10/18/23 - Wednesday

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🪴 A Safe Space 🪴 

Hey there!

If you’re doing a project, you know the right tools make all the difference.

As a home cook, your biggest tool is your cookware. The type of cookware you use makes a WORLD of difference.

For decades, the gold standard of cookware has been All-Clad Tri-Ply Stainless Steel.

All-Clad is a quintessential, “buy it once, buy it for life” brand.

But at $700 for a 10-piece set, it’s out of range for many of us.

If you’re looking to upgrade your cookware on a budget, here’s how to get similar (or identical) cookware for a fraction of the price.

First up, the terminology you need to know:

Stainless Steel. If you have fully clad cookware I don’t think you need any pans outside of stainless steel (and maybe a cast iron.) 🍳

Non-stick pans have a short lifespan, regardless of price, and when you know how to use them, a good stainless steel pan will fry an egg with little to no stick.

Clad. When only the bottom of a pan is composed of multiple layers of metal, it’s clad. When the entire body of the pan—and not just its cooking surface—is made of these bonded layers, it’s fully clad. ♨️ For durability and quality, you want fully clad.

Not sure if you’ve found a disc or full-clad pan? Disc pans will have a seam that runs around the exterior of the pan just above its base—a telltale sign that a thick base has been attached to the body of the pan. Fully clad pans are seamless.

Ply. Are more layers better? Not necessarily. According to Wirecutter the five-ply cookware they tested didn’t heat as uniformly as regular tri-ply cookware and was WAY slower to bring to boil so don’t overpay for it. 🍲

Care & Maintenance. Hesitant to switch to stainless steel because of the stick? The trick is to let the pan heat fully before adding oil and food. And when you’re cleaning, Barkeeper’s Friend is your best friend. 👩🏻‍🍳

My Cuisinart stainless steel pans are going 8 years strong with no end in sight thanks to these two tips.

Here are some of our favorite All-Clad Dupes:

• Tramontina Stainless Steel Tri-Ply Clad 12-Piece Cookware Set ($300)

• Cuisinart 12 Piece Cookware Set, MultiClad Pro Triple Ply ($275)

• Cook N Home 7-Piece Tri-Ply Clad Stainless Steel Cookware Set ($95)

Until next time,

⭐️⭐️ P.S. Want to share all this goodness with your friends AND earn cool Frugal Friends merch?

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