Before there were those 16-in-1, do everything pans that promise unprecedented versatility and revolutionary design that get thrown in your face on Instagram, there was the sauté pan. Somewhere between a frying pan and a saucepan, the sauté pan is a versatile friend in the kitchen that can often serve as a stand-in for skillets, stockpots and Dutch ovens alike.
Our top picks
The best sauté pan overall: All-Clad D3 3-Quart Sauté Pan
The best budget sauté pan: Goldilocks 3.5-Quart Sauté Pan
A larger upgrade: Fissler M5 Pro-Ply 5-Quart Sauté Pan
A sauté pan is basically a skillet with taller straight sides, which makes it better equipped for any cooking project that requires more liquid. Braises, pasta sauces, brothy beans, one pot rice dishes—a sauté pan can execute them all flawlessly.
Whether you’re assembling your own massive cookware set, or are looking for a versatile pan that can accommodate a more minimal kitchen set-up, a sauté pan is a pan worth having.
To find the best sauté pan, we put 9 different pans through a series of tests, cooking chicken thigh after chicken thigh (after chicken thigh). Scroll on to find out top picks, and keep going to read more about how we chose the winners
The best sauté pan overall: All-Clad D3 3 quart sauté pan
Pros:
- Generous cooking area
- Even heating
- Lightweight
Cons:
Pan weight: 3 lbs 5 oz
Pan height: 2 ⅜ in high
Top diameter: 11 ⅛ in
Cooking surface diameter: 10 in
Lid weight: 1 lb 3 oz
Volume: 3 qt
Material: stainless steel and aluminum
Warranty: Lifetime
If you’re familiar with our reviews, you might think we choose All-Clad by default, but we promise you that’s not the case. These pans consistently hold up to scrutiny, and demonstrate a quality and reliability that makes the investment worth it.
What we loved:
The 3-quart All-Clad stainless steel sauté pan delivered consistently throughout every single test. It seared chicken thighs well, demonstrated even heating in our flour test, and browned onions up without scorching them. The D3 line is their tri-ply stainless steel line, meaning that the pan consists of two layers of 18/10 stainless steel sandwiching an aluminum core. The aluminum heats up fast and the stainless steel retains and distributes that heat across the cooking surface. While most stainless-steel cookware is constructed this way these days, All-Clad has been doing it for a while and has really perfected the form. These pans heat up at a steady rate, giving you plenty of control over the cooking process even when working with high heat.
The D3 is one of the lightest we tested, which makes it easy to maneuver with one hand around the cooktop and into the oven. It also had the largest cooking surface relative to its volume (3 quarts). This gives you maximum surface area for searing meat, and also allows liquid to evaporate faster for making pan sauces and reductions.
What we’d leave:
Our main gripe with this pan is with its height. The All-Clad is not a very deep sauté pan—in fact, it has the shortest sides of all the pans we tested. All-Clad does make larger volume sauté pans, but they increase the diameter more than the height. We think a tweaking the ratio slightly would be nice for braising larger pieces of meat.
The budget pick: Goldilocks 3.5 quart sauté pan
Pros:
- Spacious
- Affordable
- Lightweight
Cons:
- Harder to manage at high temps
- Not a great handle
Pan weight: 3lb 4 oz pot,
Pan height: 2 ⅝ inch high
Top diameter: 10 ¾ top diameter
Cooking surface diameter: 10 in
Lid weight: 14oz
Volume: 3.5 qt
Material: stainless steel and aluminum
Warranty: Lifetime
True to its name the Goldilocks pan was just right in terms of size, weight, and dimensions. It’s not perfect, but for a sub-100 dollar sauté pan it earns its keep.
What we loved:
The Goldilocks has dimensions similar to the All-Clad, but uses that extra half quart in volume to give the pan a little more height than our winner. It’s lightweight and easy to maneuver around the stovetop and into the oven, and has an amply-sized helper handle. As a tri-ply stainless steel pan, it demonstrated pretty even heat distribution across the cooking surface. Of all the budget pans we tested, this one was the most well-designed.
What we’d leave:
The metal cladding is on the thinner side, so the pan scorched a bit on the bottom at medium to high temperatures. That’s the sort of issue you should expect to arise with less expensive pans though. It doesn’t make the Goldilocks a bad choice, but does mean that you have to keep a closer eye on things as they cook. Also, the thin handle wasn’t the most comfortable thing to hold.
A larger upgrade: Fissler M5 Pro-Ply 5 quart sauté pan
If you are looking for a larger sauté pan and are willing to invest in something that offers a truly exceptional cooking experience, the Fissler M5 Pro-Ply is an excellent choice.
