Tramontina's 7 Piece Non-Stick Cookware Review

I'm all for bargains when it comes to shopping and I couldn't pass up picking up a 7 piece nonstick cookware set. After becoming frustrated by countless times of scrubbing off stuck on food, I picked up Tramontina's made in Italy set that comes with one 8 in. saute pan, 1 Qt covered sauce pan, 2 Qt covered sauce pan and a 4 Qt covered dutch pan. The price originally at Wal*Mart was $17.88, but it was on sale for $15, perhaps due to it being the holiday shopping season.

The first impression is the items looked nice with plastic heat protected handles and smooth black nonstick finish. Each item comes wrapped up in plastic. The saute heated up evenly to cook pancakes and eggs nicely. If any egg was stuck on, it could be easily removed without harsh scrubbing. Sauces or soups made in the covered sauce pans didn't have trouble being removed. It was a good working set for a while.

After 3-4 months of use, I started to notice little pieces in the pasta after it was drained. The next time cooking I noticed black pieces floating around the boiling water and it was impossible to remove these pieces off the food. The bottom of the sauce pans now have areas of silver poking through. Food is sticking a little bit more to those areas as well. It isn't a very pleasant display on the food either. Not to mention who knows if it would be unsafe to eat tiny pieces that are stuck on everywhere. Oddly enough only the buttom of the pans seem effected while the sides still have the nonstick finish staying on.

Then came the issue of the saute pan. Not only did a great amount of non stick finish come off, it now has bumps all around the bottom of the pan. Trying to cook an egg intact makes it hard unless you hold the pan up just a little bit until the egg has almost finished cooking on one side. Cooking more than one item in the pan is no longer possible as it rolls into the food being cooked. After countless efforts of hammering the pan to an even cooking surface, it was put in the garbage.

The nonstick covers still work fine though without a good pan it doesn't help much to have. This set was okay as a starter kit but don't count on it lasting long. Check out Tramontina's official website by logging onto: http://www.tramontina-usa.com/