The Saucier and Saucepan are extremely versatile pieces of cookware, helping home cooks and chefs alike elevate traditional meal preparation. But what exactly separates these two pieces of cookware? While the Saucier and the Saucepan share a number of similarities, these pieces of cookware ultimately excel at different cooking techniques.
Our complete Saucier vs. Saucepan comparison will highlight these key differences and elaborate on what makes these two pieces of cookware unique. Typically, saucepans have straight sides, while the saucier is crafted with rounded sides, helping you whisk a delicate sauce with ease.
Saucepans are built to last daily use with premium materials and are available in stainless steel and toughened nonstick pro. Le Creuset’s Sauciers, on the other hand, are crafted with enamelled cast iron and stainless steel, ensuring their durability for years to come.
Here is the complete comparison between the Saucepan and the Saucier, including preferred cooking techniques, cookware features you might not have been aware of, and recipes best suited to each piece of cookware.
The saucepan is yet another Le Creuset essential and is a must in any kitchen setup. This piece of cookware can help tackle a number of your favourite dishes with ease, ensuring dinner is served for the whole family, but what exactly is a saucepan?
Le Creuset Saucepans
Key Difference: Tall, Straight Sides
Ideal for: Everyday Use
What is a Saucepan?
A Saucepan is perfectly suited for preparing grains, side dishes, and even reducing delicate sauces. Simply put, saucepans are a small, deep pot, featuring a flat bottom and tall, straight sides, ensuring ingredients are simmered to perfection. Typically, a saucepan will include a tight-fitting lid designed to lock in heat and moisture, creating the ideal environment for reducing sauces or for delicious side dishes.
Le Creuset saucepans feature an ergonomic, stay-cool handle, helping you transfer this piece of cookware from the stovetop to the table with ease. This piece of cookware is available in stainless steel or toughened nonstick pro, offering superior heat retention and even heat distribution for your most delicate recipes.
What cooking techniques are best suited to a Saucepan?
A saucepan can be used for a number of your favourite cooking techniques, accommodating recipes of all sizes. As its name suggests, a saucepan is ideal for simmering or reducing a sauces. This piece of cookware can also be used to prepare soups and boil and blanch ingredients such as eggs, grains, pasta, and vegetables. It can also be used as a double boiler.
Unlike other pans, saucepans can handle a lot of liquid without losing much of their capacity during the cooking process. Beyond preparing sauces, this versatile piece of cookware is great for blanching vegetables, cooking quinoa, and even poaching an egg.
What are the main features of a Saucepan?
Ultimately, what makes a saucepan unique from a saucier is its tall, straight sides and flat bottom. This offers liquids the ideal environment to simmer wonderfully, all-while offering superior heat retention. Le Creuset’s saucepans come equipped with interior markings, helping home cooks and chefs alike easily monitor their recipes and provide a quick reference for liquid measurements.
Its tight-fitting lid features a flat rim for stability and a built-in vent to prevent overflow, providing the ideal piece of cookware for reducing sauces. Our Saucepans are compatible with any cooktop, including induction, offering a versatile addition to your cookware collection. Finally, their convenient handle stays cool throughout, ensuring you can maneuver around your kitchen with ease.
While very similar to the saucepan, the saucier excels at different cooking techniques and features a slightly different design. But what exactly is a saucier and why do you need one?
Le Creuset Sauciers
Key Difference: Shorter Sides with a Rounded Bottom
Ideal for: Stirring, Whisking
What is a Saucier?
The Saucier is the ultimate piece of cookware to reduce delicate sauces in, but can also be used to prepare soups, side dishes and dishes that need to be constantly stirred. Designed with rounded sides and a lower profile than a typical saucepan, this piece of cookware makes whisking a delicate sauce easier. In addition, its rounded bottom ensures sauces do not stick to the corners of the pan and get burned.
The saucier’s unique curved corners expose ingredients to a consistent heat source, maintaining its heat level throughout the cooking process. Whether you’re reducing a delicate sauce for a one-pot pasta recipe, or want to prepare a delicious risotto for the whole family, our Saucier has you covered.
What cooking techniques are best suited to a Saucier?
Sauciers are traditionally used to whisk or reduce sauces but can also serve a number of different purposes in the kitchen. This versatile piece of cookware can also be used to sauté vegetables, exposing them to a consistent heat source without burning them.
Sauciers can also be used to simmer ingredients, as their tight-fitting lid will lock in heat and moisture and ensure ingredients are slow cooked to perfection. This versatile pan has established itself as an essential in any kitchen, helping prepare sauces, soups, side dishes, and more with ease. From whisking a delicate sauce, to quickly blanching vegetables before preparing a stew, our saucier accommodates with the minimum of fuss.
What are the main features of a Saucier?
The saucier differs crucially from the saucepan in that it features a rounded bottom and rounded sides and a shorter profile. This ensures that sauces and delicate ingredients do not stick to the corners, making cleanup a breeze. In addition, its unique curved corners create the ideal environment for whisking a sauce to perfection without the fear of burning it.
Le Creuset’s Saucier comes equipped with a tight-fitting lid featuring a steam hole to prevent boil overs and lock in heat and moisture. Its smoothly curved sides promote efficient stirring and constant movement, while its ergonomic stay-cool handle helps you transfer it around the kitchen with ease. Our Sauciers also include a helper tab, which makes moving safe and effortless.
Recipes for Your Saucepan and Saucier
Here are fun easy-to-make recipes perfect for your saucier and saucepan. From a classic poultry gravy to a delicious risotto, these dishes are a great addition to any dinner table.
Saucepan vs. Saucier: Is there a difference?
The saucepan and the saucier are complementary pieces of cookware, excelling at different cooking techniques in the kitchen. The saucepan, for example, has tall, straight sides, while the saucier has rounded sides as well as a shorter profile, ensuring no ingredients get stuck in the corners and burned.
Both these pieces of cookware are optimized for any cooktop, including induction, providing superior heat retention and even heat distribution. Whether you want to reduce a delicate sauce, warm up a soup, prepare a risotto, or blanch vegetables, our Saucepan and Saucier are extremely versatile and can help you tackle different recipes and cooking techniques.
Ultimately, the slight differences between the saucier and saucepan is what makes these pieces of cookware unique. With that being said, both the saucier and saucepan are everything you want in the kitchen: durable, versatile, and easy-to-use.
For more inspiration on making the most of your saucepan and saucier, visit our blog or read about these eight delicate dishes perfect for your saucepan.
