Here’s something the kitchen hardware cabal doesn’t want you to know: You can cook incredible food fast with very little equipment. (This is the very premise of my new cookbook A Man, A Pan, A Plan.)
This is especially true when it comes to pans. Garlic presses and cherry pitters and egg slicers, as hopelessly useless as they are, don’t take up all that much room in your kitchen. But pans can gum up the works. They can be big and bulky. They can create clutter. And they can cost big bucks—especially if they are the hyper-specialized kind that you really didn’t need in the first place.
To help you streamline your cooking, here are three pans you definitely do not need ever.
A Wok
I know. I know. I know. Blasphemy, right? How else will you heat up your dry-fried Sichuan green beans with duck breast and oyster sauce? Whoa, dude. You must have your Ph.D. in stir-frying. Maybe you do need a wok. But if you’re a normal guy, this dome-shaped superpan is only going to take up valuable space in your cabinets. Yes, it’s good for stir-fry—but not all that much else. Except maybe for wearing as a hat if you’re drunk and feeling silly. A large non-stick pan works fine for stir-frying.
A Pan Shaped Like Something Other Than a Pan
If you’re up past your bedtime and see an infomercial advertising a pan shaped like a teddy bear face, Disney princess, or the state of Texas, resist. That joke is going to get real old, real fast, and then you’re going to be left with yet another kitchen gadget you don’t use but still keep around. Shouldn’t you be in bed, anyway?
Pan
This 2015 movie starring Hugh Jackman and Levi Miller is also not worth your time or money, despite the lure of special effects or Jackman’s curious facial hair. Hollywood, please hear this plea: The world does not, under any circumstances, require another version of Peter Pan. Enough is enough.
For the only four pans you actually do need—plus 100 delicious, nutritious, pan-based recipes to make with them, pick up a copy of A Man, A Pan, A Plan here.