Our Place Always Pan vs Dedicated Cookware: Which Should You Buy?

Introduction

The Our Place Always Pan is one of the most talked-about pieces of multipurpose cookware around, backed by thousands of positive reviews and plenty of celebrity buzz. It promises to replace a Dutch oven, a skillet, a saucepan, a steamer, and more, all in one lightweight package. That sounds appealing, especially for small kitchens. But can a single pan really do everything well? To find out, we put it head to head against the dedicated winners in each category it claims to replace.

Skillet Duty: Eggs and Stir Fries

The Always Pan is made of aluminum with a ceramic non-stick coating, which does not off-gas the way traditional PTFE Teflon coatings can at very high temperatures. That said, ceramic coatings have a weakness: high heat can crack the surface, and those microscopic fissures cling to food, degrading non-stick performance over time.

Our standard 50-egg test, cooking eggs back to back with no fat, tells you a lot about how long a non-stick surface will last. Brand-new PTFE pans ace it. Ceramic pans are spottier. The Always Pan released eggs cleanly through the early tests and stopped performing at egg 44. That is better than some ceramic competitors, but not as good as our winning pans, and not as good as Teflon.

On the plus side, the high walls make stir frying tidy, the pour spouts let you empty every last drop of sauce, and there is a helper handle. The pan is light and easy to maneuver, and cleanup takes just a light scrub. The downsides: the squared-off handle digs into your hand, aluminum conducts heat unevenly with noticeable hot and cold spots, and the 8.5-inch cooking surface is small. Browning beef for stew means more batches, and more batches mean more time.

A Dedicated Skillet: GreenPan Valencia

The GreenPan Valencia is our favorite ceramic non-stick skillet, and it shows why a dedicated pan earns its spot. It is 12 inches rim to rim with about 9.5 inches of flat cooking surface, so there is real room to work. The sloping curved sides make it easy to sweep a spatula around, and the anodized aluminum body is harder than standard aluminum.

It is oven safe to 600 degrees, high enough to go under the broiler, and the stainless steel handle stays relatively cool on the stovetop thanks to a design that dissipates heat. In our egg tests, food released easily and scooted around the pan with no fat at all.

Saucepan Duty: Stirring Without Fear

The Always Pan also promises to replace a saucepan, but the low walls make it a nervy experience. With burbling tomato sauce, there is little breathing room, and stirring with abandon risks splashing. A traditional saucepan has much taller walls precisely so you can stir freely and let things bubble without them flying out.

Our best-buy saucepan is the Tramontina 4-quart, at about $90. It is tri-ply, meaning three layers of stainless steel, aluminum, and stainless steel, so it is induction compatible and heats evenly. It has a helper handle, a lid, and stainless steel handles that stay cooler on the stovetop. Our favorite by All-Clad costs about $100 more and is a very similar pan. Either way, if you are buying one saucepan, go big: a 4-quart pan holds far more than the Always Pan’s 2.6 quarts, and you will never boil over or run out of capacity.

Steaming: A Dedicated Basket Wins

The Always Pan comes with a steaming basket with little feet, two top handles, and a snug-fitting lid that locks in place, which is genuinely nice. It is wide, held a full head of broccoli plus plenty more, and released dumplings cleanly thanks to the non-stick coating. But gripping the handles to pull food out of hot steam felt dicey, and we definitely reached for a cloth.

The OXO steamer basket solves all of that. Its legs pop up or extend depending on how much water you need to clear, the telescoping handle lifts food out of hot pots without burning your hands, and it collapses flat for storage. It adjusts to fit saucepans and Dutch ovens alike, and the handle even screws off if you need the full surface for fish fillets. In durability testing, it survived hundreds of open-and-close cycles plus repeated washing without bending, sticking, or rusting, where other baskets got janky and rusty.

The Dutch Oven Alternative

The Cuisinart 5.5-quart enameled cast iron Dutch oven, just under $100, is our best buy in the category and a fantastic all-arounder. It handles stews, deep frying, and even baking bread. For smaller households or tight kitchens, the very reasons the Always Pan appeals, this one pot arguably does even more, with far more capacity and versatility than a 2.6-quart multipurpose pan.

Buying Advice: One Pan or a Set?

The Always Pan is a classic “jack of all trades, master of none.” It is a reasonable compromise if you are starting out, have no space, and need one pan right now. But you will likely outgrow it quickly. It lacks capacity, its low sides limit it as a saucepan, and it cannot go in the oven, which rules out a whole category of skillet recipes. Dedicated cookware grows with you.

If budget is the concern, buy one quality piece at a time and expand over time. Getting the nicest things you can means you are not throwing cookware in the landfill and replacing it every couple of years. Serious cooking rewards serious gear.

Conclusion

The Our Place Always Pan looks great and handles a few tasks well, but in every head-to-head comparison it fell short of the dedicated winners: the GreenPan Valencia for eggs and stir fries, the Tramontina saucepan for safe, roomy simmering, the OXO basket for steaming, and the Cuisinart Dutch oven for everything heavy and hearty. Build your kitchen one good piece at a time, and each will outperform the do-it-all pan it replaces.