The Best Electric Skillets in 2024 Tested and Reviewed
Electric skillets (also known as electric fry pans) are extremely versatile. They can sauté, fry, grill, steam, and even make hotpots. Additionally, an electric skillet can serve as your main cooking appliance or provide an extra cooking surface when needed. Best of all, they are easy to clean and store away.
On that topic, what is the best electric skillet? After a lot of research and then buying skillets from popular brands like Hamilton Beach, Presto, Elite Gourmet, we put them all to the test with a total of over 50 pancakes and 20 pieces of steaks.
In the end, the Hamilton Beach 38529K came out as the overall winner. If you want a larger and deeper skillet however, go for the Elite Gourmet Non-Stick EG-6203#. As for a small-sized choice, the Nesco Electric Skillet ES-08 is a mighty mouse.
Everything we recommend
Hamilton Beach skillet is our top choice for its excellent performance and ease of use. Its Durathon ceramic coating offers durability and healthier cooking, while the 15-inch pan delivers consistently fluffy pancakes and juicy steaks with minimal effort.
This skillet stands out for its user-friendly design, featuring a foldable base and detachable pan for easy storage. While not the fastest, its excellent heat distribution and stable temperature ensure consistently great cooking results.
Elite Gourmet EG-6203 is ideal for cooking large portions, with a deep, durable honeycomb-patterned pan that preheats quickly. While its heat distribution is less even than top contenders, it still delivers excellent results, and is remarkably easy to clean.
GreenLife skillet 5QT offers fast preheating and great cooking performance. Its ceramic non-stick coating is PFAS-free, making it both practical and stylish.
This skillet is the best compact option, excelling in even heat distribution. Its quick preheat time and strong performance make it ideal for single living spaces, though the temperature spikes might not be ideal for delicate foods.
How We Test
Hands-on testing has given our team at ShouldIt insights and perspectives that we could never have anticipated. We evaluate an electric skillet’s performance with 3 tests:
- Analyzing Heat Distribution: We soak an oil absorbent sheet in saturated sugar water, drain off excess liquid, and flatten it onto the skillet surface. Then, we heat the skillet until the central area reaches 400°F and use an infrared thermometer to measure 5 key points towards the edges. Afterwards, we collate the data and tally a score.
- Making Pancakes: We chose this test for its simple and universally common recipe. It also shows how fast the skillet preheats to 350°F and how it maintains a stable temperature needed to cook up steamy, fluffy and golden brown pancakes.
- Cooking Steaks: Cooking a steak allows us to test preheating to 400°F and provides an assessment of good crusting and even cooking for the perfect medium-rare steak. We keep the seasoning to its most basic and garnished with butter and rosemary.
For design, we rate the fabrication materials of the pan, lid, base, thermostat, and all the key features. Since design directly impacts user-friendliness. We assess how easy it is to control the thermostat, to maneuver the pan while cooking, and to clean up afterward.
Check out How We Test and Score Our Electric Skillets for more information.
How We Pick
Our hands-on experience, combined with knowledge from various experts, went into designing the tests for electric skillets. We also consulted user-reviews to find out which features matter to most consumers and applied these to our scoring table.
Hamilton Beach Electric Skillet 38529K
The Best Electric Skillet
Hamilton Beach skillet is our top choice for its excellent performance and ease of use. Its Durathon ceramic coating offers durability and healthier cooking, while the 15-inch pan delivers consistently fluffy pancakes and juicy steaks with minimal effort.
Things We Like
- Great heat distribution
- Stable temperatures
- Sizzling hot pan for searing
- Durable ceramic non-stick coating
- High build quality
Things We Don’t Like
- Handles need clip-locks
The Hamilton Beach Ceramic Non-Stick Electric Skillet 38529K is hands down our best-to-buy choice. It has the highest performance score, best design quality, and is the easiest to use.
The skillet is top-tier in terms of even heat distribution. The average temperature difference between 5 key points from the center to the edge of the pan was only 5.9%— compared to a typical 10%. This earned it an impressive score of 8.8/10.
In our other test, we cooked an 8 oz, 1.38-inch top blade steak. The skillet took 4 min30 sec to preheat to 400°F which was fast for its size. We were more impressed, however, with the stable temperature. The pan didn’t get to 500°F like some other skillets so the crust wasn’t the thickest or crispiest. However, the steak was incredibly juicy and reached a perfect medium-rare, thus earning it a 9.5/10.
The Durathon ceramic non-stick coating is stronger than Teflon and less likely to crack or peel. Plus, with zero PTFEs and PFOAs, you can enjoy healthier cooking. In our tests, grease-free pancakes and the steaks slid right off the surface. Not to mention the pan’s copper color looks great on the kitchen counter!
The user-friendly pan simply lifts up from its base by its side handles and has additional leg rests for serving directly from the table. However, we felt click locks would have made the handles more secure. Also, the base doesn’t fold to make dishwashing or storing easier.
Read our full Hamilton Beach Electric Skillet 38529K in-depth review
Presto Foldaway Electric Skillet 06857
Runner-Up
This skillet stands out for its user-friendly design, featuring a foldable base and detachable pan for easy storage. While not the fastest, its excellent heat distribution and stable temperature ensure consistently great cooking results.
Things We Like
- Highly even heat distribution
- Stable temperatures
- Sizzling hot pan for searing
- Convenient foldaway feature
- High build quality
Things We Don’t Like
- Teflon non-stick coating
- Lid not the best fit
The 16-inch Presto Foldaway Non-Stick Electric Skillet 06857 is a very close runner-up. Compared to the Hamilton, it’s overall more user-friendly with only slight differences in cooking performance. Despite all this, significant demerits were the Teflon coating (not ceramic) and the loose-fitting lid.
The PFOA-free Teflon non-stick coating, both inside and outside, allowed us to make pancakes without any butter or oil. After 3 min 50 sec of preheating, we had a steamy and fluffy pancake scoring 9.5/10—just slightly better than its main rivals.
The skillet took 6 min to preheat to 400°F—not the fastest but the temperature was still very stable. It seared a medium-rare steak to almost to perfection, or worthy of a 9/10, but the crusting wasn’t as good as the Hamilton.
The best thing about the Presto’s design is how you just unlock the two clips to fold down the stay-cool handles, and detach the pan from the base. The base additionally fits upside down inside the 3-inch deep pan for easy and compact storing.
The pan has a spout for pouring liquid so the tempered glass lid doesn’t need a steam vent. All parts are dishwasher-safe except for the thermostat. Nonetheless, thanks to the non-stick coating, we found a quick hand-washing was more than enough after cooking the steak.
Read our full Presto Foldaway Electric Skillet 06857 in-depth review
Elite Gourmet Non-Stick Electric Skillet EG-6203#
Best Deep Pan
Elite Gourmet EG-6203 is ideal for cooking large portions, with a deep, durable honeycomb-patterned pan that preheats quickly. While its heat distribution is less even than top contenders, it still delivers excellent results, and is remarkably easy to clean.
Things We Like
- Raised honeycomb pan
- Excellent cooking capacity
- Stable temperatures
- Sizzling hot pan for searing
- Durable granite non-stick coating
- High build quality
Things We Don’t Like
- Heat distribution
The Elite Gourmet Non-Stick Electric Skillet EG-6203# is our best choice for a large and deep pan, quite capable of frying chicken for 6 to 8 people. Not only that, its raised honeycomb pan is quite aesthetic and it cooked really well too.
This weakness didn’t affect the skillet’s ability to make awesome pancakes though. And, the honeycomb pattern impressed onto golden brown, fluffy, steamy pancakes are a sure hit for children, 9/10.
The pan actually preheats faster than our top 2 contenders, just 2 min 16 sec, while producing similarly excellent medium-rare steaks. Although the Elite Gourmet’s steak was more tender than the Hamilton’s, its crust slightly lacked color (9.5/10).
The pan has a marble coating (comprises resin) which is much more durable than Teflon. During testing, we found that this skillet was surprisingly the easiest one to clean. Its patterning doesn’t make the coating more susceptible to breaking and peeling, but all the same you should avoid using metal utensils or scrubbers.
Read our full Elite Gourmet Non-Stick Electric Skillet EG-6203# in-depth review
GreenLife Electric Skillet 5QT
Best Medium Size
GreenLife skillet 5QT offers fast preheating and great cooking performance. Its ceramic non-stick coating is PFAS-free, making it both practical and stylish.
Things We Like
- Fast heating times
- Well-rounded performance
- Ceramic non-stick coating
- High build quality
- Light in weight
Things We Don’t Like
- Not suitable for deep-frying
This skillet preheated to 350°F in just 1 min 58 sec and to 400°F in 2 min 36 sec. This was significantly faster than the top 3 due to its smaller surface area and despite a lower power draw.
The pancakes we cooked were moist, fluffy, and golden brown but with a slightly darker edge from the pan’s heating element (8/10). The steak had a good crust but the meat lacked the tenderness that our top three skillets produced (7.5/10).
The GreenLife skillet has a ceramic non-stick coating free of PFAS (which includes PTFE or Teflon), PFOA, lead, and cadmium, thus staying true to their brand name reputation.
In addition to the turquoise exterior, the pan’s interior has a shiny surface making it a lovely-looking piece in your kitchen. We had an easy time hand-cleaning this skillet, but you can just pop it in the dishwasher.
Read our full GreenLife Electric Skillet 5QT in-depth review
Nesco 8 inch Electric Skillet
Best Small
This skillet is the best compact option, excelling in even heat distribution. Its quick preheat time and strong performance make it ideal for single living spaces, though the temperature spikes might not be ideal for delicate foods.
Things We Like
- Extremely fast preheating
- Excellent heat distribution
- Sizzling hot pan
- Good capacity to size ratio
Things We Don’t Like
- Teflon non-stick coating
- Pan not dishwasher-safe
- Anti-slip pads can be improved
If you’re looking for a compact electric skillet, then this Nesco Non-Stick Electric Skillet ES-08 is our best choice for a single living space. At just 8 inches, this one is all about performance and not so much design or convenient features.
The skillet has the most even heat distribution out of all our tested units, possibly thanks to the small surface area. The average temperature difference was only 4.1%, earning the Nesco a 9.2/10.
Unfortunately, our pancakes got a bit too dark too fast, especially around the edges right where the heating element is. The pancake was still fluffy but it retained a bit too much moisture to be anywhere near first rate (6/10).
The higher temperature spikes turned out to be good for getting that good deep amber colored crust when searing steaks. However, the meat went slightly above medium-rare and wasn’t as juicy as it could have been (7.5/10).
The pan’s deep enough to submerge one pack of instant ramen, which a college student may appreciate. Although the lid is dishwasher-safe, the pan itself is not but the non-stick coating makes it easy enough to clean.
Read our full Nesco 8 inch Electric Skillet in-depth review
Honorable Mentions
- The Presto Electric Skillet 06852 could have made the list if not for our top two contenders. Its base is not detachable and its performance was slightly less than the Presto 06857 while the Hamilton Beach has a better non-stick coating for the pan.
- The Ovente Non-Stick Electric Skillet SK11112B has a round and shallow pan. It heats up extremely fast to a high temperature which, although excellent for searing meat, is not at all suitable for delicate carbohydrates like pancakes.
- The Crux Non-Stick Electric Skillet 14620 was on par with the GreenLife in terms of cooking performance for a medium-sized pan. However, the non-stick coating wasn’t as good nor as eye-catching.
Why Should You Buy
Here are 5 good reasons why you should buy an electric skillet if you have never tried one before:
- Convenient and versatile.
- Keeps food warm and ready to serve.
- Cooks faster and more efficiently.
- Reduces residual heat in the kitchen.
- You can take your skillet on the road.
Things to Keep in Mind When Buying an Electric Skillet
A typical electric skillet has three main parts: a circular or rectangular pan, a tempered glass lid, and a thermostat / temperature control probe. All parts are usually fully immersible in water with the exception of the thermostat.
Most electric skillets work well enough. However, better ones excel in terms of heating speed, even cooking, user-friendliness, and how much space they take up. Below are 8 things to keep in mind when looking for the electric skillet.
- Choose the right size for your needs.
- Look for a thick, high-quality pan.
- Select a pan with a well-sized heating element.
- A non-stick coating makes cleaning easier.
- Make sure the lid is tempered glass.
- Get a detachable base for convenience.
- Cool-to-touch handles are a must.
- Check that the thermostat is removable.
Our Expertise
Alan Nguyen is a reviewer for everything hot in kitchen appliances at Shouldit. He’s an avid foodie and homecook having also worked in restaurants and military kitchens. Always behind the counter, he has grappled with an array of kitchen equipment and appliances cooking a la carte and feeding the masses.
Along with the Research, Testing, and Review (RTR) Lab of Shouldit, he began the quest to find the best electric skillets by sifting through hundreds of choices before narrowing the list down to nine.
The team then purchased these nine skillets and put them through a series of comparative tests to draw out cooking performance, design features, and user-friendliness. In doing so, Alan cooked over 50 pancakes and 20 medium rare steaks and clocked up 80 hours of grind and sweat in the kitchen.
FAQ
With an electric skillet you can sauté, fry, sear, steam, even make hotpots, and more. This is largely due to their wide and deep cooking area with precise temperature control.
The general consensus is that ceramic coating is safer than Teflon / PTFE. Ceramic coating is believed to be stronger and less likely to chip. Regardless, you can get stainless steel skillets which don't have a coating.
When the pan reaches the input temperature, the working indicator should switch off. Quality and performance differ, so if you don’t have an infrared thermometer, drop a teaspoon of water in the pan. If it forms droplets and swirls, the pan has reached 350°F.
The best way to clean an electric skill is by hand with a mild detergent and non-abrasive sponge. This may help the non-stick coating last longer, but most are dishwasher-friendly except for the thermostat.
You shouldn’t use metal utensils and metal scrubbers on your skillet. These may damage the non-stick coating and expose food to the aluminum base which can be a health concern.
You can soak your skillet in water to remove stuck food, but you must first wait for the pan to cool down. Thermal shock can lead to rapid expansion and shrinking of the metal base, which can in turn damage the precious non-stick coating.
