Nonstick Tested: Teflon vs. Cast Iron vs. my Our Place Titanium Pro (Patreon)

As you all probably know by now, I've teamed up with the folks at Our Place in LA to help design, test, and prototype their new brushed steel Titanium Pro pan line, the first line of non-stick pans engineered to work with no coating that can chip off or vaporize, giving you non-stick qualities in a high-performance triple-clad pan that comes with a lifetime warranty.

But how good are the pans, really?

Because I partnered with Our Place on the Titanium Pro, I’m especially aware that saying “just trust me” isn’t good enough. Your skepticism is warranted. I’d be skeptical, too.

Well first off, I'd hope that my decades of dedicated work in helping home cooks find more joy and get better results in their homes speaks to my goals. Developing new tools and ingredients has been the logical (and exciting) next step for me. The trust of my readers and viewers has always been my most valuable asset, and maintaining that trust remains my North Star as I navigate into the world of product developmen.

If you’re still skeptical, I get it. That’s why I made a video and wrote this article showing exactly how the Titanium Pro performs side‑by‑side against a classic Teflon‑style nonstick pan and a well‑seasoned vintage cast‑iron skillet. No swaps. No tricks. Same burners, same ingredients. Just documentation—what each pan excels at and where each one falls short.

Once you read about how the technology work and see the testing, you may better understand exactly why I chose to work with Our Place rather than a larger company with more name recognition. The team there is smart, creative, deeply passionate, willing to think outside the box, and to invest in exploring and developing new technologies to get real results. It shows. (They also have a wonderful design sense that fits my kitchen perfectly).

If you have questions after watching the video or reading this article, please leave them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer or to find someone on the Our Place tech team that can get the exact answers. If you want to see more side‑by‑side tests, let me know and I’ll try to throw together some quick Instagram videos.

What is the Titanium Pro Pan?

What exactly is the Titanium Pro pan, and what makes it different from everything else on the market?

At its core, it is a high end tri-ply steel clad pan—think classic All-Clad construction. An aluminum core provides even heating, clad with stainless steel for strength and searing power.

Where it differs is on the interior. Instead of stainless steel, the cooking surface is clad with 99.6% pure titanium. That titanium undergoes a proprietary heating and controlled oxidation process that creates an ultra‑thin layer of titanium oxide (TiO₂)—about 2–10 nanometers thick—bonded directly to the metal.

This layer is roughly 300% harder than steel, making it metal‑utensil‑safe and extremely durable. More importantly, it develops a microscopic surface texture invisible to the naked eye.

That texture creates what scientists call the “lotus effect,” named after the naturally hydrophobic surface of lotus leaves. It’s this invisible micro‑texture—rather than a sprayed‑on coating—that gives the Titanium Pro its nonstick properties.

You’ll also notice a visible pattern of raised hexagons and dots on the surface, which has led some people to assume this is a HexClad‑style pan. It’s not. Unlike HexClad, which relies on a traditional sprayed‑on nonstick coating between raised steel ridges, Titanium Pro has no coating at all. Nothing to chip, scrape off, or degrade with heat or dishwasher use. It's an engineered part of the surface of the pan that is inert, meaning it won’t leach, corrode, or alter food flavor — even at high temperatures or with acidic ingredients.

Those raised structures serve a different purpose: helping distribute oil and guide food release. Combined with the micro‑textured valleys created by the titanium oxide layer, they’re what make the pan nonstick—and what allows Our Place to offer a lifetime warranty.

The Competition

For testing, I compared the Titanium Pro against two familiar benchmarks:

• A traditional Teflon‑coated aluminum pan. This is what most people picture when they hear “nonstick.” Typically all aluminum with a sprayed‑on chemical coating, sometimes with a steel plate or cladding added for induction compatibility. Teflon is one of the slickest, most non‑reactive materials known—which is why it works so well. But coatings begin to degrade and release harmful fumes around 475°F, making high‑heat cooking and hot ovens a no‑go.

• A well‑seasoned vintage cast‑iron pan. I used a vintage Wagner skillet. Older cast iron was machined smooth after casting, unlike many modern pans with rougher surfaces that are harder to season. Mine is also very well seasoned, meaning it has a smooth layer of polymerized oil built up over many years.

Test 1: Heat Evenness (a.k.a. The Tortilla Test)

I placed a tortilla weighted with cheese in each pan and suspended them over a ring‑shaped flame without moving them until the cheese melted and the tortilla browned. The browning pattern on the tortillas reveals how evenly each pan heats.

• Teflon/aluminum: Extremely even. Aluminum’s excellent conductivity smooths out hot spots before heat reaches the food.

• Cast iron: Very poor evenness. Dark rings where the flame hit, a pale center, and visible cool spots where the pan was touching the supports. Cast iron is a poor heat conductor and needs long, careful preheating.

• Titanium Pro: Nearly identical to the Teflon pan. The aluminum core spreads heat effectively, producing even browning with only a slightly lighter center.

Verdict: Teflon wins by a nose over Titanium Pro. Cast iron trails far behind.

Test 2: Hard Searing

I heated each pan with the same amount of oil until it just began to smoke, then seared identical pieces of skirt steak for 60 seconds per side. For searing, I value a nice, dark crust that forms as quickly as possible so as to minimize the chance of overcooking the interior.

There’s an important caveat here: Teflon cannot safely be pushed very hot. Once you get past ~450–475°F, coatings can degrade and produce fumes you don’t want in your kitchen. for for the teflon, I made sure to turn the heat down as soon as the oil started smoking so as not to release harmful vapors into my kitchen.

• Teflon: Very even browning, but it was the lightest of the three.

• Cast iron (short preheat): Uneven sear with dark edges and a pale center. This is what happens when cast iron doesn’t have time to equalize. After repeating the test with iron that was pre-heated longer, it fared better, but it was still difficult to get an even sear.

• Titanium Pro: The evenness of the aluminum Teflon pan, but with darker searing in the same amount of time. Because this pan is safe to 1000°F, leaving it over high heat throughout the sear is a real option, minimizing searing time.

Verdict: Titanium Pro produced the best, most even sear. Cast iron can match it with careful technique. Teflon is poorly suited to hard searing and poses a health risk if it's accidentally heated too hot (note: Hexclad has the same issue with heating).

Test 3: Cleanup

Not glamorous, but it matters. I washed all three pans in the sink using some soapy water and a sponge.

• Teflon: Rinse, wipe, done. Easiest by hand. Some brands are dishwasher safe, but many recommend avoiding the dishwasher so that the nonstick coating or aluminum doesn't wear down.

• Cast iron: Totally cleanable with soap (that old myth is just that—modern soap doesn't affect the polymerized oil layer), but it takes more effort—and you must dry it immediately and re‑oil to prevent rust

• Titanium Pro: Soap, sponge, easy wipe. You can soak it, air‑dry it, or even put it in the dishwasher without harming it. Note that the Titanium Pro does, over time, pick up a bit of a patina on the titanium layer. This patina doesn't affect cooking and there's no need to try and scrub it out.

Verdict: Teflon wins hands-down if you are hand washing. Nothing sticks to it, everything comes out with a simply soapy wipe and rinse, and you can immediately set it aside to dry. Titanium pro comes close, requiring just a bit more effort to clean out but—it's also dishwasher safe, which nonstick is not (not if you want it to last, at least). Cast iron is the most difficult, requiring a bit more scrubbing and the necessity to carefully dry and re-oil after use (to prevent rust).

The In real life, this is one of the Titanium Pro’s biggest advantages: nearly nonstick‑level cleanup without the fragility.

Test 4: Salmon Skin

Skin‑on salmon is a good test of both heat control and release. I heated a teaspoon of oil in each pan over medium heat, then added a skin on salmon filet, allowing it to cook until it was golden and crisp.

• Teflon: Crisps very nicely and evenly, but it took the longest to reach crispness—3 minutes on the first side—which means more time for the interior to overcook. Because Teflon is not metal utensil-safe, I used a silicone spatula to flip the salmon (I hate clumsy silicone spatulas).

• Cast iron: The first piece of salmon I tried cooked way too fast. After three minutes it was nearly blacked along the edges but pale in the center (due to uneven heating). I repeated the test allowing the cast iron to preheat longer and cooking the salmon for 2 1/2 minutes instead of three. This time it produced a better sear, though still relatively uneven. For the cast iron, I use my trusty metal fish spatula, the turner of choice in every professional kitchen I've ever worked in.

• Titanium Pro: The most even browning of the three, and in 30 seconds less than the Teflon. It's also metal utensil safe, so using my fish spatula made flipping the salmon effortless.

Verdict: For moderate heat searing, Teflon does quite well, delivering very even results. The nonstick coating make the fish release immediately though having to use a silicone spatula to flip it negates some of this ease. The cast iron again showed surprisingly difficult results with searing, especially in terms of evenness, though it did sear very fast. The Titanium Pro combines the best of both pans, searing as evenly as the Teflon, with the speed of the cast iron. Being able to use a metal fish spatula in it also made release and flipping extremely simple.

Test 5: Fried Eggs (The Slide Test)

If there's one use folks say that nonstick pans excel at, it's eggs. Eggs are notoriously sticky, because their proteins tend to flow and mold into the shape of whatever they're poured into, creating tight bonds with pan surfaces that are difficult to break.

For the first egg test, I fried eggs in pans heated with a one-second coating of nonstick cooking spray. I cracked the egg in, let it cook until the whites were set, then tilted the pan until the egg slid.

• Teflon: Utterly slick. The slightest tilt sends the egg sliding across the pan like an ice skater.

• Cast iron: Very good when well seasoned, but it needs a bit of encouragement and light shaking to get the egg to move.

• Titanium Pro: Not quite Teflon‑slick, but significantly slicker than cast iron. No shaking needed, just a tilt.

Verdict: Nothing is as slick as Teflon. It's literally one of the slickest materials known to man. Cast iron is slick enough when well seasoned (but we don't all have perfectly seasoned cast iron). The Titanium Pro was not quite as slick as Teflon, but the egg still slid with very minimal effort.

Test 6: The Omelet (The Nonstick Boss Battle)

This is the true test of a nonstick pan. Omelets require high heat, constant motion, and for the egg to roll easily off the surface with very little room for error.

• Teflon: Best shape, easiest release, classic omelette performance. The low sloping lip of a standard teflon-coated pan makes it ideal for rolling and shaping an omelet and its light weight makes it easy to lift and maneuver with one hand during the delicate process.

• Cast iron: Heavy and awkward to shake with one hand. The sharp, straight sides make it very difficult to properly shape and roll an omelet. There was also some sticking in the center of the pan, and some over-browning due to the heat retention of the pan.

• Titanium Pro: As far as cooking the eggs and getting them out, it was nearly as good as the Teflon. The omelet rolled and slid easily. However, the Titanium Pro pan does have rather tall, straight sides which makes it great for most other uses, but not as perfect as a gently-sloped Teflon-coated pan for French-style omelets.

Verdict: If there was a single reason I'd want to own a nonstick pan, it'd be for omelets.

The Big Picture

I ranked and charted out where each pan excels or lags so you can get a good picture of how it may suit your own personal needs.

There's no one "best" pan for every cook out there, and I want to recognize that what might be the ideal pan for me, may not suit your own particular needs. Maybe you like the searing potential or the nostalgia and ritual involved with caring for an heirloom piece of cast iron. Maybe you make omelets every single morning and want the slickest release possible. Maybe you want one pan that can sear hard, clean easily, is nonstick enough for most needs, and can go in the dishewasher. There are plenty of valid reasons to choose one pan over another.

In other words, there’s no magic material or One Pan to Rule Them All. But the Titanium Pro is the closest I've found for my own cooking style. It's why I helped design it and am excited to spread the word now. In my own kitchen, I've switched to using it for virtually everything I used to do in carbon steel, cast iron, or tri-ply skillets, and most of the stuff I'd pull out the nonstick for (the exception being pale french omelets).

It's not because they’re magical and perfect—but because they’re the most useful across the widest range of tasks.

You should choose the pan that fits how you cook and how you feel. The one that gives you the most joy, and the one that makes you most excited to get into the kitchen and make something delicious for the people you love. The Titanium Pro happens to line up almost perfectly with my priorities. Yours may be different—and that’s exactly how it should be.

If you'd like to buy my Our Place Titanium Pro pans, you can order them here. They come in a variety of sizes and sets, so poke around and find the ones that you need most. You'll also find my Wonder Oven Pro in Pistachio Green with my signature Guava Pink and Golden Yolk accents available there.