You can read our full review of the pan for more on how it performed.
How I tested carbon-steel pans
I tested each pan by cooking several batches of skin-on chicken thighs and fried eggs, judging heat distribution by looking at how evenly items cooked on different parts of the pans. For the skillets that did not come pre-seasoned, we went through the process of seasoning them ourselves with an initial layer of grapeseed oil before we got to cooking.
I factored in longterm testing results as well, sourced from myself and other editors living and cooking with these pans on a regular basis.
What I looked for in carbon-steel pans
I appreciated pans that came pre-seasoned, but didn’t rule out unseasoned pans entirely, as many professional high-quality carbon steel pans come this way. For those that did come pre-seasoned, I took note of the quality of that seasoning based on how it performed out of the box. I also observed how well seasoning builds on a pan after several rounds of cooking.
Heat distribution and retention
I looked for pans that had decent heat distribution across the cooking surface. Pure carbon steel is a bit sluggish in response to changes in heat, so I appreciated the newer designs clad with aluminum and stainless steel. I also took note of the thickness of the pans—too thin and the pan is prone to scorching, too thick and it will take longer to respond to heat changes and weigh more.
Judging the shape and form factor of a pan is more subjective. Some people prefer a wider cooking surface so you can fit more food in without crowding, while others prefer wide, shallow-angled sides at the expense of a smaller cooking surface so that food is easier to flip and maneuver with a single hand. Ultimately I think it’s a matter of consumer choice and what sort of experience an individual wants out of their pan. But for pans designed to have relatively small cooking surfaces, you can always go a size up to make them a little more comfortable to use—a 12″ de Buyer, for example, instead of a 10″ one.
Maneuverability and comfort were the most important factors for us to compare in terms of how these pans measured up design-wise. The overall weight factored in as well, but wasn’t a be-all-end-all metric, as handle design and shape can change how heavy a pan actually feels in the hand.
Other carbon-steel pans I liked
Matfer Bourgeat Black Carbon Steel Fry Pan
This is a carbon-steel pan preferred by many French chefs, and it can be found in the bustling kitchens of countless Michelin-starred restaurants. The brand is 200 years old and is sort of the old guard when it comes to carbon-steel cookware. It’s a heavier pan (3 lb., 14 oz.) and is pretty barebones, with a welded handle and an unseasoned cooking surface. It is designed to get the job done in high-volume kitchens that don’t have time for niceties.
De Buyer Mineral B Fry Pan
de Buyer Mineral B Carbon Steel Fry Pan
The basic Mineral B pan from the maker of our top pick comes with a welded-on handle with a heat-resistant epoxy finish that makes it easier to grasp and easier to clean because it doesn’t have rivets poking out. The problem is that the finish can melt above 400°F, making stovetop to oven cooking (something we find ourselves doing a lot with carbon-steel pans) to be a bit of a problem. De Buyer recommends keeping oven time to 10 minutes even at 400°F. The Mineral B Pro, which we’ll test in an upcoming update to this piece, comes with an oven-safe stainless-steel handle.
Mauviel M’Steel Black Carbon Steel 11″ Pan
Mauviel M’Steel Black Carbon Steel Skillet
This is another classic professional chef’s workhorse similar to the de Buyer Mineral B, though slightly heavier. It also has a protective coating that took us over 10 minutes of scrubbing to remove. It’s a nice pan, just be prepared for a project when it comes out of the box.
Merten & Storck Carbon Steel 10″ Skillet With Stainless-Steel Handle
Merten & Storck
Carbon Steel Pro Induction 10″ Skillet
This skillet has moderately sloped sides and a generous cooking space, making it easy to sear a batch of chicken thighs or a large steak without too much cramping. The stainless-steel handle is easy to maneuver and stays relatively cool. It’s also one of the lightest pans we’ve tested, yet it still manages to retain heat well. There is a more inexpensive skillet with a simpler carbon-steel handle that gets a lot hotter than the stainless, so we’d say the extra dollars are worth the additional comfort the stainless-steel handle provides.
Smithey Farmhouse Skillet
Smithey Farmhouse Skillet
Smithey’s entry into the world of carbon steel is, without question, one of the most ornate pieces of cookware you can buy in the category. It works well too. Once seasoned, we got slick results from the cooking surface, and if you want a statement piece to hang from a pot rack, this would be it. However, I don’t think carbon-steel pans should be expensive, and this one costs $300, so we can’t make it one of our top picks.
Carbon-steel pans we don’t recommend
I was perplexed by the sizing on this pan. The cooking surface of the 10″ model was about an inch smaller in diameter than the other pans (also sold as 10″ pans). The nitrided surface was nice, and the pans performance was fine, but the sizing is highly misleading.
This pan is thick and heavy, which makes the sort of nimble, quick maneuvering that a carbon-steel sauté pan is known for quite challenging. The pan heated up quickly, but inconsistently, with noticeable cold spots around the edges of the cooking surface. The seasoning was sticky at first, but improved over a week of use.
While Lodge cast-iron pans have a great reputation, I unfortunately noticed some issues with the carbon-steel skillet. The initial seasoning had observable chips right out of the box. The pan had a rougher surface compared to traditional carbon-steel pans too, which contributed to its sticking problems.
The Vollrath, one of the most affordable carbon-steel pans you can get, was a bit too thin. It had a tendency to burn food, which also frequently stuck. The handle got particularly hot early on into cooking.
If you see “blue” in the name of a carbon-steel pan, that means it comes pre-seasoned, so you don’t have to go through as much of a process, adding layers of seasoning yourself. This pan was middling in terms of performance. It was a bit sticky out of the box, and heat distribution was a little uneven across the cooking surface.
This pan comes with a really excellent pre-seasoned nonstick surface, and it’s both lightweight and affordable. However, we also had an issue with this pan being a bit too thin, as it totally scorched our chicken thighs five minutes into cooking.
This pan has an almost wok-like shape with wide, rounded walls. I appreciated the stainless-steel handle, but reviews were mixed on the particular curve of the handle. Chris Morocco, in particular, felt it was too severe.
How to season a carbon-steel pan
You will find online that people can get quite opinionated about the proper way to season a pan. Sure, some people insist on certain oils, a specific number of seasoning rounds, and so on, but it all comes down to this: You have to heat a thin layer of oil on the surface of the pan to create a layer of polymerization that protects the pan from corrosion and creates a nonstick cooking surface.
