Divided Pans Are Great For Easy Cleaning, But Beware Of These Big Drawbacks

If you love cooking multi-faceted dishes involving different sauces, sides, and proteins but hate the idea and effort of washing multiple pans afterwards, divided pans make for easy cleaning post-cooking. The pans, which feature sectioned-off compartments for various cooking purposes (say, for frying your eggs, bacon, and hash browns all in one pan) are inventive and can save you the time and hassle of washing three different pans. However, they do have significant drawbacks, including limited portion sizes as well as hot spots and smaller holding capacities that could prevent even cooking. 

Depending on the size and shape of the pan, divided cookware could be perfect for someone making a meal for just one or two people. Its compartmentalized design becomes more limiting when you're cooking larger portions, though. You're limited in the amount of food each section can hold, and with only two to four different compartments, there isn't much room to scale up a recipe. Plus, with less surface area to move food around as it cooks, maneuvering a simmering sauce can become difficult.

Beyond limited capacity, divided pans can also affect how evenly food cooks. The pans usually feature metal barriers that separate each cooking compartment. Since the food is cooking over a single burner, some regions of the pan may become hotter than others. As a result, foods like scrambled eggs or seared chicken may not cook as evenly or quickly as cooking them over direct heat in the center of the pan.

The pan's design isn't the only thing to consider. Divided pans also demand more attention from the cook who is using them. One of the hardest parts of cooking is getting the timing right. With multiple foods cooking side by side, you'll need to keep a close eye on different cook times and heat levels throughout the cooking process. For instance, a sauce takes much longer to simmer than a fried egg, while seared meat and steamed veggies require different cooking temperatures. In other words, divided pans require a bit of multitasking. You'll need to add ingredients at the right time, adjust heat levels as needed, and remove each component when finished so nothing overcooks or remains undercooked.

Still, divided pans can certainly be useful for some cooks and cooking occasions. On a Reddit post on r/Bento about using a flat divided pan to make a creative bento box-style meal, one person commented, "It just makes you pay a little more attention to your food when it is cooking since you're having to look at three separate things so your eyes don't wander. It's weirdly helped my cooking skills a lot."