Stellar 7000 5-piece saucepan set

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What is the Stellar 7000 5-piece saucepan set like to cook with?

With a high-shine stainless steel finish, these pans are striking and professional-looking. They have long, sculpted handles with a hanging hole for easy storage. Each pan has a good weight to it without feeling overly heavy.

The saucepans have a heavy base and remain stable on the hob. The handles are comfortable and the right length for each pan, but we do find that they get hot, particularly towards the base. We find that the lid handles get hot, too.

Usefully, these pans are all dishwasher-safe, including the non-stick frying pan, meaning clean up is simple. If you don’t have a dishwasher, the saucepans are also easy to clean with good old soap and water despite not being non-stick. Some soaking is needed when cleaning up porridge, but this is to be expected.

Results

We put this pan set to the test by cooking a number of different foods and dishes. We cook scrambled eggs in the smallest saucepan. The pan offers impressive control as we are able to produce soft and custardy scrambled eggs. Only a small film remains once the eggs have been removed, and after a couple of minutes soaking, the pan is easily cleaned.

We test all non-stick frying pans by cooking omelettes and American pancakes. Neither item sticks to this pan, as the non-stick coating is so effective. We notice some slight patchiness on the surface of the pancake, but this does not affect the flavour or texture in any way.

That breakfast classic, porridge, is cooked in the milk pan. The milk comes to the boil relatively quickly and evenly bubbles away. After adding the oats and turning the temperature down, the porridge is easy to cook and control. Like with the scrambled eggs, there is a thin layer of milk that covers the inside, but a few minutes of soaking soon does away with that.

Finely chopped onions are the base of so many dishes, so we cook these in the medium pan. They fry consistently and evenly and we don’t need to keep moving them around the pan to stop them from overcooking. After removing what we can, we do notice that a number of pieces have stuck to the pan, which is a little disappointing.

Pasta lovers will be thoroughly impressed with this pan set. Water comes to the boil in around 3½ minutes and the pan responds well to increases and decreases in temperature. Even with the lid on, the pan doesn’t boil over and the inbuilt draining holes are a great addition.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a whole new saucepan set with added extras, this set is a great choice that won’t break the bank. The addition of the milk pan and frying pan are ideal, though we do think the frying pan might be a little on the small side for larger families.

The draining holes are useful and very little sticks to the pans themselves. A brilliant fuss-free set offering everything you need.

• Available from Amazon (£144.95), Horwood (£174.85)

Specifications

Size of pans: 14cm milkpan; 16, 18 and 20cm saucepans; 24cm frying pan
Non-stick coating: on the milk pan and frying pan, but not on the saucepans
Material: stainless steel
Induction compatible: yes
Oven-safe: yes, up to 200C

Saucepan recipes

Top 10 store cupboard pasta ideas
Cheese sauce
Vegan chilli
Chicken madras
Spiced carrot and lentil soup
Homemade custard
Vanilla panna cotta

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