Can You Buy Affordable Stainless Steel Cookware?

can you purchase an inexpensive set of well-made comfortable to use stainless steel cookware that will last you a lifetime two sets to the test both are from a newcomer to the cookware block let's see if they can be a good replacement to the Costco set I reviewed a while back which is now discontinued so many of you wanted me to review the current sets sold at Costco to see how they compare to this Kirkland set now that was discontinued then a few months ago Legend cookware reached out to me and they asked me if I would be willing to take a look at their stainless steel five ply copper core set and never heard of the company love the landing page kind of gave me the feeling that they had confidence in their product good reviews on Amazon so I said yes and two days later I received this copper core set but without any discounts it's kind of pricey they're five ply all stainless steel set is a lot less expensive so I contacted the owner of the company and asked them if he'd be willing to also send me the all stainless five-ply set so that I could compare them both these sets were given to me no money was exchanged or received from Legend cookware and Legend has no input in my review or the editing of this video a couple of years ago when I did a side-by-side comparison with Costco's copper core cookware and all clads I listed the pros and cons of each and for the price and warranty I felt the Kirkland set was a better value for the money and that stirred up a lot of controversy in the comments look I have nothing against old clad in fact I favor made in the USA but where do manufacturers both American and European Source the stainless steel material for their cookware I wanted to find out when I reached out to companies like dimir maiden All-Clad and many many others I basically got four answers one we can't tell you two China three somewhere other than China and the fourth response was silence some just never got back to me all clad and a couple of others could not tell me where they sourced the metal it was not company policy maybe the source of origin changes and they can't give me a definitive answer fine so just based on construction quality warranty and price the Costco brand had an edge but knowing Kirkland's history of putting their brand name on another manufacturer's product I really find it hard to believe that all clad did not have their hand in the fabrication of those pans but I can't confirm that now two years later regular household use they have held up great at the time this whole Kirkland set was retailing for around two hundred dollars that was then and they were discontinued now since then Costco has put other brands on their shelves and you've asked me to review them I have not because they don't compare in quality to the Kirkland set or the old lead copper set at all copper core cookware is expensive Legends price point is about half the cost of other well-known Brands let's find out if Legend cookware sets are a good investment I wish I could go back in time and tell myself what not to waste my money on don't waste your money buying things twice the question is will this Set Go the Distance and last a lifetime or is it something that I'm going to be just replacing down the road both sets do have an unconditional lifetime warranty both sets are 14 piece sets and that does include the lids but each set is made up of different pieces it could be a touch confusing to do a comparison between both so I rearrange them I'm ordering them by identical sizes then similar sizes then different pieces altogether both sets include the same size 8 quart stockpot 10 inch fry pan and eight inch fry pan the handles are a little different the copper core set has a 12 inch everyday pan while the five ply stainless steel has a 12 inch fry pan the everyday pan has a handle and it seems like it also is a little bit more contoured at the base both sets have two sizes of saucepans the 1.4 quart saucepan in the copper corset and the 1.5 quart saucepan and the five ply stainless are nearly identical in size and are the smaller sauce pans the copper core has a 2.3 quart saucepan the five ply a three quart saucepan those are the larger ones the copper core has a smaller three and a half quart saute pan while five ply stainless steel has a five quart saute pan the copper core has what they call a 3.4 quart casserole Pan and the five ply has what they call a five quart dutch oven the copper core set has six different sized Lids included but the five-ply stainless steel has five lids and an added component is a steamer basket the two sets cover a universal spectrum of cookware for home cooks that would pretty much cover 95 to 100 of the average home kitchens needs both sets are thoughtfully pieced together but for my own use I would prefer to have a steamer basket in my set and I really do like the everyday pan with the lid from the other set so the ideal set for me would be to eliminate the 12 inch fry pan from the five ply stainless steel set and replace it with the 12 inch everyday pan with the lid that would make it 15 pieces instead of 14. now in the five ply stainless set you have the five quart saute pan Which is similar in diameter to the 12 inch fry pan but the lid is doesn't fit which a little bit of a bummer size and component wise for my needs the five ply set has an edge over the copper core the weights on the website were under the photo of the pieces in the set some of the pieces included the lids in the photo the weight on the website is the combined weight of the pan and the lid so here's the actual weight of each pan on its own each copper core component is significantly heavier than the stainless steel the stockpot is 38 heavier and the two fry pans are roughly 48 percent heavier I love heft in a pan but I'm not sure how I will feel about that as I get older if you like lighter cookware the five play set would be easier for you to use my personal preference is a heavier set so I prefer the copper core but that could change if the stainless steel Firefly set can perform as well as the copper core in the next few tests I want to see how the handle felt when moving their five quarts so a tape pan filled with water I like the Contour of the five ply handles and they were comfortable but when filled with water they were heavy and because of that Contour the pan was hard to hold the flat handle in the copper corset was more stable foreign water in the larger sauce pans of each set when steam began to escape rapidly from the two pans I waited five minutes and measured the temperature of all the handles the temperature on the handles really never went above 90 degrees Fahrenheit so they were very very safe now if you're going to be cooking hotter foods and bringing the pans up to 400 degrees for extended periods of time yes you might risk the pans getting the handles getting too hot clearly it's always best to try to pick up a handle or a lid with some kind of protective device so you don't burn yourself how does water pour out of the pan the Demir pan I reviewed had a nice design the lip behaved more like a spout it seems like this is not a problem as well with these pans they pour out very very nicely they don't drip down the bottom of the pan when you're trying to pour out fat or liquid from the pan so that's a good thing both the legend sets have rivets that protrude on the inside of the pan for me that's not a deal breaker but some people feel that it makes it harder to keep the cookware clean the dimir pan I reviewed a while ago welded their handles to the pan leaving a clean interior but the mirrors in a classic cookware by itself and far more expensive than Legend I love damir and a link to the review will pop up in the end of this video of course you should thoroughly wash your cookware before you use it here's a little trick I came up with it's kind of like a semi seasoning of stainless steel so when you season stainless it turns quite yellow a while ago I thought I would try to season my pans by not taking them to high temperatures I lightly oil new stainless steel pans with avocado oil or any relatively neutral tasting oil on the inside of the pan only I put my new pans in the oven but at around 225 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit or 107 degrees Celsius I leave them in the oven for two hours then I turn the oven off and let them cool in the oven to room temperature usually the next morning I wash them clean this process works for me it's like a mild break-in for the pan and it makes the pan behave a little more like a non-stick without affecting it cosmetically let's talk a little bit about stainless steel types Legend uses 304 stainless which is also known as 1810 in the industry what that means is that it is stainless steel made up of 18 chromium and 10 nickel there's another type of stainless and it's known as 316 stainless it is made with an additional two to seven percent level of molybdenum which is designed to resist corrosion like exposure to harsh chemicals or like in a marine environment if you have a sensitivity to nickel or are concerned about nickel leaching from the pan 316 has higher levels of nickel in it the number at the bottom of the pan if it's there usually will tell you the percentage of chromium nickel that is in the stainless then this 400 stainless which contains no nickel at all but it will Rust over time both sets from Legend have an outer layer of 430 stainless this allows the pans to be magnetic so that they can work on an induction stove the pans are safe on all cooking surfaces and are also oven safe to 450 degrees Fahrenheit or 230 degrees Celsius the Costco pans were only safe to 360 25 degrees Fahrenheit none of these pans is meant to be used under a broiler neither is demire which only claims to be oven safe to 500 degrees Fahrenheit or 260 degrees Celsius assuming you don't stick the pan up against the broiler element in a home oven I don't think the pans will warp or become damaged mechanically but it's likely that they could stain permanently a reason to spend more for copper core is because properly engineered copper core cookware is meant to distribute heat more evenly the pans in both sets are full clad that means that the five different layers are found throughout the entire pan up the sides down to the bottom if they were straight clad the five layers would only be found in the bottom of the pan it's like a disc welded to the bottom of the pan also Legend claims that because of their heft the copper core cookware has better heat retention let's see how it does I'm going to take the 10 inch fry pan from each set and place them on this induction cooktop I'm going to bring the temperature of each pan up to 350 degrees in the center I'm going to lift each pan off the surface and then take the temperature clockwise and in the center using this surface thermometer from thermoworks by the way I really like these induction tops from bull wrath they are workhorses and an affiliate link for them is in the description along with other products that I use [Music] now I'm going to let the pans cool and I'm going to perform the same test on a flame top it seems like the copper core pan does distribute the heat a little bit better than the plain five-ply stainless steel does especially when you apply the five ply stainless steel 10 inch fry pan to an open flame now I'm going to lightly oil these pans [Music] I'm going to take the 10 inch pan from each set and place it on induction cooktops for three minutes at maximum heat I'm going to take them off the induction burners and set the pans on silicone trivets I will take the temperature at one minute intervals in the center as they cool to see how each pan retains the heat it does seem like the copper core pan has better heat retention take a look at this graph the five-ply 10 inch pan did heat up about 30 degrees more initially and that makes sense because there's a lot more metal in the copper core 10 inch pan takes time for that to heat up let's see how easy these pans are to clean you should always let your pans cool off below 140 degrees Fahrenheit or 60 degrees Celsius before washing them and never submerge a hot pan into cold water it could warp and it does make it harder to clean now the more you use a pan and as long as you aren't introducing scratches to the pan with like a stainless steel scrubby the more easily it will clean I think the initial partial seasoning I showed you how to do earlier really makes a new pan easier to clean but those two pans were really really really tough and I'll explain why in a minute I really like the weight of the copper core set but I like a heavy pan I like the way the handle feels on the five-ply stainless but with a larger amount of product in the larger saute pans the flat handle on the copper core is more stable in your hand I like the selection of pans each set has but I would prefer the selection of the five-ply stainless over the copper core but I really wish the everyday pan was part of the five-ply stainless steel collection and I really like that the five play set includes a strainer the copper core seemed to have more uniform heat around the pan especially under the flame if you cook a lot of protein on a stove top that will probably give you a lot more of a uniform sear with the copper core but the best part of using a stainless steel pan is being able to transfer it from the stove top to the oven Broiler and if you have like a prosumer oven with a high temp Broiler neither set's going to work for that for heat retention the copper core seem to hold heat more if you're looking to save money I would not be swayed to purchase the copper core because of this I push the pans to the upper limits and they got a carbon coating on them that is not easy to clean on any brand of stainless cookware with just dish soap and elbow grease I had a feeling it wouldn't work and it didn't neither did the Bar Keeper's Friend but in a video I did on viewer suggestions on how to clean stainless the number one way baking soda and that worked perfectly as it always does a link to that video will pop up at the end of this video so far the easiest to clean stainless pan I've ever come across is the mirror both these sets clean like most quality stainless steel pans but not more easily I believe either cookware set will last a really long time now Legend cookware has been in business since 2018. how they perform and how the company honors the warranty only time is going to tell Legend is a company that is based in New York in the United States and their cookware is manufactured in China people tend to respond more negatively towards those products in the car comments it's also true that if either of these sets were to be made in say the United States or Germany they would also cost three times as much but I'm not sure if the physical construction quality would be any better these sets are well made if you have the money and like a heavy set of cookware go with the copper core it's 799 dollars on Amazon if weight or money is an issue or you don't care about heft the five ply stainless is a really good set as well it's 499 on Amazon so if this review was helpful and you decide to purchase the legend brand by clicking on the affiliate links in the description below you'll be helping me out and here's my tip of the day when it comes to purchasing something that is designed to be a part of your life for more than let's say 15 or 20 years buy the best you can afford you're going to be living with a cookware set like this for decades time tested companies like dimir and so many others can be compared to different classes of vehicles I just like the way my Honda drives better than my Toyota but I also really like my dad's Lexus a lot it costs more than double my Honda and like cars the brand of cookware you own should not only be durable but it should also help to enhance your cooking experience I hope this video was helpful here are some other great product comparisons and reviews cheers [Music] thank you

Channel: AwareHouseChef

Views: 32,396

Keywords: Hellenic snack bar, Costco, meal prep, Greek Food, Awarehouse chef, A wearhouse chef, Aware House Chef, organic cooking, healthy meals, cooking techniques, awarehousechef, hellenic snackbar, legend cookware, Stainless steel cookware review, stainless steel cookware, stainless steel, stainless steel pans, cookware set review, best stainless steel cookware set, stainless steel cookware cleaning, kirkland cookware set review, stainless steel pan review

Id: PHE-pc10qFY

Length: 16min 7sec (967 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 09 2023