I cook in my teflon wok pans all the time. I recently saw an answer here suggesting to preheat a pan to a high temperature and cook in small batches when preparing stir-fry food. I would like to try that, and several other things like roasting peanuts or spices. However, I know that teflon pans do not handle high heat well.
I do not want to ruin my pans and I prefer to err on the side of caution, but I think that maybe some of my dishes could taste better if I preheated the pan to a higher temperature than I do now. I'm afraid that I will overdo it though.
How do I preheat a teflon pan without having to worry about overheating it? Is there a technique that would help me find the sweet spot?
Best Answer
The real solution to your problem is to switch to a carbon steel wok. You will never stop struggling as long as you're using a teflon-coated wok. You will always have to worry about overheating it.
Teflon starts to degrade, giving off toxic gasses at 392F, and degrading irretrievably at around 500F. Whereas the minimum temperature you want for a wok surface is the smoke point of peanut oil, 410F-450F, and if heating a dry wok you may want to heat it up to 600F. I think you can see the problem?
If you can't find a carbon steel wok for some reason, I suggest switching to cast iron or stainless steel pan, which you can heat to more than 400F easily. You'll get better results than you'll get from a teflon-coated wok.
If you still want to use your teflon wok, then I suggest always adding some oil with a slightly lower smoke point to it, such as Canola oil. Then just make sure you don't ever heat that oil to smoking, and you should be below the danger level for teflon.