Skillet vs. Pan: Differences Between the Types of Cookware

A skillet is a pan with a flat base, sloped or slanted sides, and a handle. Chefs often use skillets—which are often deeper than other pans—for stir-frying or fast-cooking foods that need to constantly move around the cooking surface to meld. A skillet is similar to a sauté pan in depth, but the latter will generally have a wider surface area and straight sides, best for cooking soups, stews, and curries.

Often, the best skillets are cast iron, which retains heat and helps build a flavorful crust on proteins and other foods. Cast-iron skillets take a while to heat up, but once they get hot, they retain heat, making them an option for searing a steak. (Their high, sloped sides are also ideal for shallow-frying over high heat.) Most skillets will also come with a lid, which makes them useful for braising, a combination-cooking method that starts with pan-searing followed by slow-cooking in a liquid until the ingredients become tender.

Other types of skillets include non-stick skillets and stainless-steel skillets.

A pan is a container made of metal with a long handle used to cook food. Pans have a range of uses and are available in many different materials, with frying, non-stick, and cast-iron among the most popular options. A frying pan has a flat bottom, wide base, and rounded, flared sides and is often shallower and thinner than other cookware, helping to heat food faster for frying.

A cast-iron pan is iron and alloyed with a small amount of carbon to harden the material. Cast-iron pans can hold a lot of heat for a long amount of time, making them ideal for superhot applications, such as searing a steak.

A non-stick pan contains a non-stick chemical coating that prevents food from sticking to the bottom of the pan during the cooking process. Non-stick pans are affordable, easy to clean, and useful for sautéing particularly delicate food, like fish or omelets.

Other types of pans include a carbon steel pan, a grill pan, and a saucepan.

A skillet and a frying pan are two similar cooking vessels with a few distinguishing features. While chefs can use both pans for cooking food over high temperatures for frying or sautéing foods, a skillet has a deeper and larger surface than a standard frying pan.

Due to this depth, a skillet may be a better option for sautéing and stir-frying certain foods, while a frying pan is ideal for deep-frying foods in oil or cooking at high temperatures thanks to its thin, shallow base that the heat can easily penetrate.

A skillet is slightly more versatile than a frying pan since it is generally deeper with a larger cooking surface. While a professional chef might have each piece of cookware on hand for specific types of quick-cooking, a home chef can use these tools interchangeably to achieve similar results.

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