Stainless steel isn't nonstick, but its ridiculously easy to get clean once you're done with it.

While the pot is hot, deglaze with water or vinegar/water mix and go at it with a spatula or a high-temp resistant scrubbie brush. Even just letting it soak with the residual heat from the burner can go a long way to removing stuck on gunk.

Plus stainless gives you a nice crisp.

You can create a non-stick surface on Staub cookware, similar to cast iron, but non-reactive. Over time, Staub becomes non-stick on its own. I prefer it to Le Creuset.

I reach for cast iron and Staub time after time, and use stainless mostly for boiling.

Bar Keeper's Friend keeps stainless shiny and new-looking, especially the liquid version.

I will pass on the advice given to me when registering for my pots and pans for my wedding:

If you use fat to cook with, you DO NOT need all non-stick.

We have a large cast iron skillet and a small (maybe 8") skillet to cook eggs in, but everything else is stainless.

They don't stay as picture-perfect as non-stick, but they will last longer and don't have the flaking teflon issue.

They few times that we have needed to give them a good scrub, Bar Tenders Keeper, a hard bristled brush, and some elbow grease cleaned them right up.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my ScanPans. I have two of the professional series (stainless handle - even comes with little covers for the handles so you don't burn your hands!!) I have a 12 1/2" and a 8 1/2". I've bought them as wedding gifts and gotten loads of positive feedback. They are so easy to clean, but they can go in the dishwasher and you can use metal cooking tools on them!

I had a MArtha Stewart green pan and liked it very much. I had it for about six months before it "wore out". I think I used it over too high of heat, which you're not supposed to do.

I just got a new cast iron skillet from le cruset! Love it! Enamel is also a great alternative.

I agree with the previous posters about good-quality stainless steel pans. I now use a Calphalon stainless steel pan for almost everything (including pan-frying and oven roasting), and it usually comes clean very easily. I've noticed that cheaper pans do NOT clean as easily, so invest in something nice.

My sisters-in-law and I all have heavy, cast-iron plasma-coated saute pans that our mother-in-law gave us as shower gifts - and they are AMAZING. Nothing sticks to them, but they're not "non-stick". They're made by Plasma Innovation Cookware, which has a website at www.plasmaic.com, but I think our MIL bought them at a home show. From my understanding they're quite pricey, but man, sooooo worth it!

I have my husband's grandmother's old Revereware--stainless with copper bottoms--and no matter what else comes into the house I always return to that. I do like an 8 quart non-stick soup pot and frying pans and I just replace those as needed, although after reading this I might give cast frying pans another try.

If you live in Philly, you should definitely check out Fante's on 9th street. That store is awesome.

We have a couple nice cast iron pans, and they're far and away the least sticky, and easiest to clean pans we've tried, much better than any of the non-stick pans we used to have.

Plus they're much better to cook with than non-stick too, and they'll last a lifetime (at least).

I prefer stainless steel to cast iron...I don't like messing w/ seasoning but the main reason is I have bad wrists and cast iron is too heavy for me.
I haven't had a problem w/ food sticking to my ss pans. I use butter or oil and make sure it's hot enough before I put food in.

Definitely do not get the Wolfgang Puck set--I really liked them but the rivets coroded even though I didn't let food sit on them. This was w/in one year. I recently bought a Belgique SS cookware set and it's great.

Calphalon commercial anodized aluminum. The non-non-stick kind. I've had one of the "everyday" pans for several years, and once it's seasoned like cast iron, nothing sticks, ever. I use it twice a day and couldn't live without it. Got it pretty cheap on Amazon.

In re: VioletVeil, I've had my Wolfgang Puck stainless huge saute pan for 5 years now, and it's been nothing but awesome. I haven't had any issues with corroding. I didn't get a set, but only a single pan of the series with the hollow, round handle (like this), not the solid handle, which seems to be the more common, at least online.

Le Creuset nonstick hard forged anodized pan. I love it.

Another vote for stainless and cast iron. Cast iron is inexpensive and virtually indestructible. It is the one pan that is allowed to be stored on the stove. It's easy to keep clean and seasoned. Stainless is easy to clean as long as you use a bit of fat. It doesn't put weird things in your food.

Another vote for Calphalon. I had their Simply Calphalon Stainless set (http://www.amazon.com/Simply-Calphalon-Stainless-10-Piece-Cookware/dp/B002CZQGV8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1262218769&sr=8-3) for years and fell in love with stainless because of it. I rarely ever use non-stick - even for making omelettes. A basic set of Calphalon has a good stockpot, and the right size pans for most uses. My 3quart saute pan was used daily and stood up to it. I recently passed it on to another family when I upgraded to AllClad (due to getting an induction cooker - otherwise, I'd be staying with Calphalon).

The other nice thing is - it's not as heavy and unwieldy as equivalent sized cast iron. I love cast iron, but I don't love the weight.

Cast iron pans if you're on a budget. Garage sale finds are the best - cheap and seriously pre-seasoned! You have less problems with acidic ingredients the more seasoned they are. (If you buy new, even if you get the Lodge "pre-seasoned" pans, you will have to work on a good seasoning coat before your eggs won't stick.)

If you can afford to go for the hard anodized or stainless (it's not straight stainless - you want aluminum in the middle), make sure you go for QUALITY. You want a thick pan like Calphalon Commercial (which is gone now - don't recall it's new version) or All-Clad. If you have a good quality pan, it won't even matter how crummy your stove is. You want a pan that heats evenly to prevent sticking. And make sure to get it good and hot before adding food! That is the biggest cause of stickiness, outside of eggs.

We registered for All-Clad anodized pots and pans when we got married, and I love cooking with them, as well as with our cast iron skillets. As others have said, with a good pan oil, you shouldn't have to worry much about sticking. Also -- once you put something in the pan, leave it there for a while! Often I find that when someone complains about food sticking, it's because they're messing around with the food too much.

That said -- we do like nonstick for scrambled eggs (that's actually, quite literally, the only thing we make in nonstick pans) but I was concerned with the teflon issue. We bought a couple of the Green Nonstick pans from Crate & Barrel about 9 months ago and have been very pleased with them. Again, I would not use them for most foods -- nonstick just doesn't give you that nice sear or crust.

Why not just buy cheapish Teflon or Tfal and replace it pretty often? That's what most chefs do. I have a lot of cast iron, Le Creuset, in addition to my husband's chef copper stuff, and we just use one Teflon for eggs, and replace it every 8 or 9 months. Unless you have pet birds, the health risks are minuscule as long as you don't overheat them.

PTFE poisoning, also called Teflon toxicity, occurs mainly when PTFE-coated pots, pans, or utensils overheat. Teflon is fairly stable at typical cooking temperatures, but heat it above 500 degrees and it starts to emit fumes that can sicken you and make a bird drop dead.

Cast iron. I rarely use my Calphalon anymore. I have some special enamelware that I love, some Le Creuset which I use, and a 20 year old set of Reverware (that needs to go but I still use it for boiling). The one that lives on the stove for everyday use is the Lodge pre-seasoned 10" deep.

Seasoning is not a big deal. If you're reading this thread, chances are you can handle it. :)

We have two birds. Therefore, no PTFE-coated cookware was deemed the appropriate course of action, as I have read some horror stories of leaving a pot on the stove and forgetting about it.....So I got rid of all the nonstick stuff we had, which was mostly crap except for a nice wok-shaped pan. This was actually a difficult point of contention for me and the SO because he is the primary cook of the house, and very fond of the wok-pan. We saw the Green Pan at Target and wanted to try it. We got a big frying pan to use for stir fry and eggs and stuff; other than that we have SS for everything else except the rice cooker (which I want to upgrade).

I got a little Emerilware pot at BB&B that is stainless with a copper layer in the bottom. It is superdurable and cooks very evenly compared to the rest of our stainless stuff which is cheap college hand-me-down stuff with the handles waiting to fall off and no lids.

Like dinosara, I got a Wolfgang Puck pot with a hollow handle (actually my mom found it at Marshall's and said it was a good pan). I also had no problems and it gave superior performance for years, until I burned rice in it and wrecked it. Meh, I bake.

We got the Wolfgang Puck set (with hollow handles) as a wedding gift 7 years ago and they have been awesome. The non-stick frying pans have just started to flake (and I use them daily) - so I'll be replacing those in the next week or so. Otherwise, everything has been great. I think I will slowly replace the pieces with an All-Clad type stainless steel since I want something with a heavier bottom, but for the price, they are pretty great.

Wow... no one has mentioned copper fry pans yet? Tinned copper is amazing! (And unless you are cooking with no fat/oil at *all*, these will outperform anything else.)

For the frypans, pick up one cast iron (9-10 inch) and at least one similarly sized solid Copper pan. You will develop a preference for using them in different situations. If you are balking at the cost, stop looking at Williams-Sonoma and seek elsewhere. Local kitchen shops, online retailers, and even TJmaxx-ish stores occasionally carry them. Don't be fooled by stainless steel clad in copper--it isn't the same thing. Go for iron handles and not brass when you get the choice... the brass can get too hot for your hands and even hotpads! Also, you want the copper to be semi-thick. Think the thickness of a quarter as the minimum for quality. Don't waste your money on anything thinner than a penny. These are also great to pick up secondhand... even if you find ones that are scratched and gouged, you can get these re-tinned easily. (in Philly you should have quite a few options) Also good to look out for secondhand is the magical vintage cast iron frypan. They used to be made with a smooth-milled interior finish which I prefer to the pockmarked modern Lodge. These vintage ones will likely be branded WagnerWare or Griswold.

For the stockpot, get whatever you want... it doesn't need to be nonstick. The 15 buck thin steel stockpot from the ethnic grocer around the corner should handle all sorts of things, and if it won't do what you need, move on to the much more expensive Le Creuset/Staub enameled French ovens. You either cook at lower temperatures (non-burning of the thin steel) or you don't.
Best of luck!

I have a mixture of stainless steel, Lodge cast iron that i've babied into a beautiful true season and my new pieces of Le Creuset. I find my stainless steel is great for stockpots, and things that will only need to simmer on the stove, or boiling water for eggs, that sort of thing. The skillets are good too, but I find myself switching more often than not to the cast iron for anything in a skillet. Cast iron is good as long as you understand that it heats slowly, cools slowly and burns hot. It's amazing for searing and then transferring into an oven. I can't imagine having just one type, so I'd suggest playing around with both cast iron and a stainless steel type to get the feel for what works better with the way you like to cook.

I have to give another vote for cast iron. Once you season the pans, you are set. Seasoning is super easy, and if you use the pan properly (no soap), you never need to reseason. Food releases easier from my cast iron pans then from my Calphalon nonstick pans (to the thrift store they go).

The only real downside to cast iron is the weight. If this is a concern, then look into restaurant quality carbon steel pans. They are cheap, durable, and cook well (same care as cast iron). Most restaurants don’t use nonstick or expensive stainless steel. They get the cheap carbon steel pans from their supply houses (check you local restaurant supply stores). They are a real work horse pan

@FantasticMrFaux - Get a infrared thermometer and point it at your Teflon pan on the stove top. America's Test Kitchen recently showed that it easily reaches the temperatures that cause the coating to break down. http://www.americastestkitchentv.com/testing/overview.asp?testingid=747&iSeason=10