Every kitchen needs a heavy skillet with a tight fitting lid. It may seem like an obvious choice, but you may be surprised at how many people fail to keep a quality skillet in the eight to ten inch range in their kitchen. Instead, even when they take the time and extra expense during small kitchen remodeling to replace their cookware, they choose simple frying pans when there are many advantages that a lidded skillet can offer.
A quality skillet can sauté, fry, braise, and steam all by itself. From steaming or sautéing your greens to sautéing mushrooms for a steak to searing the steak itself, there are endless applications for which a skillet is better suited than a standard frying pan. It even makes it possible to create wonderful single-meal dishes such as paella.
A good skillet will be oven-safe, so you do not have to worry about it being damaged if you decide to put it in the oven. This is done either by means of a removable handle or by using a handle that is composed of metal instead of plastic. This is useful for many applications, especially those that require meat to be first seared on the cooktop, and then braised in the oven. Using a skillet, you are able to do both with a single pan, thereby saving you from having to wash extra dishes.
A heavy skillet is the number one most important pan for any kitchen. The versatility that it brings to the kitchen and the huge variety of cooking methods and dishes that it can be used to prepare make it one of the kitchen’s best multi-taskers. From sautéing to steaming to braising to frying, you can make just about anything in a quality skillet. Combine this with a heavy stock pot, a quality saucepan, and a sturdy roasting pan, and you have all the pots and pans that a kitchen really needs.
Visit the Small Kitchen Remodel Guide for more small kitchen tips.
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