I have never once cooked with a stainless steel pan and not had the food stick like crazy. Dump as much vegetable oil as you want in, let it heat up as much as you want, that tofu is sticking to the pan and getting ruined in stainless steel. I'm convinced that people who swear by stainless only ever cook meat.
I think you've misspelled cast iron. Or maybe carbon steel?
I do want some stainless skillets, but specifically to stick fond in from meat searing, not to replace nonstick. It's for actually the opposite purpose.
What now? Of all the things stainless excels at, cleaning certainly isn't one of them. Much easier to clean a nonstick or iron pan. The nice thing about stainless is you can use aggressive scouring pads or barkeepers friend etc to go to town on them at least, but stainless excels at adhesion and heat distribution and makes for a tougher cleanup.
You are absolutely correct. I have no idea where all of this animosity towards stainless steel cookware is coming from. It's an absolute workhorse and doesn't need princess treatment like cast iron or carbon steel.
Switching to stainless has been great. If something sticks I can just scrape it off and then add a little more oil to prevent a repeat. I'm not sure why non-stick pans even became popular. I guess probably the low-fat fad had something to do with it.
Non-stick is used as a crutch by people since you don't need to know the proper temperature to cook at or basic simple prep before cooking. That's the only reason I've been able to figure out.
I cook in enameled, stainless, cast iron and carbon steel pans all the time and food will stick if you put it in cold or with the pan is too cold or too hot, too little fat.
For sure, it's not really a problem and often is a feature that release a bunch of great flavour when deglazed and such. But then you'd have to be bothered learning that basic skill. And learning stuff is considered hard for some reason.
It doesn't even taste good! I fully understand cooking unhealthy food for the sheer joy of eating it, but low-fat PFAS garbage is missing one of the most important flavors of our pallet. I spent so many years thinking I didn't like vegetables lol
Today I broiled broccoli, carrots, onions, bell peppers, peas, and garlic in oil and sweet chili on a stainless pan. 🤤
I hate to be the acktually guy, but acktually, there's pocketed carbon hex steel and titanium interior. Both are not plastic and have non stick properties without any forever chemicals. Also there's ceramic but requires wooden utensils and lower temps to keep it that way.
And then there's seasoned cast iron which can be non stick if you properly maintain the seasoning. Stainless steel can be non stick at the right temperature and oil. But it takes temperature control.
There are options and none of them requires pfas or plastic.