Most of the benefits, much lighter weight. Highly recommend having one or two in your inventory. Serious Eats has a good review of options: https://www.seriouseats.com/best-carbon-steel-pans-7093873 (as well as seasoning guides and an overview)

>Highly recommend having one or two in your inventory

I love how this comment implies that the average household will have more than 2 pans/skillets in their inventory let alone one or two of a specific type.

If you're a chef with a bunch of pans, one or two of them probably should be carbon steel.

If you're someone with one or two pans total, you should probably replace the one or two of those that's likely Teflon with one or two carbon steel ones.

You reminded me I need to buy one. I cook on cast and stainless. My friend swears by carbon steel.

I would love to see a multilayered pan: magnetic stainless steel on the bottom, then aluminum, then carbon steel. Basically a modern high quality stainless steel pan but with the top layer being carbon steel instead.

This ought to combine the lower weight and superior heat distribution of a multilayered pan with a seasonable cooking surface.

Carbon steel will rust quicker, it's still susceptible to seasoning breakdown from acidic foods, and it's more expensive, but it's lighter so it's easier to sautee with.

Unlike a lot of other materials there's not that much difference between high and low quality carbon steel pans. Even the good ones don't hold much heat and tend to warp, it's just part of how they are.

They're pricey because they're out of mainstream favor and are kind of an online cooking fad niche thing right now. The main producers are venerable european ones with their own particular markets.

But if you have a local dollar store type thing catering to an immigrant community from like west africa, southeast asia, south america, you can probably snag a carbon steel pan for like $12. It may be a wok or comal or some other slightly unfamiliar format but it'll work fine.

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I’d recommend stainless for the average cook. Carbon steel requires more maintenance and clearly the general public doesn’t want to do that. Stainless is awesome except perfectly slidey eggs require a bit more effort and that’s the trump card a lot of people use, unfortunately.

I’m looking for a new pan and leaning towards stainless. I cook a lot of eggs. Friends of mine who also cook a lot of eggs use them with no problem.

From what they say and what I’ve read, including in this thread, the “bit more effort” needed is simply to make sure that the pan is at the right temperature before adding oil/butter and eggs. This is testable using Leidenfrost effect on a water droplet. The eggs should also be taken out from the fridge 10 minutes before cooking.

If that’s all there is to it, I’m sold.

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I don’t bother with the eggs out of the fridge bit but yea, just get it to the right temp and use enough oil and they come out great