The reason cast iron is useful for searing a big cut of meat is that it has a reasonably high specific heat capacity (less than aluminum, more than copper, similar to steel) combined with considerably more mass than typical cookware made of other materials. It takes longer for the meat to cool the pan, so more heat transfers into the outer surface of the meat.

Cleanup of properly seasoned cast iron should be about as easy as non-stick pans because the seasoning (polymerized cooking oil) is, in fact a non-stick surface. Contrary to popular belief, it's fine to use soap on it, but aggressive abrasives can strip the seasoning. Fortunately, that's not hard to fix.

Induction gives you the speed and control of gas, without the exhaust gases. Induction is more efficient than infrared, because you're heating the pan directly. The cooktop only gets hot from the pan resting on it.

Get induction, it's by far the best!

Non-stick chemicals have been historically poisonous, don't know about the modern stuff though.

Also, cooking with cast iron increases iron intake.

Stainless steel can be plenty nonstick but you have to get it good and hot. Seasoned cast iron is a little more forgiving, but heavy. Carbon steel may be the best of both world because it's similar in weight to stainless, but takes a season, but I don't have enough experience with it yet to say for sure.

I got started when I inherited my grandmothers Le Creuset dutch oven. She purchased it in the 1950s and it's still going strong...

Then I found they had an outlet store near me...

Non-Stick, no matter what brand, will need to be replaced every 3-5 years. So, yes, enameled cast iron is more expensive, but when you compare 1 set of cast iron to 15 to 25 sets of non-stick... yeah...

Cast iron also retains heat better than non-stick, carbon or stainless steel, aluminum or copper.

But it is HEAVY AS SHIT. You aren't hand flipping pancakes in cast iron.

It lasts forever, you wont scrape whatever "non-stick coating" they use off. If you want a pan that will outlive your grandchildren and is permanently non-stick once it's seasoned, for most things a cast iron is perfect. If you have that, some pots of various sizes, and a wok, youre set.

I prefer induction or infrared stovetop. We dont need to burn more gas.

This is a HUGE "Yes, but."

Entering adulthood, I got cheap run of the mill non stick pans, they work until they dont.

Then we tried cast iron. Gotta oil it, cure it, and don't use soap to wash it. Some extra work, but it worked great.

Now, I'm rocking stainless steel. Less work than the cast iron, but you need to preheat the pan before you put anything in it. If you do this, it's just as nonstick as the others, and it's a lot lighter and easier than the iron, and I think they are less expensive than cast iron, but I haven't compared in a very long time.

I like carbon steel, mainly for two reasons

1. Heats up insanely fast
2. Super easy to clean

Metal hot. Makes food hot. Yes.

But!!

Cold food makes hot pan cold.

Cast iron has a lot of thermal mass, so when you put a cold piece of meat on it it doesn't immediately get cold and stop cooking for a bit. Thin pans without it don't keep hot, hot so they don't sear long enough and you don't get the maillard reaction and the tasty brown crust.

Depends on what you're doing. Yes, it's better for most things where you'll need to sear.

Carbon steel frying pans good as well.

Alternative to cast iron: carbon steel.

Same seasoning process, better heat conduction, lighter, cheaper.

For me, cast iron are by far my most used pans. You know how flannel starts out sort of awful but gets better and better as it gets older? That's cast iron. Starts out sticky PITA but over time becomes satisfying satiny nonstick surface. I've always used them a lot so that's how my cooking style evolved.

We also have one steel pan we call the Stick pan, sometimes you want food to stick so you can deglaze. My kids use it for potsticker dumplings, and they like it also because it's lighter, cast iron is heavy. And of course a rice and pasta pot, those are steel.

I don't buy "nonstick" pans, they don't last and I'm not convinced they are safe.

Metal hot. Make food hot.

Think a bit deeper. How quickly is that heat transferred, and at what peak temperatures? Does the metal keep any heat of its own and impart that into the food, or does it just convey the heat from the burner to the food? And how quickly does it do that?

but my wife seems to think cast-iron is necessary for certain things (searing a prime rib roast, for example.).

Look at the thermal mechanics of this.

Take the cast iron pot. You can throw that on the stove and let it get ripping hot, like the metal itself is carrying a ton of heat energy. When you put the prime rib in it, the metal dumps its heat into the meat much faster than a flame alone would. This helps you get a strong sear on the outside, without dumping in too much total quantity of heat to cook the meat on the inside more than you want.

then I gotta figure out gas vs. electric vs. induction vs infrared…

Heat can be transferred 3 ways- conduction (flows between two touching objects), convection (hot object heats air, air blows against cold object, air heats cold object) and radiation (hot object radiates energy through space and it warms cold object).

Electric- coils get hot, the pan touching the coils transfers heat by conduction. Downside is uneven heating- neither the pan nor the coils is perfectly flat so you get hot spots.

Infrared- coils under the glass get hot and radiate heat through the glass. This works pretty well.

Induction- coils under the glass but they don't get hot. Instead they create a magnetic field modulated at low radio frequencies (15-150 KHz). This fluctuating magnetic field interacts with any ferrous metal close to it, creating small but powerful eddy currents inside the metal and thus heating the metal up. So the stove doesn't create any heat at all, it's the pan that actually gets hot. This by the way is neither conduction convection nor radiation, because heat isn't being transferred, it's created inside the pot.

Gas- flammable gas (usually propane or natural gas, which is mostly methane) burns creating high temperature exhaust gases that rise against the pot and thus heat the pot. Many chefs like this. Gas stoves should ideally be used with an overhead hood as gas stoves have been proven to drastically reduce indoor air quality.

Of the options- induction is usually the best these days, because it's the most efficient, cleanest, and also in many cases has the highest output (in terms of watts of heat pumped into the pot).

When cooking, you want a stove capable of very high output. The more output you have, the faster it will boil water for example.

Teflon and certain ceramic non-stick pans can't handle the heat needed to sear a steak. You can look up the heat range of your pans, but generally if it isn't cast iron or steel, it's going to warp or degrade the coating. That means they won't last as long.

On the other hand I've never had to toss a cast iron pan. Sometimes I've needed to scrape off seasoning and redo it, and it's rare to ruin a cast iron pan to the point it can't be redeemed. But I've just bought my first carbon steel wok because it's much lighter than cast iron

Non-stick has to be cleaned by hand, whereas stainless steel can go in the dishwasher, so for me that's easier to cleanup.

Non-stick has Teflon on top, which shouldn't be heated above a certain temperature, and to sear steak you need to leave the pan in the stove for long without anything on it so it gets extremely hot (which would damage the Teflon coating of non-stick and release poisonous gases on your kitchen, not enough to kill you, but still can't be healthy).

So, in short, stainless steel is a good middle ground, easier to clean and maintain than non-stick and cast iron.

As for gas/electric/induction it's about efficiency, induction heats the bottom of the pan, electric heats the glass where the pan is resting, and gas heats everything. There's a video from a YouTuber that measures time for a pot of water to get to 100° in all 3 (I don't remember who, I thought it was technology connections but can't find it), and in short induction is the fastest, electric takes a while longer, and gas melted his thermometer before the water boiled (which shows you just how much heat you're putting in a place that's not the pan).

That being said there's certain stuff that is easier to do on gas stoves, possible on electric and impossible on induction. Namely anything that requires the pan to be heated at an angle. It's very niche, I would say most people wouldn't even notice or care about this limitation, but professional chefs sometimes prefer gas because it allows to be used like this.

I have Lodge cast-iron skillets, Le Creuset and Staub ceramic-coated cast-iron dutch ovens, Le Creuset stainless saucepans, and one non-stick frying pan (which I bought for my wife).

I use the skillets for pretty much everything that isn't going to be simmered in tomato. Had them for years and they are non-stick. I happily fry eggs in them with no worries whatsoever.

I bought an carbon steel pan about 5 years ago, best pan ever! Highly recommend 😊