Saucepan

Best for: making sauces and boiling small quantities of liquid.
⁠A saucepan sits between a pot and a pan. It has a round base, high sides, a long handle and typically comes with a lid. True to its name, it's excellent for making sauces. But a saucepan has many other functions too. You can deep fry, boil liquids, and make stock, pasta sauce and soups with a saucepan.

Milk Pan

Best for: warming milk and making sauces.
⁠A milk pan is smaller than a saucepan, specifically used to heat milk and make sauces. It has a lip on one side (sometimes both sides) to allow easy pouring. Milk pans should have a non-stick coating and typically do not come with lids.

Sauté Pan

Best for: reducing sauces, searing and browning foods and slow cooking.
⁠A sauté pan is wide and shallow, with a long handle. It also has sloped sides and a non-stick coating, making it an ideal choice of cookware for reducing sauces. You can also use a sauté pan to sear and brown foods, and once its lid is on, it's excellent for cooking slow and tender dishes.

Frying Pan

Best for: frying, searing and browning.
⁠A frying pan, or skillet, has a flat base with shallow, flared sides. Usually, a frying pan will have a long handle allowing for an easy grip when tossing. As its name suggests, frying pans are excellent for frying, searing and browning food at medium to high heat.

Grill Pan

Best for: chargrilled food
⁠A grill pan, or griddle pan, has a wide ridged surface. Like a barbeque, it's excellent for grilling foods at high temperatures and adding char marks, texture and colour to a dish. A grill pan not only sears food evenly, but its ridges also allow for easy drainage of excess fat. You can cook vegetables, meat and fish on a grill pan. Grill pans can be used on oven tops and, depending on their material, in ovens.

Woks & Stir Fry Pans

Best for: stir-frying
⁠A wok or stir fry pan is deep and round. It's designed for quick stir-frying, allowing foods to keep their flavour and crunch. Cooked food can be moved to the sloped side of a wok, allowing other food to cook at its base. You can also easily toss and swirl food in a wok due to its deep, round sides.

Stock Pot & Casserole Pan

Best for: Stocks, broths, stews and soups
⁠A stock pot or casserole pan is a large pot with a flat bottom and very tall sides. They have two side handles for carrying and should come sold with a lid. Stocks, broths, stews and soups are all typical dishes made in a stock pot: mainly because a stock pot is large enough to hold many ingredients.

Steamer

Best for: steaming vegetables, meat, fish, shellfish and fresh pasta
⁠A steamer consists of multi-tiered pans that allow you to steam food healthily on the hob. The first layer will be a typical pot where water will boil to create steam. The second and third layers will be a pots with holes in their bases - allowing steam to flow through and cook your food. You can use a steamer to steam vegetables, meat, fish, shellfish and fresh pasta.

Pressure Cooker

Best for: slow cooked dishes and tenderising meat
⁠A pressure cooker is a sealed pot that builds up steam and pressure, cooking food quickly. The high pressure forces moisture into your food, resulting in tender and flavourful dishes. You can cook almost anything in a pressure cooker, especially foods that require slow cooking, such as roasts and meats.