Food editor Taylor Ann Spencer breaks down when you should add oil to a pan before heating on the stove, and when it's okay to wait until the pan is hot.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00When should you add oil to your pan?
00:02Depends on the type of pan you're using.
00:04Let's start with stainless steel.
00:06There are a lot of conflicting opinions
00:08about whether you should heat a stainless steel pan
00:10with or without something in it.
00:12However, if you're using that medium-low heat,
00:15you should be totally fine to heat stainless steel
00:18without anything in it at all.
00:20To gauge the heat of the pan,
00:21you can just flick a little bit of water into the pan.
00:24It should dance.
00:25And that's how you know that your pan is heated.
00:28Cast iron is the same as stainless steel.
00:31You can heat it without anything in it,
00:33but you will probably want to heat it longer
00:35than two minutes to get heated through
00:37just because it's a denser material.
00:39You absolutely need to have something in enamel cast iron
00:43when you heat it up
00:44because that enamel coating will contract
00:47and could potentially crack and ruin the beautiful pan.
00:51Non-stick.
00:52Most of you probably know this already,
00:54but you absolutely have to heat a non-stick pan
00:57with something in it.
00:59Otherwise, that non-stick coating will vaporize
01:02and release those good old toxic fumes.
01:05Nobody wants toxic fumes in their food.
01:08I'll see you next time with us.
01:09I'll see you next time in the next episode.