Traditional woks are not exactly compatible with modern kitchens: Their round, wobbly bottoms beg for traditional Chinese burners. Even the wok rings designed to support these types of pans elevate the surface too high above the heating element, defeating the purpose of this high-heat, flash-searing cookware. Luckily, there are now flat-bottomed woks which work perfectly with electric, induction, and gas ranges.
Still, you might be wondering why you should even bother buying a wok when your cookware set came with a perfectly good skillet. These pans, like our favorite, Cooks Standard 13-inch Wok with Dome Lid (available at Amazon for $63.97) are designed with stir-frying in mind. Their concave shape concentrates the heat to the bottom of the pan, creating a super-hot area that cooks your food more quickly. Furthermore, the steep sides prevent splatter while giving you space to push cooked food up the sides as you go. And if all that’s not enough, you might be surprised to learn that woks aren’t just for stir-frying. They can deep fry with less oil, and covering them with a domed lid creates ideal conditions for steaming, smoking, or popping popcorn.
You’ll find that woks come in a dizzying array of shapes and sizes, all with different handle types and construction materials. Without trying them out, it’s hard to know which one is right for your kitchen, so we took the guesswork out of it. We tested eight woks made from carbon steel, cast iron, and stainless steel. Some came with nonstick coating while others could be seasoned to create a nonstick patina. We didn’t hate any of the pans—and they all made delicious bowls of stir-fried noodles—but the ease and comfort of a few definitely made them stand out as our favorites.
Here are the best woks we tested ranked, in order:
Cooks Standard 13-Inch Wok
Calphalon Contemporary Nonstick 10-Inch Stir-Fry Pan
How We Tested
What Kind of Wok Should I Buy?
How Do I Season a Wok?
Other Woks We Tested
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Did you know you can use your wok as a deep fryer?
Hi, I’m Lindsay Mattison, a trained professional chef and a vegetable lover. It’s not uncommon to find veggies taking up half of my dinner plate, which is hilarious because I was the pickiest eater as a kid! While I’m all about cooking up a sheet pan dinner or grilling my vegetables, high-heat searing is my favorite way to cook these gems. Using a wok to stir-fry vegetables is a nutritious, colorful, and delicious way to put dinner on the table–fast!
We chose eight highly-rated woks made from carbon steel, cast iron, and stainless steel. We picked a good mix of non-stick and seasoned woks to see if any particular design or construction stood out from the rest. To test their searing ability, overall ease of use, and durability, we stir-fried chicken, vegetables, and noodles before tossing them all together to create a deliciously saucy bowl. We also heated the empty pans and measured for hot spots with an infrared thermometer and deep-fried potato chips to see how well the woks would retain their heat.
In the end, we were surprised to find that the woks were all on a relatively even playing field when it came to overall cooking ability. That’s actually great news: All the pans not only cooked beautiful food, but they were all easy to clean, too! So where did the top pans pull away from the pack? They had lightweight construction and comfortable handles. We also awarded bonus points if it was easy to remove the food from the pan, too. It doesn't matter if the wok is a joy to use while cooking if the pan is poorly balanced and you sprain your wrist when serving it up!
Woks are famous for high-heat searing in stir-fry dishes, but these pans are incredibly versatile. They’re great for cooking down bulky vegetables like spinach, and you can deep-fry foods with a fraction of the oil required in a straight-edged pan. And, if you have a dome-shaped lid for the wok, you can also use steamer baskets to make dumplings, smoke whole chickens, or pop popcorn without any splatter.
To accomplish all these tasks with ease, you’ll need a pan with a large cooking surface that’s lightweight enough to toss vegetables but heavy-duty enough to avoid warping at high heats. There are a few different materials that can handle these activities: carbon steel, cast iron, and stainless steel.
Carbon steel is the traditional wok material. It’s a light-weight metal that’s effective at conducting heat. It heats evenly and retains heat well, but it requires a time-consuming seasoning process to prevent it from rusting. Once it's seasoned, though, it will develop a nonstick coating over time.
Cast iron is another excellent choice for heat retention, although its heft makes it nearly impossible to use for tossing vegetables. Most cast iron comes pre-seasoned, and that seasoning will continue to improve over time.
Today's stainless steel pans are an ideal mix between the two. They have more heft than carbon steel but they're lighter than cast iron. Like cast iron, these pans take longer to heat up, but they end up retaining that heat better than carbon steel. And since these pans don't have any coating, they're usually dishwasher safe, too.
Finally, you’ll find woks with nonstick coating or pans made from hard-anodized aluminum. These pans are ideal for ease of cleaning, but the same coating that keeps food from sticking makes it hard to get a high-heat sear.
Seasoning carbon steel pans is relatively straightforward, but it does require a time commitment.
Most cast iron and nonstick woks come pre-seasoned, but you’ll need to season any carbon steel wok before its first use. The process is relatively straightforward, albeit time-consuming. Start by scrubbing the pan with hot, soapy water to remove the manufacturer’s coating. Then, dry it thoroughly and set it over high heat. The wok will start to turn a blueish-blackish color.
When the wok is hot, coat it with a teaspoon or two of neutral cooking oil (such as canola, vegetable, or peanut oil). Hold a wadded-up paper towel with a set of tongs and rub the oil over the interior of the wok. Heat over medium-low heat for 10 minutes and wipe off the oil with a new paper towel. Let the pan cool before repeating the oil-and-heating steps until the paper towel does not have any black residue (it usually takes about three or four times in total).
Once the pan is seasoned, you don’t want to use any detergents to clean the wok—that will remove the seasoning, and you’d have to go through the seasoning process again. Treat these carbon-steel woks like your favorite cast iron pan and rinse them with hot water before drying them thoroughly. After each use, rub them with a thin layer of cooking oil before storing to prevent rusting.
Lindsay D. Mattison is a professional chef, food writer, and amateur gardener. She is currently writing a cookbook that aims to teach home cooks how to write without a recipe.
We use standardized and scientific testing methods to scrutinize every product and provide you with objectively accurate results. If you’ve found different results in your own research, email us and we’ll compare notes. If it looks substantial, we’ll gladly re-test a product to try and reproduce these results. After all, peer reviews are a critical part of any scientific process.
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