All the Tramontina Tri-Ply Clad stainless cookware is comparable to All-Clad for safety, durability, design, and ease of cleaning. It ranks slightly below All-Clad for performance, and very much above All-Clad on price (most pieces and sets cost less than half what you’ll pay for All-Clad D3). As for the larger pieces in a set–e.g., Dutch oven and stock pot–what works for you depends a lot on your personal cooking style. You may get more use out of a 5-quart Dutch oven than an 8-quart stock pot, for example. But both of these are usable pieces that work for most people.
They feature the same triple ply construction, the same basic dimensions, and the same sturdy riveted handles (welded handles have a tendency to fall off with use). Bottom line — Tramontina offers quality cookware at low to mid-range prices. The most notable features are the premium non-stick coating, long handles, and wide cooking surface. Is it the absolute best tramontina pans non-stick pan, as the New York Times suggests? In 2022, Tramontina redesigned its 8- and 10-inch skillets so they have a slightly larger cooking surface with steeper sides, which we prefer. The pans are still nicely sloped to fit the curves of a whisk, and their lips are flared enough to allow moisture to evaporate when you are searing meat or sautéing vegetables.
You get a more usable amount of cooking surface in the 12-inch skillet (so the sloped sides are less of an issue). This puts us in a bit of a bind about our recommendations because we prefer the pieces in some of the Chinese sets (12 piece in particular), but prefer stainless steel lids. For the best nonstick cookware that will last several years, go with the Zwilling Madura Plus.
Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time). For information on how to prevent food from sticking to your stainless steel cookware, check out our blog post on the subject.
Cost is a major factor for most people when they buy cookware. We all want the best product we can afford, but we don’t want to pay more than necessary. As for other pans, most cooks generally prefer straight or slightly angled sides. Curves can make a pan harder to use and wash, and you definitely don’t want a pot that has a smaller opening than base. They can make the difference between a pan being easy to handle or awkward–and even dangerous–to handle. Many elements of design are subjective–basically meaning that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
In the right hands (and with proper technique) a stainless-steel skillet can do pretty much everything you need a pan to do as well. Check out our reviews for the best cast-iron, carbon-steel, and stainless-steel pans for more information. Ceramic pans are prone to lose their nonstick-ness more quickly and more thoroughly than standard PFOA-free pans, so in general we like cookware made from this material less than others.
In order to gauge their performance, I cut out circles of paper and weighted them down on the bottom of each pan, which I then placed over the same burner over medium heat until the paper started browning. The pattern tramontina cookware of browning on the paper should be a good indication of the pattern of hot and cold spots in the pan. Performance-wise, the Tramontina pan performed fairly identically to the All-Clad in our head-to-head tests.
That said, some people may find the concave handle uncomfortable to hold. We also found the handles on the All-Clad lids easy to grab, unlike the tiny ones on the Mauviel M’cook pieces (currently unavailable as a full set). In addition to making tri-ply cookware, most high-end manufacturers produce sets that are made from five or more layers of stainless steel, aluminum, and sometimes copper. In most of our tests, five-ply cookware didn’t heat as uniformly as regular tri-ply cookware, or the differences were negligible. One exception was the Demeyere 5-Plus 10-Piece Cookware Set (currently out of stock as a full set), which heated impressively evenly.
Their rounded, ergonomically shaped handles are also comfortable to hold. We’ve long-term tested an older (now-discontinued) version of this set for two years, and we’re confident that this durable cookware set will provide you with many years of use. The Tramontina 12-piece Stainless Steel Tri-ply Clad Cookware Set are simply an amazing set of cookware. The handles stay cool while the pans are blasted with 500-degree F heat, and that applies to all 12 pieces you get. You’re paying a bit extra, but worth it if you have a Dutch oven. We only note that you keep an eye on your food as its non-stick property is good, but not great.
This may have been a one-off manufacturing error, but we’ll keep an eye on customer reviews to see if others experience a similar problem with the handle. The Great Jones Family Style set is unusual among the cookware sets we looked at in that it includes a nonstick pan and an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven. For one, when testing the Great Jones Saucy for our guide to the best small saucepan, we found the loop-shaped handles uncomfortable to hold. Also, the nonstick pan is only 8½ inches, so it’s not as versatile as the 10-inch pans we recommend in our guide to nonstick skillets. And it has a ceramic coating, which we’ve found quickly loses its nonstick properties.