Some products show up everywhere: subway ads, Instagram, celeb endorsements. With this series, we're testing such products to conclude one thing: Does it live up to the hype?
What's Everyone Talking About?
Our Place, a millennial-minded kitchenware brand that’s turning everyday cooking products like pots and pans into an essential piece in your kitchen. Where style intersects with functionality and efficiency, their Always Pan simply makes cooking look and taste better.
What's the Buzz About?
The days of needing five different pans on hand to create an #Instastory-worthy meal are behind us. Designed with the intent of setting it on the table at a dinner party, the Always Pan attracts attention for its beautiful design and it's ability to cook just about anything to perfection. Deep enough to handle your Grandma’s famous marinara sauce recipe and nonstick enough to fry an egg that would bring a tear to Gordon Ramsay’s eye, it’s the only pan you need in your kitchen.
Where's All the Hype Coming From?
- Covered by Food & Wine, The New York Times, and The Kitchn
- Our Place's thriving and growing fan base of budding home chefs
- Their 88K Instagram followers clamoring to get an Always Pan for themselves
- Featured in Tabitha Brown's delicious peaches and biscuits recipe video
So Does It Live Up to the Hype?
How Did We Come to This Conclusion?
Like most youngsters who move out on their own for the first time, I purchased a 6-piece pot and pan set to underline my newfound independence. Over the years, I’ve bounced between my shallow sauté pan, deep frying pan, and tiny skillet. Along the way, the nonstick surface has chipped away, likely floating around my digestive track as I write this. I also hated juggling around a bunch of pans while I was cooking. After a while, my pans just weren’t cutting it anymore, and I wasn’t interested in buying another set to replace the one I already had, just to continue the juggling act.
The Always Pan popped up on my Instagram feed, and the minute I saw it, I was in love. Aesthetically, it is beautiful. Available in four standout colors, I couldn’t help but click to find out more. Designed to take the place of your standard set of pans, it’s more than just a beautiful piece of cookware. The brand promises that this one pan can take the place of eight pans, so I hoped it would put an end to my personal pan dilemma.
Opening the Always Pan, I was immediately swooning over how gorgeous it was. The brand says that they wanted to create a pan that can move from stove to tabletop without being an eyesore — and they certainly delivered. On a mission to create cookware that can serve the next generation of family chefs, Our Place products are intended to be modern heirloom pieces that satisfy both style and function.
The exterior has a pigmented cast iron texture, while the interior is lined with an ultra nonstick ceramic surface. Unlike my old-school pans, this ceramic nonstick surface won't pepper the food that I cook on it. Super lightweight yet durable, the pan comes with a cleaning sponge and a wooden spatula to help preserve the nonstick ceramic interior. The heavy-duty wooden spatula latches onto the pan so that the pair can stay together from cooking to cleaning to storage. It's a simple, minute detail — but I found it to be a very intentional and helpful feature.
The set also comes with a stainless steel nesting steaming basket and colander to cook veggies, seafood, or whatever your heart desires. The modular lid is created to both trap and release steam, and has a heat-resistant handle to keep your fingers from burning.
I wanted to test out as many dishes as I could think of in this pan to really determine if it could take the place of an eight-piece set. The first meal that I cooked, salmon and string beans, turned out beautifully. While the pan is nonstick, I did opt to add some fat to it before cooking. In the past, even with a slather of olive oil, my fish skin almost always stuck to the bottom of the pan, so this was the most important test. The fish slid out of the pan like ice cream off of a cone during a heat wave, and the skin was crispy and intact.
I was excited to try out the steaming basket as well. After a quick rinse, I tossed in some frozen string beans, garlic, salt and pepper, and a few squirts of lemon juice. It roughly 5 minutes or so, the green beans were cooked to perfection. They still had a bite, but weren’t frozen in the middle.
Over the course of a week, I cooked five different meals in the Always Pan. From the best damn cheese omelet that actually slid out as an omelet instead of a scramble, to an entire red snapper fillet that I simmered in homemade cilantro, habanero, and lime sauce, this pan handled it all while shrinking my post-meal cleanup. At the end of the night, I only had to clean one pan.
What's the Bottom Line?
Whether you want to fry, sauté, boil, or sear, the Always Pan can make your stove-top culinary meals come to life — without filling up your sink or taking up vital cabinet space. Also, it’s way prettier than those other pans.
Read More:
All the Gadgets You Need in Your Kitchen
The Nonstick Pans That Held Up to Our Tests
We Spent a Month Testing These Food Processors, and Here’s What We Learned
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