What mistakes should I avoid making with stainless steel saucepans?

Choosing a stainless steel saucepan for everyday cooking means opting for a healthy method of cooking. Versatile, hard-wearing and suitable for all types of hob, stainless steel cookware offers unrivalled cooking ease and quality. However, certain things should be avoided if you want to keep all the advantages of your cookware for longer. Whether you're a cook who loves traditional recipes, a fan of exotic flavours or an enthusiast for simple, everyday dishes, your stainless steel saucepan will be with you every day for a long time to come. Find out how to look after it to ensure the success of all your dishes! CRISTEL®, specialists in top-of-the-range stainless steel cookware, presents the mistakes to avoid if you want your equipment to perform at its best.

Never overheat stainless steel cookware when empty

Stainless steel is certainly very hard-wearing, but special care is needed when placing it on a hob or gas ring to ensure it retains its full performance. It is therefore advisable to preheat your stainless steel pan at half the power of your hob and never more. For example, if your hob goes up to 10, never go over 5. Prolonged overheating can cause real damage. This recommendation applies to all your stainless steel equipment.

CRISTEL® has designed 10/18 stainless steel cookware that requires a little time to heat up to give you optimum cooking performance. This preserves all the taste and nutritional qualities of your food.

Avoid using bleach for cleaning stainless steel saucepans

Bleach is a very powerful product. As it is toxic, it must never come into contact with food. Used to clean or maintain your stainless steel saucepans, it could lead to perforation, making them impossible to use. Bleach creates a pitting corrosion reaction. Small holes will then form, perforating your pan.

All CRISTEL® stainless steel cookware is dishwasher safe. You can also use a suitable product such as RENOX CRISTEL® to maintain or restore stainless steel to its original shine.

Avoid undissolved salt in the bottom of your stainless steel saucepan

To keep your stainless steel cookware in perfect condition, especially your saucepan, be careful when using salt. It contains a small amount of chlorine, which stainless steel does not like at all. To prevent indelible marks appearing at the bottom of your container, avoid heating it with undissolved salt at the bottom. It's best to add salt to your water once it's boiling, then stir well to dissolve the salt.

It should be noted that these undesirable traces in no way affect the cooking quality provided by CRISTEL®'s professional quality products.

Do not put stainless steel saucepans with a wooden handle in the oven

This recommendation may seem obvious. However, a stainless steel saucepan is so easy to use, and compatible with all types of hob, that it's easy to forget that it may have a "weakness". If your saucepan has a wooden handle, don't forget that it won't withstand a few minutes in the oven! Even if the removable handles are oven-safe (except for wooden handles), it is advisable to remove them before putting them in the oven, according to the CRISTEL® removable concept guidelines.

Having a CRISTEL® stainless steel saucepan with a removable stainless steel handle will simplify your cooking, as they are compatible with all types of burners and are therefore suitable for the oven.