What are grill pans used for?

Grill pans are used to get the effect of grilling, the sear, the char marks and some of the flavor, indoors on the stovetop, without a barbecue or outdoor grill. A grill pan is a frying pan with raised ridges across its cooking surface, and those ridges are the key: they sear the food where it touches them, creating the distinctive grill marks, and let fat and juices drain down into the channels between them so the food is not sitting in grease. So grill pans are used to cook steaks, chops, burgers, chicken, fish, vegetables, halloumi and paninis with a chargrilled look and feel, on the hob, any time, which is their whole purpose. Our Best Grill Pans compares five of them.

What a grill pan is

A grill pan is a stovetop pan, usually heavy, often cast iron, with a cooking surface of raised parallel ridges rather than a flat base. You heat it on the hob like a frying pan and cook food on top of the ridges. The ridges are what make it a grill pan rather than a frying pan, and they do two things: the food only touches the raised ridges, which get hot and sear those contact lines, and the valleys between the ridges sit below the food, catching the fat and juices that run off.

That ridged design is the whole point and defines what the pan is used for. It mimics the grates of a grill, where food sits on bars with gaps between, so you get searing contact and grill marks and fat drains away, but on the stovetop in a pan. Understanding that a grill pan is a ridged stovetop pan designed to imitate grilling explains both the grilled effect it gives and the range of foods it is used to cook.

Grilling indoors: the main use

The core use of a grill pan is to grill, or chargrill, food indoors when you cannot or do not want to use an outdoor grill. It lets you sear meat and other foods with the high direct heat and the ridge contact that give a grilled result, the browned, seared surface, the attractive grill marks, and some of the flavor of grilling, all on your stovetop, any time of year and whatever the weather. So people use a grill pan to enjoy grilled-style food without a barbecue, a garden or good weather.

This makes it especially useful for flats and homes without outdoor space, for cooking a quick grilled steak or chicken breast on a weeknight, and for year-round grilling when firing up a barbecue is impractical. It gives the stovetop a way to produce seared, grill-marked food that a flat frying pan does not, so the grill pan is used as the indoor stand-in for a grill, bringing that cooking style into everyday kitchen use, which is the main reason people own one.

The foods it cooks and the fat-draining benefit

Grill pans are used to cook the same kinds of foods you would grill. Steaks, chops, burgers, sausages, chicken breasts and thighs, fish fillets and prawns, and vegetables like peppers, courgettes, aubergine, asparagus, mushrooms and corn all cook well on a grill pan, getting a seared, chargrilled surface, and halloumi and other firm items grill nicely too. Many grill pans are also used to make toasted paninis and grilled sandwiches, pressing them for marks and crispness.

A key benefit shaping its uses is that the ridges let fat drain away from the food. Because the food sits raised on the ridges with the fat running down into the channels, it is not sitting and frying in its own grease the way it would in a flat pan, which many see as a healthier way to cook and which helps give a drier, more seared result rather than a greasy one. So grill pans are used not just for the grilled look but as a way to cook meats and other foods with the fat draining off, which is part of their appeal for everyday cooking of grilled-style food.

Who uses them and how

Grill pans are used by anyone who wants grilled-style food on the stovetop: people without an outdoor grill or garden, those who want to grill indoors year-round regardless of weather, and cooks who like the sear, marks and fat-draining of grilling for steaks, chicken, fish, vegetables and sandwiches in everyday cooking. They are a popular way to get a grilled effect quickly and conveniently on the hob for one or a few portions.

To use one well, you heat the grill pan hot before adding food so it sears and marks properly, oil the food lightly rather than flooding the pan, press or lay food across the ridges for marks, and avoid moving it too soon so the marks form, and you accept that a grill pan is for searing and grilling foods rather than for sauces or shallow frying. Cast iron grill pans in particular hold the high heat that good searing needs. So grill pans are used to bring grilling indoors, searing and chargrilling a wide range of meats, fish, vegetables and sandwiches on the stovetop with grill marks and draining fat, which is exactly the grilled cooking they are designed to deliver without a barbecue.

The short answer

Grill pans are used to get the effect of grilling, searing, grill marks and some of the flavor, indoors on the stovetop, without a barbecue or outdoor grill. A grill pan is a stovetop pan, often heavy cast iron, with raised ridges across its surface, and those ridges sear the food where it touches them to create the distinctive grill marks while letting fat and juices drain down into the channels so the food is not frying in grease. This lets you cook steaks, chops, burgers, sausages, chicken, fish and prawns, vegetables and halloumi, and toasted paninis and sandwiches, with a chargrilled look and a drier, seared, less greasy result, on the hob any time of year. So grill pans are used as the indoor stand-in for a grill, especially useful for homes without outdoor space and for year-round grilling, bringing grilled-style cooking and its fat-draining benefit into everyday kitchen use.