mention some exceptions. In other words, in some cases preheating is not the best practice for reducing food sticking.
2.2.Exception of the pan preheating rule” Cooking the meat cuts with skin on
Finally, there are some exceptions for every role. The same is true for preheating the stainless steel before adding food to get a good nonstick performance.
In food that already has a high amount of fat like bacon, pork shoulder steak, or chicken thighs usually, there is no need for preheating the pan or even adding oil (the exception could be skin-on meat when I would recommend adding a few milliliters of oil before food).
In all of the mentioned cases, you want to add the food to a cold pan(with little in mentioned cases or not at all) and start to heat it up gradually. You can start with a medium heating setup(e.g. 3 out of 6) and when the food releases the fat, increase to medium-high(4-5 out of 6).
Now after providing you tips from my experience on how to heat up the stainless steel and when to add up oil, I will provide referenced scientific information on what oil can be the best choice for fry.
For that, I will stick to the example of olive oil which is one of the best oils for fry(according to scientific papers I referred to), contrary to common beliefs
3. Can you use olive oil in a stainless steel pan?
It is commonly believed that olive oil is not a good choice for frying purposes. However, a good question is if scientific evidence is supporting this claim or not. So, can you use the olive oil in stainless steel pan?
Olive oil can be used for frying in a stainless steel pan. Moreover, when temperatures up to 180–190 °C are applied olive oil shows better frying performance compared to other vegetable oils. This performance can be reflected in reduced oil oxidation and degradation.
In the following text, I will go deeper into this topic and provide you with the corresponding scientific references.
In addition, it will be important to mention that thermal exposure of olive oil(as well as other vegetable oils) leads to a fast loss of its nutritional properties like the content of vitamin E. So, I would touch on this aspect of using the oils for frying in the text that follows.
One of the comprehensive scientific publications about the use of olive oil for cooking purposes, done by researchers from the University of Porto, has gathered information from more than 20 scientific studies on olive oil behavior under different cooking conditions and thermal processing. (1)
In conclusion, they have summarized the following:
“ When processed under normal cooking conditions, with temperatures up to 180–190 °C as usual in frying and roasting, olive oil performance is comparable or better than other vegetable oils.”
When it comes to deep frying with olive oil the same paper concluded that In comparison with other vegetable oils, olive oil has a lower formation of degradation products due to the bioactive and antioxidant compounds that it comprises.
However, many studies have shown that highly valued bioactive compounds of olive oil like the phenolic compounds and tocopherols(vitamin E and its derivatives) are almost depleted after a short heating period(1, 2).
A good example can be the study from 2009, which has shown the rapid loss of tocopherols in olive oil after heating up in the pan(See the graph below). They have used Extra-virgin olive oil(EVOO) and olive oil(OO) of two different brands/origins(ARA and ARB)
In conclusion, olive oil can be used with stainless steel and it is even more desirable to use it than other vegetable oils for most frying applications (except for fry techniques that include very high heat such as searing meat or stir fry/sautee veggies, mushrooms etc.)
Additionally, to keep olive oils’ nutritional value as much as possible, it will be good to minimize the time of cooking, and used temperatures. One practical tip for avoiding the exposure of oil to high heat is to make sure that you never keep the oil in an empty pan for a prolonged time but to try adding food right after the oil.
When the food is added to the pan, the temperature of the pan surface drops down and doesn’t go as nearly as high as in the case when the pan is preheated empty.
Finally, instead of covering the bottom of the pan just partially with food, and leaving some space, it can be good to try covering most of the surface with food. This way there won’t be empty parts of the pan that will overheat and thus impact the oil on top.
In the end, even though many people use vegetable oils for frying purposes, the fats like butter can also be a grease of choice. To see more about the butter advantages and disadvantages in the frying process take a look at the next chapter.
4. Can you use butter on stainless steel?
Butter can be used for frying with stainless steel cookware. However, it is important to avoid heating the empty pan with butter for a long time. Heating the butter over the smoking point at 150C causes the degradation of butter fats followed by oxidative processes, which lover butter’s nutritional value and even produce harmful products.
We love to use butter for frying everything from veggies and fries to fish and poultry. It gives the recognizable flavor, that many of us enjoy.
However, some of the high-heat cooking applications of Stainless steel cookware should be carefully applied when the butter is used. A good example could be searing meat, sauteing, or stir fry.
These techniques often involve more serious preheating of the cookware before adding the food. Because of that that, in case you apply the butter, it will be increasingly important to add it right before the food(e.g. a few seconds).
Additionally, covering the pan with food while not leaving empty parts will prevent the creation of overheated spots, and thus reduce the exposure of the butter to additional heat.
Heating butter over the smoking point at 150C causes degradation processes where complex fat molecules(triacylglycerols) are broken down to their forming compounds (glycerol and free fatty acids)(3.)
During heating, these components can break down further into products that are not favorable to the flavor and health effects of the food.
The smoking point can be generally observed as a bluish smoke that comes above the fats of oils heated up too much(3.). This phenomenon can be a good indicator that you have overheated the grease and that accelerated degradation of oil/fat molecules is happening.
And for the ones interested in the chemistry of smoking point appearance, it comes mainly from the compound called acrolein (2-propenal), which derives from the thermal degradation of the mentioned fat-forming compound called glycerol. )(3.)
Here is an example of cooking in my 12-inch stainless steel pan with 10g of butter which gave a beautiful crust to the veggies that I prepared.
Finally, before applying the butter as a grease of choice for frying I would like to add up a few things worth considering.
It is good to mention that vegetable oils have been shown to reduce the risks of high bad cholesterol and cardiovascular diseases why many people started to replace the use of butter and other fats.
As the Harvard Public health Magazine concluded
"Scientists around the world simultaneously showed that saturated fat—the kind in butter and lard—increases both “bad” LDL cholesterol and “good” HDL cholesterol, making it similar to carbohydrates overall but not as beneficial to health as polyunsaturated fats from nuts and vegetables.”
Because of this, you may start to think about replacing the butter from daily applications and keeping it for these few special dishes that you love, especially because they are fried in butter.
Finally, before closing up this article about frying with stainless steel I would like to cover one more topic that may be interesting to you.
5.What is the best oil to use with stainless steel in general?
In the previous chapter, I challenged the myths like: ,,Stainless steel requires oil for frying most of the dishes“ or „Olive oil is No no, option when it comes to stainless steel frying“.
However, one question stays. What are the best oils to use for Srying with stainless steel in general? Is there one oil that can be considered best for all frying purposes?
As demonstrated in the previous chapter, olive oil can be a great option for frying, especially for frying techniques that doesnt include very high temperatures (e.g. cooking on the highest stovetop setup for more than a few minutes).
However, when applying cooking techniques that require very high temperatures(e.g. 5 out 6 or 6 out of 6 on stovetop heat level) such as searing the meat or stir frying/sautee small food chops I tend to use the oils with higher smoking points.
Among others, avocado oil is one that I use the most since it is quite neutral and it has one of the highest smoking points among vegetable oils which reaches over 250C(3).
As explained previously, the smoking point of an oil or fat is the temperature when the oil/fat molecules start rapidly to degrade, which leads to the loss of their nutritional value and the formation of polymerised fats/oils (brownish sticky residues that form on the pan after overheating of oil or fat). So to avoid such outcomes I commonly use avocado oil.
And what brand of oil to choose? Well, there is no one answer to this. On the market(online and in grocery shops) there are dozens of cooking oil brands.
However, the story of how I found the cooking oil brand I use often now is quite funny. I have the luck to live just next to one of the biggest producers of artisanal oil, Tourangelle, which comes from the small town of Samur in western France close to the city where I live now.
Thanks to the proximity to such an oil production company, many restaurants, shops, and markets are using their products, which made me lucky to discover them.
Among the many artisanal oils they produce(from hazelnut to pumpkin seed and walnut oils), they have a great line of organic extra virgin olive oil as well as avocado oil.
Moreover, I have discovered that they are used by many people around the world and that they have global delivery services (including Amazon stores in most of the countries) which makes me happy since I can find their oils in groceries and online stores almost wherever I go.
So, you may also find Tourangelle organic extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil as good options, as they are from my experience. (Find links to Amazon for both of them).
Finally, there are many brands of olive and (sometimes)avocado oil you can discover big supermarkets, which may be also an interesting place for searching the vegetable oil brands you will enjoy to use.
6. Are there some other nonstick cookware alternatives where you don’t need to use oil?
Apart from stainless steel, several other alternatives to conventional nonstick cookware are worth noticing including carbon steel and cast iron. Unlike the ceramic coated or Teflon cookware they need to be usually preheated before getting the desired nonstick effect(for the same reason as the stainless steel).
These cookware pieces can be used with little or no oil as presented in the case of Stainless steel.
On the recommendations page of Safetouseit, you will find a list of the nonstick alternatives of some brands that I use and practical information about them(including some testing tutorials in the cases like carbon steel).
This can be a helpful guideline to give you some directions during your search for the cookware pieces that will fit your cooking style the best
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