What is a pot, and what is a pan?
Pots are deeper, with straight up sides, for liquids. Pans are shallower, and may have sloped-out or curved sides.
Some say a pot should have two handles, and a pan only one, a longer one. In practice, most pots have one long handle.
Pots are for liquids; pans are for solid ingredients.
Pots often get called pans, but pans are almost never called pots. A saucepan is technically a sauce pot, but you would never refer to a frying pot.
A chip pan is actually a chip pot.
A wok is a pan.
Of course, all guidelines go out the window with Dutch ovens and large soup kettles.
The role of cooking pans is to contain food over heat, and deliver heat from the outside heat source — burner or oven — to the food inside.
Types of pans
Aebleskiver Pans
Aebleskiver pans are special pans in which to cook small Danish pancake balls called "aebleskivers" on top of the stove. You rotate the balls half-way through cooking to cook both sides.
Appachatti Pans
An Appachatti Pan is a stove-top frying pan that's completely rounded at the sides, so that it's like a shallow bowl. It has two short handles, one on each side, and will come with a cover usually.
They can be can be cast-iron or non-stick metal. Cast...
Baking Pans
History
In her book, Vintage Kitchenalia, Emma Kay notes the evolution of the usage "baking pan" into "baking tin":
"The phrase bread tin, or loaf tin, was not commonly in use until the mid-1800s, although Elizabeth David notes that Eliza...
Broiling Pans
Broiling Pans
© Randal Oulton
Broiling Pans are special low, flat pans that come with North American stoves to help with broiling food. Many stoves come with a two-part broiling pan designed to fit nicely into a designated broiling space.
Broiling ...
Cast Aluminum
Cast Aluminum Frying Pan (with non-stick interior)
© Denzil GreenCast Aluminum cookware can be cast through die casting, mould casting, or sand casting. Die casting is the most usual.
It allows for thicker cookware than sheet aluminum, providing ...
Cast Iron
Cast Iron Frying Pans
© Denzil Green
Cast Iron has a place in the hearts of North Americans, because it's what the pioneers carried with them across the continent. It's not the lightest material to make cooking utensils out of, but it was indestructible.
Cast ...
Chafing Dish
A chafing dish is a covered dish that rests over a pan of water, which in turn is over a heat source. It can be used on tables, sideboards or any surface. It can be used for both warming food, and cooking away from a regular kitchen.
Crêpe Pans
Crêpe pans are very shallow frying pans, with outward-sloping sides specially designed for frying crêpes in.
They are usually carbon steel pans, up to 35 cm (14 inches) wide, but generally about 18 to 20 cm (7 to 8 inches) wide.
Many people reserve a...
Electric Frying Pans
1970s Electric Frying Pan with insert
© Ian Graham
Electric Frying Pans are frying pans whose heat source comes from electricity. They are not designed for stove-top use.
They tend to be square. Almost all come with a thermostat, that you ...
French Roasting Pans
French Roasting Pans are rectangular roasting pans that have rounded corners, and fixed handles that rise up vertically from the sides.
They will be made of heavy-gauge aluminum, stainless-steel or non-stick coated metal.
They come in varying sizes,...
Frying Pans
Frying Pans
© Denzil GreenFrying pans are wide, shallow pans with a long handle and sloping sides.
The idea behind the slanted sides is to allow steam to escape so that frying and searing can happen. That being said, a frying pan can be used for ...
Kanom Krok Pans
Kanom krok pans are large flat pans, often made of cast iron, with rounded cavities in them. They are used to make the fried Thai pastries known as "kanom krok."
Meatloaf Pans
Meatloaf Pans are special baking pans sold for making Meatloaf in.
A standard size is 9 3/8 inches long, 5 1/4 inches wide, and 2 3/8 inches tall (24 cm long, 13 cm wide, 6 cm tall.)
Some have an insert with slats or holes in it that sets in the...
Non-Reactive Pans
Non-Reactive Pans are pans whose material won't react with certain ingredients.
Specifically, the concern is with certain acidic foods such as tomatoes, citrus, wine, chutneys, pickles, and cranberries. An interaction between them and the cooking...
Non-Stick Pans
Non-Stick Pans are pans whose inside surfaces have been coated with a permanent non-stick substance, and are sold as such. There are many different brands; you can get both stove-top and electric ones. The American cook, Julia Child, switched from cast-iron...
Omelet Pans
Omelet Pans are frying pans with shallow, steeply sloping sides that allow an omelet being cooked in one to be rolled against the sides, and when it's finished, to slide out easily. An Omelet Pan has a flat bottom, a long handle, and will be anywhere...
Paella Pans
Paella Pans are very broad, round, shallow frying pans used to making Paella in.
The metal they are made of is thin, so that they can respond quickly to changes in heat.
The pans have short looped handles, one on each side. Extremely large Paella...
Paniyaram pan
A paniyaram pan (appakarai, appakaram) is a pan along the idea of a muffin tin, that resembles an kanom krok pan in Thailand, and an aebleskiver pan in Denmark, or a frying pan with a permanent egg-poaching insert in it with rounded cups in it.
It...
Quiche Pans
Round Quiche Pan
© Denzil Green
Quiche Pans are for making quiches or tarts (as in large pies) in.
The size ranges from 4 inches (10 cm) to 12 inches (30 cm) wide. Smaller ones are called "tartlet pans."
Unlike pie pans, Quiche Pans have straight ...
Roasting Pans
A Roasting Pan is used for roasting meat such as poultry, ham, beef.
The pans are made of metal or Pyrex. The metal can be made of stainless steel, cast-iron, enamelled or non-stick. Cast-iron ones, which can be plain or enamelled, can be very heavy,...
Sauté Pans
Sauté Pan
© Denzil Green
A Sauté Pan is a frying pan with straight sides. In French, it is actually called a "sautoir."
A good Sauté Pan needs to be light enough so that you can toss things in it, if you want to use that technique while sautéing.
The stra...
Self-Basting Roasters
Self-basting roasters are roasting pans that come with special lids that enable a piece of meat being roasted to "baste itself."
Spiders
Spiders were frying pans with long handles, and three very tall legs on them. The pan itself had a flat bottom and slanted slides. Some designs, though, had rounded bottoms, making them look like a wok on stilts.
They were designed to allow you to...
Wok
A Wok is an all-purpose pan. It can be used for braising, deep frying, frying, roasting, stir frying, steaming and stewing. Though used throughout Asia, Woks are best known for their role in Chinese cooking. In Northern China, a Wok is more likely to...