How to Turn a Stainless Steel Pot into a Non-Stick One: Introduction to Tips for Using Stainless Steel Pots

I. How to Turn a Stainless Steel Pot into a Non-Stick Pot

1. Preparation—Prepare a stainless steel pot and clean it thoroughly.

2. Turn on the heat and warm up the pan. At the same time, pour in a small amount of white vinegar (any edible white vinegar will do). Continue heating until the pan is nearly boiling, then turn off the heat.

3. Next, prepare a steel brush and thoroughly scrub the inside of the pot with scalding vinegar (use an extra piece of sponge cloth to prevent burning your hands). Be careful and thorough during this step.
Scrub vigorously, making sure to reach every spot—especially the surfaces that come into contact with food during frying. This will help remove dirt and impurities from the tiny pores of the stainless steel. After scrubbing thoroughly, discard the white vinegar and rinse the surface clean with fresh water.

4. Next, heat the pan over high heat until all the water droplets have evaporated. Then continue heating—just a bit more—to make sure the pan is very hot (but don’t let it get so hot that you damage the pan). To test how hot the pan has become, pour in just a tiny bit of water. If the water droplets immediately start rolling across the surface of the pan, almost like mercury (as shown in the right-hand image), then the pan is hot enough.

5. At this point, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simultaneously add salad oil (or any other cooking oil you normally use for stir-frying). Then, keep shaking and rotating the pan continuously. Make sure every surface of the pan is coated with oil. Maintain the heat at medium-low throughout this process, allowing the oil to stay in the pan for at least two or three minutes. This step enables the tiny pores on the stainless steel surface to absorb the oil, thereby achieving a non-stick effect.

6. About now, just turn off the heat—this marks the completion of seasoning your pan. If you’d like to start cooking right away, go ahead and begin. But if you don’t need to use it for cooking immediately, let it cool down first, then pour out the oil and thoroughly clean the pan with water and dish soap. As you wipe the pan dry, you’ll notice that it now feels incredibly shiny and glossy.

II. Ensure even heating before each use.

Please note that each time you’re frying something, you should still start with medium-low heat. After adding cold oil, maintain medium-low heat and let the oil warm up for about two minutes.

By the way, give the pan a gentle shake to ensure the oil coats the inside of the pan evenly. After completing this step, you can turn the heat up to the intensity you need and start frying or stir-frying as usual.

Note that it’s crucial to ensure the oil in the pan is heated evenly beforehand. As a stainless steel pan heats up, the metal molecules begin to expand in all directions when exposed to heat. This expansion puts pressure on the “pores” on the pan’s surface, causing some pores to close and others to open. If you add food—especially fish, meat, or chicken breast with low fat content—at this stage, you’ll likely encounter sticking!

When the pan is heated to the right temperature, the phenomenon of “pores” being squeezed shut subsides, and thus the food won’t stick to the pan! Based on this principle, we can infer that the process of “seasoning a pan” involves evenly opening up the “pores” on the pan’s surface. As long as the pores on the pan’s surface have uniform adhesion to the food, sticking will not occur.