Saucepan vs. Sauté pan is a common topic discussed by numerous home cooks. Although these cooking items share some similarities, they differ in several aspects. For this reason, they come with pros and cons, making choosing between them quite tricky.
The confusion may be even greater if you haven’t had much cooking experience. Don’t worry! This article will offer in-depth knowledge about a saucepan and a sauté pan. Ultimately, you’ll know when to use each one and whether you need both!
What Is A Saucepan?
A saucepan has steep sides, a narrow base, a long single handle, and a flat bottom. Its sides are deeper than those of a sauté or a frying pan. However, a saucepan’s base is wider than a frying pan but narrower than a sauté pan.
A saucepan’s handle makes it easier to carry, especially when containing a large volume of liquid content. This handle also makes stirring or whisking food during cooking more convenient. On top of that, a saucepan often comes with a lid that can help trap heat and moisture inside.
Due to its high and straight sides, this cookware is ideal for handling liquids. You can use it for various cooking methods, like reducing sauces, simmering, blanching vegetables, or stewing. Boiling water or liquids, particularly in pasta or lentils, is also a common use of a saucepan.
There is a wide range of materials when buying saucepans. Some common options are stainless steel, aluminum, copper, nonstick, etc. Each offers distinct properties. For example, cast iron cookware heats up more slowly than its copper counterparts but retains heat better (1).
What Is A Sauté Pan?
A sauté pan is cookware with short steep sides, a wide base, and a long single handle. Opposite to this long handle is usually a short handle. A sauté pan’s sides allow it to handle liquid cooking, whereas its large base is ideal for dry heating cooking.
Its helper handle helps you lift and move a sauté pan more easily during cooking, particularly when shaking or stirring food. Despite being frequently mistaken for a frying pan or skillet, a sauté pan has a larger surface area and straight sides instead of round flared like the other.
A lid coming along with a sauté pan is another common feature of this cookware. Unlike a saucepan, a sauté pan always comes with a lid. There are several sauté pan sizes, but 3-6 quarts are the most popular.
Like other cookware, sauté pans come in various materials, such as stainless steel, carbon steel, aluminum, nonstick, etc. If you want cookware that is easy to clean and heats up evenly, you should give stainless steel a go (2).
Watch this video to know more:
Key Features To Distinguish Between Saucepan And Sauté Pan
This section will take you through an in-depth comparison between a saucepan and a sauté pan in various aspects. For a summary, you can quickly scan the table below.
Shape
Their distinct shapes are the obvious difference between a saucepan and a sauté pan. While both come with steep sides, a saucepan’s edges are much taller than those of a sauté pan. This profile allows the former to hold more liquids than the latter.
On top of that, a saucepan’s high sides and flat bottom enable it to distributé heat to foods evenly and retain heat better. A sauté pan, however, can cook more food quantities and offer direct heat to them due to its larger cooking surface.
The two cookware are equipped with a single long handle to help them be easier to carry and handle. But a sauté pan features an additional smaller handle across the longer one. It provides some support for lifting and handling the cookware.
Size
There are various sizes for both a saucepan and a sauté pan. The standard saucepans often range from 1-4 quarts. However, there are also larger sizes, like 5-7 quarts and over, for greater quantities of food. While a saucepan is smaller in diameter, it’s taller than a sauté pan.
On the other hand, a sauté pan’s sizes fall between 1 quart to 12 quarts. Of those, 3-6 quarts are the most common. A sauté pan comes with a shallower depth but a larger base than a saucepan.
Uses
A saucepan is commonly used in boiling, simmering, and steaming. The depth of a saucepan makes it excellent cookware for handling liquid foods. This cookware is also commonly used for boiling water or liquids for soups, pasta, or lentils.
In addition, a saucepan is perfect for making sauces. Due to its smaller surface area, you can reduce sauces effectively. This helps thicken the texture and enhance the flavors. You can also cook various dishes with a saucepan, like boiled eggs, pasta, rice, soups, and other side dishes.
Meanwhile, a sauté pan is more versatile in multiple cooking methods. Not only can it function as a pan, but this cookware also deals with more liquids and foods due to its high sides and large base. These properties enable it to suit both dry heating and liquid cooking.
You can use this cookware for searing, sautéing, braising, and deep-frying. A sauté pan can also be used for making sauces. But you should pay more attention during cooking because evaporation happens more quickly.
Master your skills in making BBQ sauce with a saucepan to upgrade your backyard party.
Price
Between the two cookware, sauté pans are more pricey than saucepans. This is because the former comes in a larger size than the latter. As a result, sauté pans often need more materials to manufacture.
Besides, other factors also impact these cookware’s prices. Depending on product brands, materials, and sets, saucepans and sauté pans may significantly vary in cost.
Cleaning
Due to the differences in their structure, you will need different approaches for each type of cookware. A saucepan, for example, requires more cleaning for its interior edges, sides, and areas close to a rim where burnt food and stains are mostly present.
By contrast, a sauté pan may cause food in the middle of its base to be burned and stuck. This can happen more often when the range of a heat source is smaller than a sauté pan dimension. For this reason, you should give its central area more care than others.
Storage
The best way to keep a saucepan is to stack it. Due to its small size, flat bottom, and steep sides, you can easily place it on other wider pots and pans. Some cookware sets on the market are also made to be stacked more effectively.
Meanwhile, a sauté pan has a wide and flat cooking surface. As a result, you can slip it in toe-kick drawers or store it on kitchen cabinet shelves. Apart from these methods, you can also equip pegboards or kitchen wall hooks to better organize a saucepan and a sauté pan.
Should You Buy A Saucepan Or A Sauté Pan?
After the showdown between a saucepan vs sauté pan, which you should choose may be a question that comes to mind. Well, it depends on your cooking needs. Lists all dishes or cooking techniques you often prepare will help you decide more accurately.
If sauces are your favorite, a saucepan is a way to go. Because it’s better in reduction, making sauces will be easier and more effective.
Other dishes, like soups and grains, are also prepared well with this cookware. Additionally, you can use it for boiling, braising, steaming, and stewing (but only for small food portions).
Meanwhile, a sauté pan is ideal for different cooking methods, including searing, sautéing, pan frying, and braising. For this reason, it’s an excellent choice if you are a huge fan of seared steak, sautéed vegetables, and French fries.
You can even prepare sauces with a sauté pan as well. But as I mentioned before, its wide cooking area stimulates evaporation rapidly. Therefore, you should watch your sauce to ensure the desired consistency.
Can You Use A Saucepan As A Sauté Pan And Vice Versa?
Both of them are versatile in the kitchen. You can use them interchangeably in certain cases or recipes, like marinara sauce. A saucepan can function as a sauté pan, particularly in sauté dishes. However, since the former is smaller, food should be in small and even portions.
Similarly, using a sauté pan as a saucepan is possible. However, there will be some limitations due to the shallow base. In addition, its large cooking surface area causes liquids to evaporate more quickly. Making sauces with this cookware can be more difficult.
Learn how to use a sauté pan to make a simple sauce for grilled chicken with this video.
FAQs
These are some other questions about a saucepan and a sauté pan. Giving some minutes to read these questions will help you gain more knowledge of the two cooking items.
Buy Both Of Them If Possible!
After diving deeper into a saucepan and a sauté pan, you may realize one simple thing: they are neither perfect.
Whatever your choice of cookware is, accepting its flaws will help you enjoy cooking more. Here’s another suggestion, how about buying both of them? This can give you peace of mind and the best cookware for each recipe or technique.
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References
- Haas, S. (2017) Kitchen comeback: Cast-Iron Cookware, Food & Nutrition Magazine.
- Watson, K. (2019) What’s safe cookware? and how to find it, Healthline. Healthline Media.
