We Found the 3 Best Sauciers After Whisking, Simmering, and Sautéeing

Many cooks can get along fine in the kitchen with just a skillet and a saucepan. But step into a fancy, French-inflected fine dining kitchen (or expand your own culinary repertoire), and you’ll likely come across a saucier or two. These shallow, slightly flared pots with rounded sides are often the pans of choice for cooks looking to stir risotto, whisk gravy, or slowly reduce demi-glace. But what exactly makes a good saucier? Do you need one? (As a collection of food professionals and people who just really love cooking, we think you do.) And, finally, what saucier should you buy? We put six top-tier sauciers through a variety of tests to find out what makes a great one—after cooking pastry cream, risotto, and pâte à choux dough, we confidently recommend three.

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Saucier

Made In Stainless Clad Saucier

$165 at Amazon $159 at Made In Cookware

This saucier had the best balance of weight, ergonomics, and performance of all the models tested. It was ideal for stirring and simmering down for a quick reduction, thanks to the sloped sides and wide surface area.

The Best Saucier If You Care About Looks

Great Jones Saucy

$105 at Greatjonesgoods.com

The Saucy is a beautiful pot that scored high marks in heat responsiveness, ease of stirring, and cleaning. The spout on the side is easy to pour from, and the helper handle is roomy and comfortable.

The Best Small Saucier

All-Clad D3 Tri-Ply Stainless-Steel Saucier

$160 at Williams Sonoma

Like many other All-Clad pans, this saucier heated up quickly, with minimal hot spots. While it’s a quart smaller than our other winners, it is a good pick if you’re consistently cooking for two or three.

The Tests

• Pastry Cream Test: We made a batch of pastry cream in each saucier. Because pastry cream requires continual whisking and steady, even heat application, this test quickly revealed weak performers: We were looking for pans that had ample surface areas with no hot spots.
• Risotto Test: Next, we used the sauciers to make risotto—another dish that calls for near-constant stirring. Would the rice stick to the bottom of the pan and scorch? Was there enough room in the pan to finish the batch with an aggressive toss with butter and cheese? 
• Pâte à Choux Test: Finally, we made choux pastry. Sauciers are the perfect pan for this French dough recipe, because their rounded sides allow the mixture to swoop around the pan without getting stuck. Crusted-on choux dough is a nightmare to clean, and if we encountered any in the sauciers, we docked points.

What We Learned

What Is a Saucier? 

A saucier takes its name from the classical French brigade system: A (human) saucier or sauté chef is responsible for—among other duties—preparing sauces. Many of these sauces include French mother sauces, which require whisking a roux or prolonged simmering. A (not-human) saucier has rounded edges and shorter sides than a traditional saucepan; in many cases, a saucier’s sides even flare out slightly. These features make a saucier ideal for repetitive actions like whisking and stirring, which are essential to making anything that has the potential to get stuck in the corners of a pan.

Using a saucier circumvents this problem since your spoon or spatula can get into every nook and cranny of the pot with ease. Additionally, the shorter walls of a saucier provide two benefits. The shallow clearance makes evaporation a little more efficient, so reducing sauces like demi-glace is easier. Second, the short, rounded sides make it possible to toss certain foods that require an emulsifying step, like spaghetti with pesto and starchy pasta water. And finally, sauciers also typically have heavier, more conductive bottoms and thinner walls, so heat tends to be more evenly distributed and retained.

The Amount of Cladding Mattered

If you’ve ever shopped for cookware, you’ve come across the word “cladding.” In this instance, cladding refers to the number of layers of metal in a pan—more cladding means better heat retention and fewer hot spots or scorching. Most pots and pans, sauciers included, alternate between stainless steel and aluminum layers. Aluminum provides even, consistent heat conduction (the transfer of heat to the food), while stainless steel adds long-term durability. It’s good to have a mix of both. Every pan we tested had at least three layers of cladding—and a few of our winners boasted five or seven. 

There Was a Happy Medium Between Responsiveness and Even Heating

Overall, we favored pans that were fast. The Made In Stainless Steel Saucier and Great Jones Saucy reached target temperatures about a minute quicker than competing pots. Why was that? It goes back to cladding. Although Great Jones doesn’t disclose the amount of cladding in their saucier, we suspect it’s in the moderate range. Both the Made In and Great Jones cooked risotto quickly, but we did note some darker-colored grains of rice. Fewer layers of cladding means that temperature changes register quickly, so food cooks fast. But take away too many layers, and you’re left with uneven cooking and the potential for burnt food. The Made In saucier had five layers of cladding—that’s what we’d call a sweet spot.

Lightweight Sauciers Were Easiest to Use

No cook wants a flimsy, cheap pot or pan, but after our risotto test, we confirmed that sauciers on the lighter weight side were preferable. Finishing the dish requires confident, quick shakes and tosses of the pan, so the butter and cheese can emulsify. This is a one-handed job, and super heavy pans (due to more cladding or mostly stainless steel construction) were difficult to maneuver with finesse. The All-Clad 2-Quart D3 Stainless Steel Saucier is a good lightweight option (it weighs two pounds) because it’s a quart smaller than the rest of the competition—ideal for two.

Wide Surface Areas and Rounded Edges Made Stirring Easy

Sauciers have luxuriously large bottoms. That’s a big reason why they’re so good for sauces: The wide, shallow surface area helps sauces reduce quickly. We found this especially true in our choux pastry test. The most spacious pans gave the dough room to cook and form a cohesive mass. On that note, the rounded edges were equally important, as they gave our spoons and spatulas ample room to slide into every last spot. All of our winning pans had a base diameter of 6.5 inches. Perhaps surprisingly, the smallest pan we recommend (the two-quart All-Clad) boasted a roomy seven inches.

Helper Handles Were Awesome

Two of our winning sauciers—the Made In and Great Jones—had looped helper handles on the opposite side of the long handle. While this wasn’t the only criterion for a great saucier (our third winner, the All-Clad, doesn’t have one), it made the pans much more useful. Sauciers are wide and can be heavy, so that additional handle is ideal for lifting and moving it around the kitchen. It also gives you greater control when pouring from the saucier—key when using it to make sauces or creams.

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Saucier

The best sauciers have a moderate amount of stainless steel and aluminum cladding—three to five layers are ideal. We preferred moderate-weight sauciers with helper handles that allowed us to confidently maneuver them around. Low sides, roomy cooking surface areas, and gradually sloping edges were crucial for the core functions of a saucier: whisking, simmering, and stirring.

Our Favorite Sauciers

The Best Saucier

Made In Stainless Clad Saucier

$165 at Amazon $159 at Made In Cookware

What we liked: The Made In saucier was consistently a top performer in every test. The heat conduction was uniform, with few hot spots—even though it was the lightest pan we tested. The seven-inch base and 10-inch rim diameters made stirring comfortable. Speaking of comfort: The handle was the longest we tested, and there’s a secondary helper handle, too. Tossing risotto was practically effortless.

Overall, this saucier feels just right. It’s well-balanced, roomy, smartly clad, and durable. We continually remarked during testing that it felt like a workhorse, and we would happily break it out for all stirring, simmering-adjacent cooking tasks. For the quality, we were surprised at the moderate price.

What we didn’t like: The riveted handle could invite sticky bits that are hard to clean, but that’s admittedly a quibble.

Key Specs

• Capacity: 3 quarts (also available: 2 and 5 quarts)
• Weight: 2 pounds, 10 ounces
• Layers of cladding: 5 (stainless steel and aluminum)
• Base diameter: 7 inches
• Lip-to-lip diameter: 10 inches
• Depth: 3.25 inches
• Handle length: 8.25 inches
• Induction compatible: Yes
• Oven-safe: Yes, to 800°F
• Cleaning and care: Dishwasher-safe, but hand-washing is recommended
• Warranty: Lifetime

The Best Saucier If You Care About Looks

Great Jones Saucy

$105 at Greatjonesgoods.com

What we liked: This pan has measurements etched in the sides—helpful when cooking grains or anything very liquidy. The spout was excellent, with a streamlined pour and minimal splashing. This is a very responsive pan: It cooked risotto 10 minutes faster than the slowest pans. Stirring in the Saucy is pleasant, even though the rim-to-rim diameter is on the small side. Its welded construction meant smooth surfaces that were easy to clean.

What we didn’t like: The saucy exhibited more hot spots than the Made In. This was likely because the Great Jones has a more even weight distribution between the walls and bottom, while the Made In has a heavier bottom. The primary handle is attractive, but awkward to hold in certain positions. The high-shine finish could quickly show wear, which won’t affect performance but may deter those looking for an eye-catching piece. We wished Great Jones would disclose the cladding details. 

Key Specs

• Capacity: 3 quarts
• Weight: 3 pounds, 0.5 ounce
• Layers of cladding: Unspecified
• Base diameter: 6.5 inches
• Lip-to-lip diameter: 8.5 inches
• Depth: 3.5 inches
• Handle length: 8 inches
• Induction compatible: Yes
• Oven-safe: Yes, to 500°F
• Cleaning and care: Dishwasher-safe, but hand-washing is recommended
• Warranty: Limited

The Best Small Saucier

All-Clad D3 Tri-Ply Stainless-Steel Saucier

$160 at Williams Sonoma

What we liked: Don’t let its small size fool you: This is an exemplary saucier, with smooth, rounded edges tailor-made for whisking. This pan cleaned up easily, with the exception of the choux, which left the pan with some sticky hot spots. Still, after cleaning it looked good as new after our tests. Everything we made in this pan cooked faster than the stated recipe times, although that was likely due to its smaller size.

What we didn’t like: Most recipes aren’t made for two—our heavy cream-augmented risotto bubbled over a few times and maxed out the saucier’s capacity. (That said, you could cut recipes in half.) The handle is heavy and sports the signature All-Clad divot in the center that some love and others hate. 

Key Specs

• Capacity: 2 quarts 
• Weight: 2 pounds
• Layers of cladding: 3 (stainless steel and aluminum)
• Base diameter: 7 inches
• Lip-to-lip diameter: 8.125 inches
• Depth: 3.5 inches
• Handle length: 6.2 inches
• Induction compatible: Yes
• Oven-safe: Yes, to 600°F
• Cleaning and care: Dishwasher-safe, but hand-washing is recommended
• Warranty: Limited lifetime

The Competition

• Misen 3-Quart Saucier: This was a well-constructed, sturdy saucier that performed reasonably well across all tests. The handle was comfortable and balanced, and the stirring was smooth and seamless. But at over three pounds, this saucier felt hefty for being a “smaller” pan, and it handled more like a glorified saucepan than a saucier. Misen has since released 1.5- and 2-quart sauciers, which we plan to test.
• Zwilling Demeyere Atlantis Saucier (3.5 quarts): The large surface area of the Demeyere saucier was a welcome feature. Stirring risotto was smooth, and heat conduction was the most uniform out of all models tested. But the pan weighed three pounds, 13 ounces, which could be an issue for some cooks—especially without a helper handle. At around $250, the Demeyere Atlantis Saucier is more than double the price of the other winning models.
• Breville Thermal Pro Stainless Steel Sauce Pan (4 quarts): The Breville Thermal Pro was the heaviest saucier in the lineup, just shy of four pounds. Like the Demeyere, this pan had even heat conduction, but it was slow to cook food and not as responsive as the winners. It performed more like a Dutch oven (though to be fair, Breville markets this as a “saucepan"). It also seems to be discontinued in the form we tested it—an anodized nonstick option is the only offering available.

FAQs

What's the difference between a saucepan and a saucier?

A saucepan has taller walls, sharper corners, and a flatter bottom, whereas a saucier has shorter, slightly flared walls and rounded edges.

What size saucier is best?

For this review, we focused on two- to four-quart sauciers, as that's plenty big for most cooking tasks, like reheating four to six servings of soup. If you want a larger saucier, our overall favorite, from Made In, also comes in a five-quart size.

Do you need a saucier?

If you put a premium on easy stirring, seamless whisking, and making consistent, perfect sauces, and also want a versatile piece of cookware for soups, broths, purées, grains, and more, then a saucier is for you. It can do all a saucepan can and then some. 

Why We’re the Experts

• Tim Chin is a professional cook and food writer who has been contributing to Serious Eats since 2020.
• He has a degree in Classic Pastry Arts from the International Culinary Center, and previously worked for America’s Test Kitchen.
• Rochelle Bilow is a commerce editor at Serious Eats; before joining the team, she worked as an editor at Bon Appétit and Cooking Light.
• Grace Kelly is a commerce editor at Serious Eats. She previously worked at America’s Test Kitchen and was a prep and line cook in professional kitchens.
• For this review, we put sauciers through three tests to evaluate their ability to handle a variety of cooking tasks.