The Best Electric Skillets Tested & 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 Presto Foldaway 06857 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

Presto Foldaway Electric Skillet 06857

Best to Buy

Featuring a foldable base and detachable 16-inch pan for easy storage, this skillet is awesome for people with limited counter space. Its excellent heat distribution and stable temperature ensure fluffy pancakes and juicy steaks with minimal effort.

Hamilton Beach Electric Skillet 38529K

Runner-Up

Hamilton Beach skillet is our Runner-Up 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.

Elite Gourmet Non-Stick Electric Skillet EG-6203#

Best Deep Pan

This skillet is ideal for family gatherings, 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 Electric Skillet 5QT

Best Medium Size

This skillet offers fast preheating and great cooking performance. Its ceramic non-stick coating is PFAS-free, making it both practical and stylish in a small kitchen.

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.

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 Shouldit Tests and Scores 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.

Presto Foldaway Electric Skillet 06857

Best to Buy

Featuring a foldable base and detachable 16-inch pan for easy storage, this skillet is awesome for people with limited counter space. Its excellent heat distribution and stable temperature ensure fluffy pancakes and juicy steaks with minimal effort.

$77.40

(Price at time of publish)

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The 16-inch Presto Foldaway Non-Stick Electric Skillet 06857 is our best pick thanks to its utmost user-friendliness as well as top-tier performance at a very affordable price.

Its thick cast aluminum pan (0.12 in) and large rectangular heating element effected excellent heat distribution. We saw an average of 5.7% in temperature differences in 5 points from the center of the pan of the edges compared to a typical 10%, scoring an impressive 8.9/10 — the highest out of all large skillets.

The PFOA-free Teflon non-stick coating, both inside and outside, allowed us to make pancakes without any butter or oil. It took only 3 min 50 sec to preheat the pan to 350°F and a couple of minutes each side to cook a 3.17 oz pancake. More importantly, every pancake was perfectly steamy and fluffy with a golden brown texture, scoring 9.4/10 — the highest among our collected data.

In our other test, we cooked an 8 oz, 1.38-inch top blade steak. 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 8.7/10, but the crust could be crispier.

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 Presto Foldaway Electric Skillet 06857 in-depth review

Hamilton Beach Electric Skillet 38529K

Runner-Up

Hamilton Beach skillet is our Runner-Up 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.

$61.70

(Price at time of publish)

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The Hamilton Beach Ceramic Non-Stick Electric Skillet 38529K is our upgrade pick with a higher performance and design scores at a slightly higher but very worthy price.

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 5.9% — only beaten by the Presto. This earned it an impressive score of 8.8/10.

After 3 min 20 sec of preheating, we had a steamy and fluffy pancake scoring 9.4/10 — on par with the Presto. The 15-inch pan can similarly cook 3 to 4 pancakes at a time.

The skillet took 4 min 30 sec to preheat to 400°F which was fast for its size. We were more impressed, however, with the stable temperature. The pan still didn’t get to 500°F so the crust wasn’t as thick or crispy as you get with a cast iron skillet over fire. However, the steak was incredibly juicy and reached a perfect medium-rare — the best we’ve got, with a score of 9.3/10.

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 like with the Presto.

Read our Hamilton Beach Electric Skillet 38529K in-depth review

Elite Gourmet Non-Stick Electric Skillet EG-6203#

Best Deep Pan

This skillet is ideal for family gatherings, 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.

$58.70

(Price at time of publish)

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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 skillet has a 0.16-inch (4 mm) cast aluminum pan with a black lacquer finish. Despite the extra thickness, our heat distribution test revealed significant temperature differences from the center to the edges—an average of 13.3% compared to 10% for all skillets combined, thus it only got a 7.3/10.

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, 9.1/10.

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 (9.4/10).

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 Elite Gourmet Non-Stick Electric Skillet EG-6203# in-depth review

GreenLife Electric Skillet 5QT

Best Medium Size

This skillet offers fast preheating and great cooking performance. Its ceramic non-stick coating is PFAS-free, making it both practical and stylish in a small kitchen.

$42

(Price at time of publish)

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Our best 3 electric skillets are all large-sized, so we felt compelled to add the best medium-sized option. And, the GreenLife Ceramic Non-Stick Electric Skillet CC003725-002 fits the bill with its great cooking performance and excellent coating.

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 (8.2/10). The steak had a good crust but the meat lacked the tenderness that our top three skillets produced (7.7/10).

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 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.

$30.4

(Price at time of publish)

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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.

This skillet preheats faster than the GreenLife despite a much lower low power draw. It only took 1 min 28 sec to preheat to 350°F and needed only an additional 30 seconds to reach 400°F.

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 (6.4/10).

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 (7.8/10).

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 Nesco 8 inch Electric Skillet in-depth review

Honorable Mentions

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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:

1. Convenient and versatile.
2. Keeps food warm and ready to serve.
3. Cooks faster and more efficiently.
4. Reduces residual heat in the kitchen.
5. 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.

1. Choose the right size for your needs.
2. Look for a thick, high-quality pan.
3. Select a pan with a well-sized heating element.
4. A non-stick coating makes cleaning easier.
5. Make sure the lid is tempered glass.
6. Get a detachable base for convenience.
7. Cool-to-touch handles are a must.
8. 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.

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