Sardel stainless steel pan(In-depth owners review)

*Sardel offers a trial period of 30 days on their cookware during which you can test the utensils and turn them back to the company without the need for an explanation and you got money back(In the US Sardel covers the costs of return shipping)

Kee takeaways

One of the things that immediately left me with a great impression was the lightweight and well-looking design of this 5ply pan. Later after months of weekly use, the absence of warping showed me that the pan is well built and from high-quality materials as the company claimed.

One of the Sardel limitations is that it doesn’t ship to Europe. However, in the Shipping chapter of this article, I will give you tips on how I have overcome this with a service called My US, which I was using to ship from the US to Europe. Finally, the Sardel 12-inch stainless steel skillet costs 115$(December 2022) without discount, however, price reductions are available during different big dates throughout the year which lowers the cost by 10-30% or even more.

Who should buy this product

After almost a year of using this pan, I felt like it would be a great piece for people who already have experience with SS cookware and looking for some good quality 5ply pan to play with. Moreover, I found the pan great for people who are just starting with stainless steel.

I noticed that some members of my family who don’t cook often started to use this pan from time to time while commenting that they like lightweightness and elegant design. Additionally, this pan( like stainless steel cookware in general) is quite easy to maintain(See the maintenance chapter), which was an additional factor for them to use it.

I would say that a Sardel 12-inch pan is great for most of the frying techniques, including sauteing, searing, and shallow fry of eggs. Moreover, the pan has walls that are not steep and allow great vapor release important during frying. Finally, even though it is lightweight, I would say that a 12-inch pan is a little too wide for turning in the air and flipping e.g. pancakes and I would rather recommend a 10-inch one for that task.

Regarding the size of the meals, I found the 12-inch pan very good for preparing meals for 2-3 persons while I feel that a 10-inch skillet will be great for 1-2persons. However, you can see more about the food quantities that I was able to prepare in this pan in the last chapter about choosing the right size of the pan.

1. Pan weight and design

My first impression of the Sardel 12-inch pan was its lightweightness and well-looking design, I was holding different 12-inch stainless steel pans before, but this one left me an outstanding impression of how light it is.

When I measured the weight it was exactly 1.42kg/3.13lb.

Finally, it will be good to say that compared to carbons steel or cast iron pieces full-clad stainless steel is far heavier. An example can be a comparison with some of the iconic cast iron pans from Lodge which weights 5lb(2.3kg) for a size of only 10.25inch or Misens carbon steel pan which weighs around 3lb/1.7kg for a 10-inch skillet.

Unlike some heavier pans, Sardel stainless steel skillet was quite convenient for tossing the food during sauteing veggies or tofu. However, for flipping pancakes, it was not so handy. Moreover, I believe that a 10inch version of the pan will be ideal for that

The pan construction is based on 5plyed Stainless steel which means that the pan body consists of 5 layers of metal. In such construction, two outer layers of the pan, and the middle one are made from stainless steel while the rest two layers are from aluminum which maximizes the heat transfer speed.

It is good to mention that some other brands offer 5-ply stainless steel for similar prices, however, Sardel showed that the quality of it is material is on a high level since it withstood intensive use without any deformations(See durability chapter)

Another interesting point about the design was that the pan walls weren’t pretty steep, which should allow great evaporation capacity important for frying. Additionally, this is something that I could confirm in practice. During e.g.frying mushrooms or meat, it was great to see the intensive vapor release.

In the end, I wanted to measure the cooking pan bottom diameter was around 24.5cm/9.64 inches. Some other 12-inch pans I have used had bigger bottom surfaces a bit, however, I was quite comfortable using this pan to prepare meals for 2-3 persons which I was also aiming for. (See ‘the Subheading “The size of the pan and which one to choose“)

The skillet handle was quite comfortable to hold and not slippery.

However, It is good to say that, the preference for handle design and skillet weight may not be in line perfectly with the opinions of others, since we are all different in body size, weight, and hand size. However, I believe that these observations can be a starting point to know what you can expect.

Finally, the Sardel sells 12-inch stainless steel lids for its pans as an addition, which is great since many brands didn’t have this option(e.g. Misen brand that I was also using a lot in the last months).

2. Heating spreading, retention, and responsiveness

To test the heating responsiveness, retention, heating up of a handle, and heat spreading performance I have been using an Infrared thermometer. However, there I found one important difficulty to overcome here.

Using the Infrared thermometer with a shiny surface can be problematic, and polished stainless steel is not an exception(1).

In the other words, the IC thermometer was showing much lower temperatures with a reflective surface of Stainless steel than it actually is.

In the picture below you will be able to see IC thermometer measurements of around 56C or 132F while just a cm away the water is boiling(temperatures of around 100C/212F or higher)

Because of that, I needed to find something that I can pour on top of the pan during heating so I can use it as a reference for measuring the temperature of the surface of the pan.

As I described in some other of my posts about testing the stainless steel heating up, I figured out the simple drop of oil showed to be a good reference for temperature measuring with an Infrared thermometer.

I confirmed this by putting the drop of water and the drop of oil next to each other in the pan that was slowly heated up. In this case, I was able to see that boiling of the water is the time when the temperature of the oil drop shows around 100C/212F and more

*I took the picture a little later than the moment when the water started to boil, so the pan temperature already rose.

So, after setting up the testing methodology right I was ready to challenge the pan.

As a part of the first test, I wanted to measure the pan heating “responsiveness “. It could be described as a measure of how fast the pan can get hot after exposing it to a hot stovetop. Fo that I have turned the stovetop with the pan on the highest setup. I measure the pan to reach 180C(the temperature I commonly use for starting frying with SS) in around 52-53sec.

Being able to heat up the pan for less than a minute to desired working temperature was a more than the satisfying result for me.

The next thing to challenge was the heat retention of the pan. I found out that After increasing the pan temperature to 200C/356F on the stovetop and moving it to a wooden board it keeps the temperature of 100C/212F for less than a minute. So like with other full-clad stainless steel pans you shouldn’t expect they will hold your dishes warm too long.

Additionally, I measured the heating up of a handle, which showed me that the handle hadn’t heated up more than 30 C/86F at around 5 cm distance from the handle-pan joint even when the pan was 200C/392F. This was proof of a good handle design.

Finally, I wanted to test the heat-spreading performance of the pan. To observe that I have used a stovetop with a smaller surface than the bottom of the pan. The stovetop diameter was around 18cm or 7 inches while the pan bottom was around 24.5cm/9.64 inches as mentioned above.

This helped me to challenge how much of the heat the pan will transfer out of the contact surface with the stovetop.

I heated the stove on the lowest heating setting, and leave it for some time when I observed that the stove temperature is constant (around 200-210C/390-410F on different points of the stovetop). After that, I put the room-temperature pan on top. After 15 sec I added the oil on top of the pan to avoid the problems of measuring the temperature of the stainless steel directly as explained above and started the measurements on different points of the pan

*The red line presents the edge of the stove below the pan

I found out that the temperature of the pan started to drop in areas that are not in contact with the stove as expected. However, the pan showed a great temperature transfer since the pan’s bottom corners which were around 3cm away from direct contact with the stove, showed a drop of the temperature compared to the pan’s middle just around 16%.

From a subjective point of view, this 16% doesn’t seem like a lot, however, I will use this test to compare different pans in the cookware comparisons post that I will make where these numbers will have more objective meaning.

3. Non-stick performance and behavior with different dishes

The nonstick performance of stainless steel is all about preheating the pan to a good temperature.

As I have mentioned elsewhere in my posts about stainless steel cookware, its surface is covered with tiny pores and fissures. Moreover, when metal warms up, it expands and these pores get closed.

However, when preheating the pan and reaching a nonstick effect it is important to not go too much since an overheated skillet will get burnings on your food that also causes sticking

Overheating can happen from time to time when you are just starting to cook with stainless steel(At least it was like that during my beginnings). Nevertheless, with a few good tips on how to preheat your pan to the right temperature, you can get an amazing nonstick effect with your stainless steel skillet. In my post, about cooking with stainless tell without oil I shared these tips as a simple guide.

However, you may come to one question

Should all of the stainless steel pans have the same nonstick performance since they are all from different grades of stainless steel that are quite similar in composition?

I would say that it will be a pretty valid conclusion, with one thing that I add up to that.

Even if the material is similar in different stainless steel skillets, the heat distribution and retention properties are not the same in all pieces. Additionally, since the stainless steel nonstick effects closely rely on the ”right temperature”, the nonstick performance among different stainless steel utensils can vary.

Non-even heating causes the existence of hot and cold surfaces on the pan. Some of the m can be too low to get a nonstick effect while others can cause food burning.

And the existence of these ”hot and cold” spots are common because the cooktops that we use are not heating up the same at every inch of the cooktop surface.

Moreover, the pans are the ones that are not capable sometimes to distribute the heat even when espoused to heating like this.

One of the electric stovetops that I use from time to time can be a good example. The schema below presents the temperatures of different stovetop parts after 30sec of heating up on the highest setup.

During the IC thermometer tests, as presented in the previous subheading I have observed quite good heat-spreading performance. However, such conclusions won’t be complete if there were no real-life cooking experiences to support that.

So, during many months of using Sardel stainless steel pan, my goal was to see a test skillet with different stovetops and different dishes to confirm that the pan transfers the heat evenly in an efficient way.

I have used the pan with the dishes that I prepare in exactly the same way(and from the same ingredients) for a long time. Based on this it is easy to get an impression if Sardel stainless steel skillet was doing a good job or not.

Finally, my weekly cooking practices with this pan and some well-known recipes just supported the impression that the pan provides an efficient heat transfer performance.

4. Durability

I have been using the pan a few times a week for almost a year.

Moreover, In some of the places where I have been, I didn’t have access to stovetops enough wide for 12inch so I used it on the smaller ones. (I won’t recommend doing this since it stresses the material a lot.)

However, even after all these uses, cooking many dishes and exposing the pan to different cooktops, the Sardel stainless steel skillet has stayed in good shape without signs of warping.

This was a good sign of high material quality and good construction design. Moreover, it was once again proved that even the pans from the low middle price range can show outstanding quality like some costly brands that cost a few hundred dollars or euros.

One amazing thing about Sardel is that it offers 30 day trial period during which you can test the cookware as much as you want. Moreover, if you found that tested utensil (s) doesn’t fit your needs the best you can turn them Sardel without explanation and you got your money back.

In addition, if you live in the In US Sardel covers the costs of return shipping! So, you really don’t have anything to lose if you are curious to test the Sardels cookware.

Finally, Sardel company gives a Limited lifetime guarantee, which means that the reclamation rights are given to the original purchaser and not to other people.

I didn’t have a direct experience with product replacements or other reclamations so I could not say how well it works in practice.

However, I could say I had a quite quick response to my questions whenever I contacted Sardels customer support.

Moreover, Sardel doesn’t ship directly out of the US, so I was using a third-party company service to get the cookware to Europe where I am based (See the chapter about the shipping). Nevertheless, I had a very smooth exchange with customer service to give them a few steps to follow to send me a package via the service I was using.

5. Cleaning

Like most stainless steel pieces cleaning is easy, and usually requires a few minutes of cleaning with a sponge and soap.

A good practice is to clean the cookware while it is still warm. E.g I usually, finish preparing something in a pan and continue cooking something else or serving the food. This gives a few minutes or more for the pan to cool down, after which I take to clean it.

Another convenient thing is that stainless steel cookware is compatible with the dishwasher, so it can go straight there after cooking. It is only good to consider the pan size before planning to use the dishwasher since a 12-inch pa could not always fit(it was the case with my dishwasher)

Finally, even though the routine cleaning of the stainless steel is easy and convenient there are a few cases that require little more than that.

Firstly, when you are just starting with stainless steel cookware some burning can occur so food can stick a little more seriously to the pan. Secondly, when you use a pan for several months and you are not always cleaning the bottom. Then grease may polymerize and create the brownish film.

In this case, you may do the job again with the sponge and soap, or by applying stainless steel wool which is perfectly compatible with stainless steel cookware. It will just take more time compared to routine cleaning.

However, this more serious cleaning can be done much easier with the application of baking soda. Finally, in the article that is coming soon here, you will be able to find a few straightforward steps on how to clean stainless steel efficiently by applying just water and baking soda in

6. Shipping

Many cookware companies based in the US ship to the US, Canada, and sometimes the UK. Moreover, some of them started to bring their products to Amazon so so they became available in some countries where Amazon services operate.

However, this draws the limitations for purchasing such cookware in most countries around the globe. Till recently, I was getting quite struggling to obtain some products. However, I have discovered a service called My Us. Maybe some of you are familiar with it, or you even use It frequently, but for me, it was a big breakthrough.

The service allows shipping the products from the US to more than 220 countries, including Europe where I have been based (France, Serbia, and Estonia..). Moreover, before started using it, it was quite challenging for me to get some of the products from the US.

From my experience, I have been able to get the delivery of ordered items for prices much more affordable than FedEx or UPS. Additionally, My US simplified one of the things that I really don’t like which is fulfilling papers required for customs.

Regarding the shipping price amount, they have been based mainly on the weight of the product. Only when the packages with dimensions bigger than 72 inches (183 cm) length + width + height the size taken into account for shipping and you can estimate expected shipping costs on their website.

Probably, some other companies will appear(or already exists) with similar or even better services for shipping to the US, which will be great to see. My US was just one of the convenient was that I have found for getting cookware and other items from the United States.

7. The size of the pan and which one to choose?

I would say that a 12-inch pan was most of the time enough for preparing the main dish for 2-3 people during lunch and dinner. I was comfortable preparing 6-7 sunny eggs at a time or frying 800-900g/1.8-1.9lb of the whole chicken legs( 3-4middle size pieces) as you can see in the picture below.

Even if it is hard to give some objective data about how much food you can prepare in some pieces of cookware, These measures can be a good starting point.

Finally, As I mentioned earlier some other 12-inch brands(like Misen) showed bigger bottom surfaces: Nevertheless in practice I haven’t noticed a big difference in the amount of food that I can prepare.

When getting a 12-inch pan is good to consider do you have the appropriate size of the cooktop in your home. Additionally, checking the size of the dishwasher and storage space will be useful before considering the pan size.

If you’re aiming to cook for less than 2-3 persons if there is no appropriate dishwasher you have for a 12-inch pan and if you don’t want to do a hand wash, the 10-inch one can be a great option.

Moreover, even though I haven’t directly tried it, I believe that a 10-inch pan will be more convenient for preparing the main dish for lunch, and dinner for 1-2 people.

Finally, I believe that this size of the pan will be more convenient for some cooking practices like e.g. pancakes since it is lighter and should be easier to turn around in the air compared to 12-inch one.

At the end of the day, with Sardel you can purchase the cookware, test it for 30 days and turn it back and order another size if you find it more suitable.