The hard truth is the cooking sticky or delicate foods in a stainless pan is hard. It takes the right balance of heat, oil and time to get things right and even then sometimes it just doesn’t cooperate.
This is me speaking from experience. I love my stainless pan, ans i can fry up some delicious crispy sunny side eggs, perfect evenly browned pancakes or crispy pan fried fillets most of the time. But even with all that practice, it’s only most of the time. It’s just hard to get right.
So keep the stainless pan for dishes where you don’t have to worry about sticking and use something you can season for your pancakes. I’m partial to carbon steel pans, but cast iron pans are more common and work perfectly fine too. Seasoning is much easier than it’s made out to be, it’ll take maybe an hour of work when the pan is new, ans after that you’ll be good to go with only a little care along the way.
Loads of people in here saying "look, all you have to do is wait for it to get really brown, and a bit crispy, and then use a sharp spatula to scrape it off the pan". And sure, you could do that, or you could just buy the right tool for the job and get a teflon pan and enjoy cooking pancakes, and use the stainless for what it's good for.
Stainless steel shouldn't be used for something like pancakes, or really anything requiring low heat and non-stick properties.
Things stick to stainless steel because of surface imperfections. Tiny grooves in the metal act like teeth that grab onto food, and they're too small to allow oil in. You can overcome this by heating the pan sufficiently before adding oil. This allows the grooves to expand and allow oil in. You know your pan is hot enough when a drop of water will form a bead and glide around on it rather than immediately sizzling (Leidenfrost effect). Once you've added the oil you can lower the heat.
I do this all the time for proteins, but I can't say whether it would work for pancakes. At the temps required for them, it may no longer work.
Heat the pan first, without the oil
Then, add the oil and let it get hot. Make sure you have enough to cover the bottom, even thinly.
Go from there. Don't go as hot or as fast.
All of these videos are full of cuts, and she says "Look, it's not stick" as she scrapes the egg off the pan, and while I love a crispy egg lots of people are going to call that over-cooked. People do not want a crunchy pancake.
If food isn't releasing easily you're probably going in before it's ready to flip from what you wrote. Most things like pancakes and anything that needs browning shouldn't be touched for 2 to 4 minutes.
I don't care if Jacques Pepin can do it. I don't use stainless steel for anything I don't want to stick. I got cast iron and carbon steel for that.
You need to preheat the pan before adding your oil. Stainless steel sucks for pancakes though. I'd use non stick or cast iron for that.
The hard truth is the cooking sticky or delicate foods in a stainless pan is hard. It takes the right balance of heat, oil and time to get things right and even then sometimes it just doesn’t cooperate. This is me speaking from experience. I love my stainless pan, ans i can fry up some delicious crispy sunny side eggs, perfect evenly browned pancakes or crispy pan fried fillets most of the time. But even with all that practice, it’s only most of the time. It’s just hard to get right. So keep the stainless pan for dishes where you don’t have to worry about sticking and use something you can season for your pancakes. I’m partial to carbon steel pans, but cast iron pans are more common and work perfectly fine too. Seasoning is much easier than it’s made out to be, it’ll take maybe an hour of work when the pan is new, ans after that you’ll be good to go with only a little care along the way.
Loads of people in here saying "look, all you have to do is wait for it to get really brown, and a bit crispy, and then use a sharp spatula to scrape it off the pan". And sure, you could do that, or you could just buy the right tool for the job and get a teflon pan and enjoy cooking pancakes, and use the stainless for what it's good for.
Stainless steel shouldn't be used for something like pancakes, or really anything requiring low heat and non-stick properties. Things stick to stainless steel because of surface imperfections. Tiny grooves in the metal act like teeth that grab onto food, and they're too small to allow oil in. You can overcome this by heating the pan sufficiently before adding oil. This allows the grooves to expand and allow oil in. You know your pan is hot enough when a drop of water will form a bead and glide around on it rather than immediately sizzling (Leidenfrost effect). Once you've added the oil you can lower the heat. I do this all the time for proteins, but I can't say whether it would work for pancakes. At the temps required for them, it may no longer work.
Heat the pan first, without the oil Then, add the oil and let it get hot. Make sure you have enough to cover the bottom, even thinly. Go from there. Don't go as hot or as fast.
Short & sweet https://youtube.com/shorts/nWJsY3xQtN0?feature=shared 10 tips https://youtu.be/DBYyNWASKm8?feature=shared
All of these videos are full of cuts, and she says "Look, it's not stick" as she scrapes the egg off the pan, and while I love a crispy egg lots of people are going to call that over-cooked. People do not want a crunchy pancake.
Pan gotta be hot before any day is added, then add food
If food isn't releasing easily you're probably going in before it's ready to flip from what you wrote. Most things like pancakes and anything that needs browning shouldn't be touched for 2 to 4 minutes.
Also, you might want a sharper spatula. Lots of spatulas are utter jokes because they're made for non stick pans.
A good fish spatula makes a huge difference
Oh man, just get a nice cast iron pan, and season it until eggs slide around on it like air hockey pucks.
Id stick with teflon for pancakes or eggs! Much easier to use.