Nowadays, the search for safe cookware made from naturally derived materials is bigger than ever. However, in a world full of advertising it became really hard to distinguish what is really true and what are just marketing stories when it comes to healthy cookware.
Pure ceramic pans can be a great option when it comes to safe kitchen utensils(find my deep review about pure ceramic safety here). However, they are hard to find and commonly misconceived with ceramic-coated pans which have flooded the market since a few decades ago.
These pans have huge differences in the way how they are produced, the materials used, and their performance(you will find the links in this post to my in-depth articles on these topics also). However, the first important question is related to how can you tell if a ceramic pan is pure or not?
As a general rule, pure ceramic pans do not have metal parts and they are heavier than ceramic-coated ones. The body and handle of a pure ceramic pan is made from one piece, made from the same material. In ceramic-coated cookware, handle is usually attached to the metal base by welding or through the screws.
I have been using pure ceramic cookware in the last several years and In this post, I wanted to give you some tips on how to recognize it. Moreover, the article contains pictures and infographics that will help you easily distinguish which ceramic pans are pure.
Finally, pure ceramic pans are quite rare on the market, so in this article I will give you the names of some of the companies that produce this type of cookware. In this article, I reveal some important information that will help you to see more clearly what you can expect from these companies and what not.
1. How can you tell if the ceramic pan is pure?
Most of the pans(almost all) advertised as ceramic are ceramic coated and not pure ceramics but ceramic coated.
However the, ceramic I actually not made from ceramics, but it just has a ceramic appearance. If you want to see more about what ceramic actually is, how it is made and how it differs from the ceramic coating, take a look at my post here.
Now let’s turn back to the topic of how to recognize pure ceramic cookware. In the infographic below I presented visually some common differences. And the following text will cover some points more in detail.
Importantly, not all of them can be applied to each pure ceramic or ceramic-coated model but you will be able to spot at least some of them
1.THe grip of pure ceramic cookware and the body of the pan is commonly one piece made from the same material, ceramics. In some cases, a removable silicon cover is supplied with the pan.
In ceramic-coated cookware, the grip is usually metal in the base welded or connected to the pan by the screws. Sometimes the metal base is covered with a jointed plastic cover or with a removable silicon cover.
2. Even if it doesn’t need to be the case each time, in most cases inner and outer surfaces of ceramic-coated pans are in different colors. The inner part is common, with whitish ocher, or sometimes gray.
Ceramic-coated cookware is commonly colored in bright colors(usually outer surface) like blue, orange, red, purple, and green. In contrary, pure ceramic pans usually don’t have bright colors, but they are rather black or in the color of the earth(brownish).
3. In many cases in ceramic-coated cookware you can observe the metal on the edges(between the inner and outer surface). This would be never the case with pure ceramic cookware so you can use it for easy distinction
Finally, the Ceramic coated pans are commonly made from cheap, lightweight aluminum construction, sometimes joined with layers of some other metals like stainless steel. On the other side, pure ceramic pans have a solid ceramic base which is heavier and which can hold heat for a much longer time than thin metal.
An example can be Xtrema 10.5inch skillet which weights 5lb(around 2.6kg) while some heavier class 10inch ceramic coated pans weigh around 2.5lb or 1.1.kg and an example can be a Copper chef Ceramic coated pan.
All these details can be observed when you go to the shop, and you observe the pan physically. However, not all the points are presented online. So, in the following subheading, I will give you some extra tips to help you recognize ceramic.
2. How can you tell if a ceramic pan is pure? (Online search)
Bellow, there is an example of the ceramic coated product from amazon
Apart from the details mentioned in the previous subheading, some common features will be described on the online page of ceramic-coated pans.
As mentioned before you may not be able to see these signs for all of the products, but at least some of them will appear.
Many ceramic-coated products will mention some temperature limitations for the oven because the ceramic coating can be damaged or because of the Plastic grip(Oftem is made from a hard plastic called bakelite).
1.In pure ceramic cookware, you won’t see the limitations in temperature, since these utensils can withstand temperatures way higher than the ones used for everyday cooking
2.The description of ceramic-coated cookware will commonly mention that metal is used for the production of pan
3.Finally, the info page will commonly present (through description)or visually that there are multiple layers used in the production process(Sometimes a few metal layers and ceramic coating)
Finally, In the last subheading, I will give you some examples of pure ceramic pans and their pictures so you can, train” your eye to easily spot them.
3. Where to search for a pure ceramic pan?
From the knowledge that I have about this field only a few international pure ceramic pan brands are available online. This doesn’t mean that they won’t be new ones that will appear(why it will be good to know how to differentiate it from ceramic-coated cookware). Find below some examples.
Xtrema 10.5 inch skillet. One of the great things about this company was and solid cookware safety certification. They are one of the leaders in the production of pure ceramic cookware, and they have designed a wide variety of pure ceramic utensils including skillets, saucepans, and pots.
I have provided my original research bout this brand in my post here, so you can more clearly see what you can expect from their products and what not. Moreover, In the same post, I have summarized the info about the other two brands that I will mention below.
Apart from Xtrema, there are a few more internationally available pure ceramic cookware brands, Including Miriam’s earthen cookware(MEC) and Romertopf.
However, these two companies don’t produce ceramic cookware in the exact shape of the pan even though they call some of their cookware models “pan”. An example can be MEC large pan. This leaves Xtrema as one of the only(if not the only) international brands that provide pure ceramic pans in the full sense of meaning.
