Nonstick cookware excels in certain situations but teflon and nonstick pans have a low-heat design and slick surface, which makes them not the best choice for all foods. When you attempt to develop a proper crust on meat, you’ll end up with pale, gray protein instead of the caramelized golden-brown color you’re after and worst of all, you may be damaging your pans in the process.

The real problem lies in compatibility. Certain ingredients and cooking methods can rapidly degrade nonstick coatings, causing them to chip, flake or wear away prematurely. High heat, metal utensils and abrasive cleaning can all compromise the surface, potentially contaminating your food with coating particles. What starts as a convenient cooking “hack” can quickly become a safety concern and an expensive replacement cycle. 

We all love easy cleanup as much as the next bloke, but most of your culinary projects fare better in stainless steel, carbon steel or cast iron. These pans impart high surface heat, giving food char, depth and flavor development. I grilled a career cooking teacher to compile the ultimate nonstick no-go list. 

Richard LaMarita is a chef-instructor of Health-Centered Culinary Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. LaMarita describes nonstick cookware, including ceramic, as “niche.” 

“Scrambled or fried eggs, pancakes and fried tofu are great for cooking in nonstick pans,” LaMarita told me via email. “These sticky foods must come out completely without leaving remnants in the pan. Nonstick pans are popular, easy to clean and convenient, and I recommend every cook have one.”

They’re not designed to handle high heat, be placed in the oven or scrubbed vigorously. The coating that makes a pan nonstick can deteriorate faster when confronted with certain foods or cooking techniques.

So, what foods should never be cooked in nonstick cookware? Here’s what Chef LaMarita says. 

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1. Most meat and fish

First are foods that require or desire searing on the outside. When you’re looking for a deep, caramelized crust with good color, such as on a steak, chicken breast, or a piece of salmon, you won’t get the color you want from a nonstick pan. Nonstick is not made to tolerate the high heat required to achieve the desired crust, and its surface is not geared toward developing that crust because of the coating on the pan. 

2. Most vegetables

Much like meat, vegetables need a little char for maximum flavor, and you just won’t get it with a nonstick pan. For zucchini, carrots, onions, asparagus and bok choy, reach for a stainless-steel or cast-iron skillet for best results. 

3. Caramelized food

Do you know about “fond?’ It’s the caramelized, crusty bits of food left on the pan after searing, and it’s the key to big flavor (and happiness). Fond is used to make pan sauces, searing items first, then picking up those beautiful, tasty bits of food and incorporating them into the sauce. For making fond, a nonstick pan will not serve you. There is simply not enough surface heat.

4. Highly acidic foods

Cooking highly acidic foods in nonstick pans is not a good idea. Acidic foods include a tomato sauce, or a dish with a high ratio of vinegar in the pan, such as a braised cabbage, or if there is lemon juice in the cooking process. “Ratatouille is one dish I wouldn’t cook in a nonstick,” LaMarita says. “The acids in this recipe and others will corrode the delicate nonstick surface over time.”

5. Stir-fry, soups, sauces

Along the same lines of wearing down the surface, refrain from cooking foods or dishes that require a fair amount of stirring. A stir-fry, sauce or a dish that demands a lot of tossing and mixing could wear down the surface quickly. “I find that nonstick surfaces wear down eventually, even with proper use, so why speed up that process?”

For more, here’s how to tell if you Teflon pons are Safe, and a complete guide to reheating every type of leftovers.

Article created by: Gabija Palšytė

Eating delicious food is one of life’s best comforts. We probably all wish we had a personal cook who could serve us homemade ravioli and rich strawberry cheesecake every night. Yet the reality is that learning to cook and bake takes time and effort, and not everybody has that in this economy. So what are the secrets that can help you quickly up your cooking game?

Bored Panda has scoured the nooks and crannies of the internet to find you life-changing cooking hacks. Only one ingredient and your dish might be elevated to new heights. Check them out and share your favorite tips that are missing from our list!

Homemade marshmallow fluff! Let me repeat, HOMEMADE MALLOW FLUFF! This amazing recipe comes together with just maple syrup, unflavored gelatin, vanilla, and water. That and a stand mixer is literally all you need to whip your own maple marshmallow fluff at home.

Can I stop dipping literally anything into this amazing maple marshmallow fluff?! The answer is obviously no . Lee, Rosie and I had the time of our lives making and shooting this mallow fluff at the studio. Not only does it make your kitchen smell like an old fashioned candy shop, it’s just so dang fun and sweet. And yes, if you were wondering, the girls and I did in fact pull out our kitchen blow torch to toast this mallow fluff. And is there anything better than the smell and taste of toasted mallows?! Probably not .

Mallow Fluff Ingredients

• Maple syrup: my go-to natural sweetener for SO many recipes, including this mallow fluff! You’ll boil the maple and the water on the stovetop til the bubbly goodness reaches 240°F. It will look more like the start of caramel after reaching this temperature, but you’ll quickly remove it from heat and transfer it to a stand mixer to whipppp into fluff with the gelatin.
• Gelatin: all you need is one packet of unflavored gelatin. You’ll mix it with a little water and let it set in the bottom of your stand mixer while the maple is boiling.
• Vanilla: I like to use vanilla bean paste because it gives this marshmallow fluff a really rich, warm vanilla flavor, but vanilla extract will definitely work, too.
• Water: you’ll need a little water to set the gelatin, and a little more to thin out the maple syrup a bit.

Equipment to Gather

• Stand mixer: a KitchenAid stand mixer is the GOAT, but any stand mixer will do. Please note it may take more time to whip your marshmallow fluff into soft peaks if you have a less powerful stand mixer.
• Stock pot: don’t be fooled by the small amount of maple and water in the bottom of your pot before it heats up. The mixture will bubble up the sides as the temperature increases, so you’ll want a pot with tall sides.
• Candy thermometer: a candy thermometer is nice to have for this recipe because you can simply hook it on the edge of your stock pot and check it periodically as the temperature of the maple increases to 240°F. If you don’t have one, a digital thermometer works great, just make sure to check the temperature frequently so the maple doesn’t burn.

Making the Perfect Marshmallow Fluff

This recipe really is EASY PEASY as long as you follow a few pro tips. For the perfect mallow fluff, I recommend:

• Use a large stock pot: while the maple and water may look like VERY little volume when you start boiling it, it will quickly bubble up the sides of your pot, so you want to make sure you have a tall stock pot so the candied maple doesn’t bubble over the pot (speaking from experience, this is a terrible mess to clean up ).
• Whip it on high: I’m talking the highest level your stand mixer goes. By whipping the hot maple and gelatin as quickly as possible, it will create an airy, fluffy marshmallow fluff that holds in soft peaks when it’s done. You will not get this result by hand mixing or using a slower mixing speed. I placed a tea towel over my stand mixer to avoid any splatter.

How to Serve Marshmallow Fluff

I don’t know if you could dip anything into this maple marshmallow fluff that DIDN’T taste amazing . Some of my favorites include:

Store any leftover marshmallow fluff in an air-tight container in the fridge. To refresh the refrigerated fluff, bring to room temperature for 10-15 minutes and then briefly whip using a hand mixer. This will add air back into the fluff and revive its fluffy, sticky texture.

Say goodbye to dry or shriveled sweet batches of air fryer sweet potatoes! This recipe offers a method of par-cooking your sweet potatoes before cutting them into cubes and air frying them. The resulting sweet potatoes are perfectly tender and moist, yet crispy and gently browning at the edges.

For a long time, I said that I owned an air fryer for two purposes: reheating pizza and making sweet potatoes.

This was a joke, and I’ve expanded my air fryer repertoire considerably since then. But air fryer sweet potatoes are still a mainstay in my home. (As is leftover pizza.)

I serve my air fryer sweet potato cubes with tofu scramble for breakfast. I pile them onto vegan bowls. They’re an easy side dish at dinnertime. And I like adding them to tacos, too—especially my sweet potato tacos with black bean spread.

Making sweet potato cubes in the air fryer might sound like a self-explanatory process. For me, however, it was not.

It took me a while to get my air fryer sweet potatoes just right. This post is about the simple par-cooking step that gave me great results.

Air fryer trial and error

In the past, I roasted sweet potato in the air fryer similarly to how I roasted it in the oven. I cubed raw sweet potatoes, seasoned them with oil, salt, and pepper, then let the air fryer go to work.

Sometimes, this worked out just fine. But a lot of the time I ended up with sweet potato cubes that were dry and shriveled. Sometimes, they had a pale, starchy appearance, even if their edges were heavily browned.

The texture of these potatoes was, for lack of a better description, excessively air fried.

Part of what I love about sweet potatoes is their rich, sweet flesh and satisfying texture. These cubes were too airy; it was as if they’d lost their substance.

I kept coating the potatoes in more oil in an effort to combat this effect. I only ended up with sweet potatoes that were both dry and greasy—not a great combo.

I could have just given up on making sweet potatoes in my air fryer, but I didn’t want to. I eat a lot of sweet potatoes and keep my air fryer on the countertop often; I wanted to make this recipe work!

I kept tinkering with time and temperature, with no luck.

Finally, I added a step that turns out perfectly cooked sweet potato cubes each and every time: par-cooking.

Par-cooked potatoes = perfect results

Par-cooking is any process in which you cook a food incompletely before finishing cooking in another way, or at another time.

You can par-boil noodles before making lasagna or blanch vegetables before adding them to a casserole. Sometimes it’s helpful to simmer fruit before baking it in a pie shell.

Here, you’ll prick your raw sweet potatoes and microwave them for about four or five minutes before you cube and air fry them.

Technically, you could use the air fryer itself for the par-cooking step, but the microwave does the job faster.

I first started using the microwave to par-cook sweet potatoes when I was writing The Vegan Week. That book is all about meal prep, which means that it’s also about tight schedules and efficiency.

I wanted to present a means of oven-baking sweet potatoes with deep flavor and tenderness. Yet “low and slow” isn’t always an option for the hurried home cook.

Par-cooking sweet potatoes in the microwave before transferring them to the oven for baking does the trick: tender, candy-like potatoes in less time.

Similarly, the microwave helps to give the sweet potatoes a head start in this recipe. It’s also a cooking method that preserves their moisture. Once microwaved, the sweet potatoes will become crispy in the air fryer without getting dry.

I know it may seem a little nuts to cook a vegetable in two ways, especially if convenience is a priority. But five minutes of microwaving goes by quickly, and it ensures great sweet taters every time.

Adapting the recipe to your air fryer

This method works for my air fryer and my oven, so it ought to be adapted successfully for most types of air fryers.

That said, air fryers can differ in their heat, efficiency, and timing, so you may need to experiment a little with the method.

I have a Philips air fryer that’s now discontinued (this one is similar), but it’s the type with a basket, rather than one that looks like a toaster oven. It has about a 4L capacity, and this recipe is developed accordingly.

You can half or double the recipe if you’re working with a different sized machine.

How to make perfect cubed air fryer sweet potatoes—each and every time

Step 1: Pick your sweet potato

I usually make this recipe with one large sweet potato. It’s fine to prepare it with two smaller potatoes, but if you do that, you may need to adjust microwave time (four minutes for a single, smaller potato, or about seven minutes for two smaller potatoes at once).

Step 2: Par-cook in the microwave

Prick the sweet potato all over with a fork. Place it on a microwave-safe plate and microwave the potato for 5 minutes.

At this point, the potato will be tender, but it won’t be fully cooked. If you’re working with a medium or small potato, rather than a large one, four minutes of microwaving will do the trick.

No microwave? No problem. I include instructions for par-cooking in the air fryer itself in the recipe card.

Step 3: Cube the potato

Allow the potato to cool for five minutes, then cut it into 1-inch / 2.5cm cubes. Careful as you do this—it’ll be hot!

Step 4: Season the potatoes

I often use avocado oil spray when I’m making anything in my air fryer; it’s convenient and easy. So, you can transfer the cubes to your air fryer basket, give them a spray of oil, then season them with salt and pepper.

Alternatively, you can toss them with a small amount of regular avocado oil in a bowl, season them with salt and pepper, and transfer them to the air fryer basket.

Step 5: Air fry

Air fry the potatoes at 400°F / 200°C for 8-10 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and browning along the edges.

Stop once halfway through air frying to shake the basket well; this helps the potatoes to crisp up evenly.

Step 6: Serve

You can serve the sweet potatoes just the way they are, or you can sprinkle them with toasted chopped nuts or seeds.

You can also drizzle the potatoes with some kind of dressing. I’m really partial to my cashew queso, but vegan honey mustard (I sweeten mine with dates), beet ketchup, and yum sauce are nice ideas, too.

Meal prep & storage

A tender batch of cooked sweet potatoes is one of my favorite things to meal prep over the weekend. This recipe finds its way into my own meal planning all the time.

The potatoes can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days.

If you’re like me, and your first question about any food or recipe is “can I freeze this?” the answer is yes! You can do so for up to eight weeks.

Defrost the potatoes in the fridge overnight. Enjoy them cold, in salads or bowls, or reheat them in the air fryer at 350° for about five minutes.

It’s funny to devote as much trial and error as I have to a simple side dish. But we love what we love, and I love sweet potatoes.

I’ll tell you all about my go-to air fryer mushrooms soon!

For now, I hope you find this method useful.

xo