Sauté Pans, Straight Sided

Many cooks, including professionals, confuse straight-sided sauté pans (plats à sauter or rondeaux) with sloping-sided sauté pans—what Americans call frying pans, and the French, poêles. The difference is important. A straight-sided sauté pan is excellent for making integral sauces, because meats, vegetables, and other ingredients can be browned in the pan and the sauce made in the same pan. This is difficult in a pan with sloping sides, where a sauce can scald or burn during reduction.

Straight-sided sauté pans should be constructed of heavy-gauge tinned copper, aluminum, or copper-bottomed stainless steel. Most straight-sided sauté pans have a long iron handle on one side, which makes it easy to move them around on the stove. In certain instances, however, it is useful to finish cooking a dish in the oven, and a sauté pan with two small handles (rondeau) is more useful. These pans can also double as small roasting pans.