What size saucepan do you need?

Two quarts, if you buy one

The saucepan is the pan most kitchens reach for most often, and the size that covers the most jobs is 2 quarts. It cooks rice for two to four, holds a sauce without reducing it to nothing, boils eggs, reheats soup, and takes a single portion of pasta at a push.

The common mistake is buying 1 or 1.5 quarts because it looks like the everyday size. It is a milk pan: fine for melting butter, warming a small amount of liquid or making a single serving of oatmeal, and too small for a cup of dry rice with its water.

Size by size

Why two saucepans, not one

Almost every real meal uses two at once - rice in one and sauce in the other, potatoes in one and greens in the other. A kitchen with one saucepan spends a lot of time washing it mid-cook.

If you are buying open stock, 2 qt and 3 qt is the pair. Every clad set includes at least two saucepans for this reason: the Tramontina Signature has 1.5, 2 and 3 qt, and the Cuisinart MultiClad Pro has 1.5 and 3 qt. Whether a set is the right purchase at all is the subject of set versus open stock.

This is the shape where cladding matters most

A saucepan is proportionally more wall than any other pan. When you reduce a sauce or simmer rice, most of the food is touching a vertical surface rather than the base.

In a fully clad saucepan the aluminum runs up that wall, so the whole vessel heats and a sauce reduces evenly. In a disc-bottom saucepan the wall is single-layer stainless with nothing in it, so the base is hot and the sides are not - which is exactly how a béchamel or a tomato sauce catches in a ring at the bottom. The construction argument in full is disc bottom versus fully clad, and the roundup is best stainless steel saucepans.

This is the one shape where we would spend more rather than less. A premium clad saucepan is a noticeably better object than a budget one in a way a premium skillet is not, because the sidewall does more of the work.

Tall and narrow, or wide and low

Two saucepans of the same capacity can be quite different shapes, and it changes what they are good at.

• Tall and narrow reduces evaporation, which is what you want for simmering rice, cooking grains and holding a stock.
• Wide and low evaporates faster, which is what you want for reducing a sauce, and gives more base area for softening onions before the liquid goes in.
• A saucier is a wide saucepan with curved walls and no corners, made for constant whisking. It is a specialist purchase and genuinely better at custards and risotto; it must be fully clad, because it is almost entirely wall.

Lids, handles and the small details

1. The lid should be included. A saucepan without one is half a pan.
2. Check the lid rating, not the pan rating, if you use the oven. A glass lid or phenolic knob is usually the lowest number in the box.
3. A pouring lip helps more in this shape than in any other, since saucepans are what you pour from.
4. A single long handle is correct up to about 4 qt. Above that you want two.
5. Volume markings inside are a genuine convenience and rare below premium lines.

Which to buy

1. One saucepan: 2 qt, fully clad.
2. Two saucepans: add a 3 qt - All-Clad D3 if you want the best, Cuisinart MultiClad Pro if you want the dishwasher.
3. You need more than 4 qt: buy a pot instead - an 8 qt clad stockpot, sized in best stockpots.
4. You are buying a whole kitchen: a clad set includes two or three saucepans and is usually cheaper per piece.

2-quart clad saucepans on Amazon is the size most kitchens should start with.