We also regularly retest our top picks throughout the year to update our reviews with intel gleaned from long-term use. Ultimately, the best way to test these pans is to have people live with them and use them, so that’s our aim.
What you need to know about nonstick coatings and their durability
Below, find answers to questions we commonly field about nonstick pans.
Are Teflon pans/PTFE pans safe?
The short answer is, we can’t say for sure. Scientists are continuing to study PTFE’s impact on people and how it gets into their bodies, and they don’t have conclusive answers yet. As such, we’re no longer recommending pans with traditional Teflon nonstick coatings. The long answer? Well, here’s what we can say:
PTFE is short for polytetrafluoroethylene, a substance commonly known as Teflon (PFOA is a type of PTFE and yes there are so many acronyms!). This popular and effective nonstick coating was first made available to home cooks under the brand name T-fal (Tefal in France). However, Teflon is a type of PFAS, a family of chemicals used in a wide range of industrial applications that have been dubbed forever chemicals due to their persistence in the environment. We care about it here because PTFE is the most common type of nonstick material used in conventional nonstick cookware.
Numerous health and research institutions have linked PFAS exposure to a wide range of health risks and negative impacts on the environment. This part isn’t up for the debate. The question is whether cooking with a Teflon pan, with proper care and guidance, is cause for concern. While cooking is potentially less of a hazard compared to other means of PFAS exposure, extant research and broad scientific opinion still emphasizes general caution.
The strongest evidence about the adverse health effects of PFAS involve people exposed to levels far higher than the average person who cooks with a nonstick pan, like workers and people who live near factories that dumped chemicals on the land and into the water table.
As for low level exposure, scientists are working to understand the chemicals’ impact on people. Seeing that they’re present in 98% of American bodies, it’s a tricky task to determine what that exposure might be responsible for.
The FDA claims that not all PFAS are “migratable” (able to move from the pan to your food), which is part of the reason why PTFE has remained on the market. According to the FDA’s reasoning, “PFAS molecules are polymerized (i.e., joined together to form large molecules) and are then applied to the surface of the cookware at very high temperatures, which tightly binds the polymer coating to the cookware. [This] process vaporizes off virtually all the smaller (i.e., “migratable”) PFAS molecules.”
A 2007 study on popcorn bags seemed to show that the claim that migratable PFAS molecules all burn away isn’t entirely true. And again, the long-term cumulative effects are not entirely understood.
Teflon claims on its site that, if ingested, PTFE coatings will not be absorbed into the body because they are inert; however, a 2017 review of several studies regarding nonstick pan safety concluded that “the studies that describe the toxicity of PTFE are only a few in number, and results do not present substantial conclusions. To the best of our knowledge, there is no experimental report that describes the toxicity of ingested PTFE.” So, one more time, it seems more study is needed.
What we can say with certainty is that even if you were to rid your kitchen of PTFE-coated cookware entirely, it wouldn’t eliminate exposure to those chemicals, as we are exposed to them elsewhere through our food, water, and the environment.
So if Teflon pans aren’t the most significant risk, then why get so worked up about them? Because we think they are more luxury than necessity, especially when there are readily available alternatives. There is an ever-growing market of nontoxic nonstick cookware as well suitable stainless-steel and cast-iron options that we get into below.
Why don’t ceramic nonstick coatings last?
While the degradation of a ceramic nonstick coating doesn’t come with as many health and environmental question marks as Teflon’s does, there will come a day, probably within a few years of purchasing the pan, that it ceases to be nonstick. And even if you aren’t scratching at the pans with metal spatulas, their performance will get a little worse, and a little worse, and a little worse. While many brands will try and claim superior longevity or advertise new and improved ceramic nonstick surfaces, they all contain materials that will wear away.
All the ceramic nonstick coatings we’ve seen are a type of silica-based sol-gel. The coating undergoes a chemical process that produces a highly uniform nanostructure that is exceptionally water and oil repellant. Some testing sites erroneously claim that ceramic nonstick surfaces exude silicone oil, which is what makes them nonstick. According to MIT material science engineer and professor Rob Macfarlane, those claims are inaccurate, and not how sol-gel surfaces function.
Instead, he explained that sol-gels are highly brittle. Repeated heating and cooling, and the general wear of cooking will create tiny fractures in their structures. These fractures subsequently increase surface friction, reducing the nonstick properties of the surface. No amount of care and babying will prevent this from happening (unless of course, you don’t use the pan at all).
How do I clean a nonstick pan?
While many makers of nonstick pans claim their products are dishwasher-safe, we don’t think you should take them up on that. Hand-washing will prolong these pans’ longevity (and that washing should be easy enough; we’re talking about nonstick after all). While you may be tempted to wipe out your pan with a paper towel and call it a day, a quick wash with soap and water will ensure you rid it of any food residue and avoids the risk of that residue burning onto the pan the next time you heat it.
Just make sure you avoid scrubbing with anything abrasive—even when dealing with burned-on food, save the steel wool and metal scraper for a more sturdy piece of cookware and opt for a soft sponge instead. If you’re finding that things are really sticking, it may be a sign that your pan is due for replacement.
How long do nonstick pans last?
No matter what the nonstick coating is made of, a nonstick pan won’t stay slick forever—not even if you always wash it by hand and never use metal utensils. If you have a high-quality nonstick pan like the ones recommended above, and you treat it with TLC, you can expect up to five years of regular use. Some home cooks have reported longer lifespans while others have had to replace their nonstick pans after just a year. The life of your pan will depend on a number of factors, including what the coating is made of, how often you use it, how often you use it with higher heat (this degrades the coating more quickly), and how you clean it. The good news is that it’s easy to know when it’s time to buy a new nonstick pan: Food will start to stick to the cooking surface.
What makes a good nonstick pan
A durable, ceramic cooking surface
A nonstick pan should release cooked food easily (and without butter or oil right out of the box) so we looked for pans with high-quality ceramic-coated nonstick cooking surfaces that released food with little effort were easy to clean with soapy water and a dish sponge. No matter the material, nonstick coatings won’t last forever, but some of the pans we tested scratched or scorched far too easily while others looked good as new after multiple rounds of testing and hand-washing.
Quick and even heat distribution
Like a cast iron pan, the heat distribution of a nonstick skillet should be even. Unlike heavy cast iron however, a nonstick pan should heat up relatively quickly. The base material of the pan does affect the time it takes to heat and cool, but generally a nonstick pan should heat up in just a couple of minutes over low or medium heat.
Heft and aesthetics are a matter of preference, but a pan should be comfortable to hold. Keeping in mind that comfort is is also somewhat subjective, we looked for pans with handle designs that felt comfortable for multiple testers while cooking. A handle should also stay cool while cooking on the stovetop.
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Other nonstick pans we liked
GreenPan Reserve Pro 8″ Frypan
GreenPan Reserve is the brand’s most aesthetically pleasing line thanks to the off-white ceramic-coated nonstick cooking surface and gold-toned handle. Reserve cookware comes in a variety of subdued, design-friendly colors and you can often get a two-pan set in complementary shades. Out of the box, the light-colored interior surface is as slick as other GreenPan pans, but in my experience using the original Reserve cookware long-term, it is a bit more delicate than the darker ceramic nonstick coatings on other GreenPan lines. But in the summer of 2025, the brand released the Reserve Pro line of ceramic nonstick cookware and began to phase out the original Reserve cookware. The Pro line is almost identical to the original line, but has an improved nonstick coating for added durability and the handle design has been tweaked for easier stacking (use pan protectors if you stack your pans). Some Reserve pieces come with lids, and the Reserve Pro lids now also have a silicone ring to help protect coating around the edge of the pan. Unfortunately, the upgraded design didn’t eliminate the riveted handle design, so depending on what you cook in it, you may need to use a little extra elbow grease when cleaning around the rivets. (This pan is listed as dishwasher-safe, but we don’t recommend putting any nonstick cookware in the dishwasher, ever.)
GreenPan GP5 Infinite8 Ceramic Nonstick Fry Pan
GreenPan GP5 Hard Anodized Healthy Ceramic Nonstick 12″ Frying Pan Skillet
The GP5 frying pan is another great nonstick pan from GreenPan. It has the same easy-to-hold handle as other GreenPans, flushed rivets, and a broad cooking surface relative to its dimensions. The company advertises that the new coating of this pan is superior to the Valencia, however our testing has yet to reveal a difference in quality. The GP5 is also heavier than the Valencia and the Oxo. While it has a very consistent cooking surface, it takes a slightly longer time to heat up.
GreenPan Spectra 8″ Frypan
With the release of its Spectra Therabond line, GreenPan has officially entered the hybrid pan phase of its existence. Hybrid cookware gets its name because it combines elements of uncoated stainless-steel cookware and nonstick cookware on the same surface by way of a durable nonstick coating etched with a laser into a pattern (usually hexagons) of stainless-steel ridges. The textured surface is designed to deliver the kind of browning and searing you’d get from a very hot stainless steel or well-seasoned cast-iron skillet. I was skeptical of hybrid cookware in general (the most well-known brand in this category, HexClad, is expensive and seemed gimmicky to me) but because GreenPan makes some of our favorite nonstick pans, I decided to give it a try—and I’m very glad I did. The GreenPan Spectra Frypan is now my go-to pan for grilled cheese and quesadillas because I can crisp up both using a small amount of butter and a lower temperature than what I would need to achieve the same texture in a smooth nonstick or uncoated stainless-steel pan. It’s easy to clean, oven- and broiler-safe, according to GreenPan, up to a whopping 850ºF, and nicely weighted (though the 3-ply stainless steel body does make it heavier than some of GreenPan’s other nonstick models). That said, if you’re only going to have one nonstick pan, and you don’t want everything you cook in it to be crispy (see the pancake below), you’re still better off with our top pick, the GreenPan Valencia Pro. And while we do not recommend anyone get a full nonstick cookware set, if you’re considering a set of HexClad, the PFAS-free GreenPan Spectra hybrid nonstick cookware sets are comparably priced and, at the time of publishing, on sale through the brand’s site.