How to keep a non-stick pan alive

A decent non-stick pan should last three or four years of daily use. Most last one. Three habits are usually responsible.

Overheating is the first and worst. Non-stick coatings degrade above roughly 260C, and an empty pan on a high flame reaches that in under three minutes. Nothing you cook in a domestic kitchen needs that heat, and searing steak is the one job a non-stick pan is genuinely bad at. Heat it with the oil already in it, on medium, and you will never get near the limit.

Metal utensils are the second. A single scrape does not ruin a pan, but a year of them does, and once the surface is scored the food starts catching in the scratch and you scrape harder. Wood or silicone costs almost nothing.

Cold water into a hot pan is the third, and the one nobody thinks about. The thermal shock warps the base, and a warped base no longer sits flat on the hob, which means it heats unevenly, which means the middle overheats. Let it cool on the side first.

Two more things. Do not stack pans inside each other without a cloth or a piece of paper between them; the rim of one is exactly the right shape to scratch the face of another. And skip the dishwasher even where the label allows it, because dishwasher detergent is far more abrasive than washing-up liquid and dulls the coating over time.

When it does eventually go, replace it. A non-stick pan whose coating is flaking is not dangerous in the way the internet suggests, but it has stopped being non-stick, which was the entire reason to own it.

Store it somewhere it is not being knocked about, which for most kitchens means a deep drawer or a stackable box rather than a crowded cupboard.