The Best Woks

A wok is one of the single most important pieces of equipment used in a Chinese kitchen. “It’s the iron thread that links over 2,000 years of cooking in China,” said Grace Young, wok expert and James Beard Award–winning author of Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge (2010), The Breath of a Wok (2004), and The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen (1999). “In old-fashioned Chinese kitchens, it was the only tool cooks had besides a cleaver.”

We think it’s a worthy addition to any kitchen. The wok is probably best known for stir-frying, a technique that uses high heat and constant motion to create delicious, well-cooked food quickly. As deputy food editor Lan Lam explores in her article on stir-frying, the shape of the wok facilitates this cooking technique, with a hotter “sear zone” at its base and a lower-heat “steam zone” higher up on the wok’s tall sloped walls that lets food cook through. As Lam and Young explain, food stir-fried in a well-seasoned wok just tastes special, developing wok hei, a unique smoky, savory flavor that’s more complex than what you get if you cook the same foods in a skillet.

But the wok’s uses aren’t limited to just stir-frying. Quoting cookbook author Florence Lin, Young says, “With one wok we can do everything.” A wok can also be used to braise, simmer, boil, poach, pan-fry, steam, and even smoke foods. Its bowl-like shape makes it especially great for deep frying foods too. As we’ve found, the wok’s sloped sides mean that you need about 30 percent less oil when frying certain foods in a wok than when frying in a 7-quart Dutch oven. (Those tall, flared sides also contain the food and oil well and protect you and the stovetop from spatters much more effectively.)

All in all, the wok is an incredibly versatile piece of cookware that we love using. If you haven’t tried one yet, you might want to.

Historically, there were two main styles of woks: Cantonese-style woks, which have two small, looped handles, and Northern-style woks, which have a single long handle. Both styles had round bottoms, a feature that was designed for use over the opening in a traditional hearth stove.

Traditional round-bottomed woks are still being made today. But as our experts explained, they’re not ideal for most American kitchens, which are outfitted with gas, electric, and induction stoves, not the powerful hearth stoves these models were designed for. (American stoves have flat surfaces, whereas hearth stoves had openings cut into their surfaces for the woks to sit in.) With electric and induction ranges, the heating element only has a small point of contact on a round-bottomed wok, making it harder for the entire wok to get hot. And it’s not a good idea to use a round-bottomed wok by itself on any American-style range–it would be too unsteady. It is possible to use these woks at home under certain conditions. If you have a gas range, you can use a round-bottomed wok in conjunction with a special wok ring that mimics the opening in a hearth stove, cradling the wok over the flames. (Young cautions that the ring can put the wok farther from the heat, however, making it hard for the wok to get sufficiently hot; the same problem would be even more pronounced if you use a ring on an electric stove.) You can also use a round-bottomed wok on specially made indoor or outdoor wok burners.

Still, these special accommodations make round-bottomed woks impractical for most American households. As our experts advised us, we think most cooks are better off with a different style of wok: the Westernized flat-bottomed wok, an American invention that Young speculates might have emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s. As their name implies, these woks have flat bottoms that allow them to sit securely on American stoves. For our review, we only reviewed this style of wok.

Woks come in a wide variety of sizes. We think the best size for most households is a wok that is about 14 inches in diameter, the size that we found optimal for home cooks preparing anywhere from two to six servings.

Woks can be made from several different materials. For our testing, we stuck with models made from carbon steel and two types of cast iron–both heavy American cast iron and a lighter-weight Chinese-style cast iron that Young tells us was traditionally used to make woks. Woks made from these materials are preferable because they can be used over high heat and, once thoroughly seasoned, are practically nonstick, letting food move easily. We nixed nonstick-coated woks, as these can’t be used safely at the high heat at which we sometimes use woks. We also nixed stainless-steel woks, which can be used at high heat but aren’t slick, so ingredients will stick during cooking.

While we were able to make great food in both the carbon-steel and cast-iron woks, we preferred the models made from carbon steel. These were lighter and much more responsive to any heat shifts we made on the stove, heating and cooling quickly and thus making it easier to control the rate at which food cooked. The cast-iron woks we tested were generally heavier, even when they were made from the lighter Chinese-style material. As a result, they were slower to heat and retained that heat much longer, making it more likely that our food would accidentally overcook. They were also harder to maneuver, as we describe below.

There are a few things to keep in mind with carbon-steel woks, though. They can be harder to use and season on electric and induction stoves, though there are some workarounds, as we describe in the FAQ below.

• A Broad Flat Bottom: As we’ve explained, when you’re cooking food in a wok, the flat portion at the bottom is usually the hottest area because it is in direct contact with the heat source, while the sloping walls form a slightly cooler zone. You can move food around the wok to use these zones to the best advantage. We preferred models with the widest flat surfaces, which measured 6 to 7 inches across. Having a bit more of the wok’s cooking surface at the hottest temperature helped us sear food and evaporate moisture more effectively as it cooked.

• Moderate Weight: We preferred carbon-steel woks that weighed around 3 to 4 pounds, with a strong preference for models at the lower end of that spectrum. The lighter the model was, the easier it was to maneuver and lift with a single hand. By contrast, the cast-iron models we tried weighed about 4.5 to 12 pounds, making them harder to move and lift. (As discussed above, their heavier weight also meant they retained heat longer, making it more likely that food might overcook.)

• One Long Offset Wood Handle: We liked models that featured a main handle that was fairly long, allowing us to control and move the wok at a safe distance from the heat. Models with two small looped handles were harder to maneuver since the handles were much closer to the heat. The angle of the handle mattered too: Long handles that were level with the wok’s rim, or tilted radically upward, felt unbalanced and awkward. But woks with handles that were angled only slightly gave us better leverage and made the wok feel lighter and more balanced. Moving it felt more natural and comfortable. Finally, the material of this handle was important. We appreciated that all-metal handles were durable, but they conducted heat too easily, so we had to wrap them with a kitchen towel or pot holder in order to touch them. We preferred handles sheathed in wood, which stayed cooler during use and didn’t require this extra protection.

• A Helper Handle: We also liked models that featured a looped helper handle, which made it easier for us to lift the woks off the stove when they were laden with food.

• Preseasoned versus Unseasoned Woks: All carbon-steel and cast-iron woks need to be seasoned before use. Seasoning makes the surface of your wok nonstick and protects it from rusting or leaching out unwanted metals into your food. The process of seasoning a wok is quite simple (see our article on seasoning carbon steel): Essentially, it involves heating the pan to high temperatures and oiling it. As the oil heats beyond its smoke point, it polymerizes—that is, molecules in the oil bond together and form a thin, hard layer on the surface of your pan. As you continue to cook with your pan, you build additional layers of polymerized oil, forming a thick, protective, increasingly durable nonstick surface. Most woks arrive unseasoned, but you can also find some that come preseasoned. This means that the manufacturer has already done some of the work for you, building a nonstick coating with an initial layer or layers of polymerized oil. While we generally don’t mind taking the time to season our cookware, we appreciated these preseasoned woks, which were reasonably nonstick from the get-go and allowed us to start cooking right away. Preseasoned woks may be especially welcome for cooks with electric and induction cooktops, as we’ve found it more difficult to season woks on these types of ranges. This being said, there are a few caveats to bear in mind. First, preseasoned woks are more expensive—you’re paying for the work the manufacturer’s done for you. Second, even preseasoned woks won’t have a patina that’s quite as thick or as slick as the one on a wok you’ve been using for years. Like unseasoned woks, preseasoned woks improve with use. We think preseasoning can be worth the price, particularly for electric and induction users—it gives you a leg up on the process and lets you get cooking faster. But if you are willing and able to season your own wok, we highly recommend several models; their lower price makes them especially good options.