Gas, Induction, Electric: The Complete Guide to Kitchen Stovetops 

If you're shopping for pots to use with an induction cooktop, take a magnet with you. If the magnet sticks to the pot it'll work on induction.

Hot spots can also occur when you buy a cheap pan which says "suitable for induction", but actually the part that can pick up that energy is only half the size of the pan.

You can also use gas stoves without electricity (or at least that's the way mine works). Since the gas still works, you just light it with a match or lighter and you can still cook if the power goes out

I have been using an induction cook top for ten years. I would never want to use any other kind ever again. The only problem I have ever had is when I first started to use it and found that my water for pasta would boil faster than I could make my salad.

Mike: Believe it or not, induction cooking was introduced at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1933. The first mass market introduction of the technology was by Westinghouse in 1970, so it’s been in the marketplace for 50 years...but people have been slow to adopt it. My mother has used induction for about 25 years or so. And...her cooking experience is interesting because she has cooked on those old iron wood burning stoves, electric coils, electric glass top and gas. She claims induction makes them all as primitive as cooking over an open fire. I’ve never heard Mom’s make any buzzing noise or nor have I seen uneven heating on hers. However, she does say that you should get pots developed specifically for induction cooking because they will be the best made for even heating. It’s more about how the pan disburses the heat than about the cooktop itself. She tells me they will pry her induction cooktop from her cold dead hands. LOL!

We bought a new house last year and for the first time in my life we have a gas stove. While I hate cleaning it...it definitely cooks better than the electric stoves I have used my entire life....57 years and counting

I have owned all 3 and my induction stove is by far my fav. Very fast, very safe, very precise and super easy to clean.

I've had my induction cooky for about 10 years. I love it. I've cooked on all three types over the years and induction is far and away my favorite. It heats fast. Response to turning down the temp is instantaneous. The low setting is very low - just keeps things warm. Simmer is a usually a 3 with the lid off, sometimes 2 with it on. You learn to judge the correct setting.

A couple things worth noting. One, the noise from induction stovetops is usually coming from the cookware rather than from the stove. The cookware is being vibrated by the stove (like you mentioned) and loose pieces or poorly-bonded layers in a tri-ply pan can start to vibrate audibly. Also, one advantage of a gas stove that you didn't mention is that it gives you access to a bunch of fire-based cooking methods that the other two don't; roasting peppers and toasting marshmallows are two examples that come immediately to mind.

I recently got into really cooking, and currently have a newer glasstop electric, but I've had the older coil types and crappy gas ones. However, I admire my Dad, who did almost all of our cooking on an old wood cook stove, which doubled as our primary heat source in the winter. If I can be half the home cook he was, I'll be happy!

Cheap electric stoves are the worst! You wanna make pastas for four for dinner and you gotta start your water the day before.

To save your sanity with an electric stove, get yourself a good electric kettle. Get your pan hot, pour in the already boiling water and move on (lord knows getting a 2 quart pot boiling would take wayyy too long to boil)

The main thing I love about induction stoves as a pastry chef is that I can do so many things that normally require double boilers/ bain-marie can be done directly on an induction stove especially if you have a high-end one that allows you to control the temp like sous vide. Working with sugar, tempering chocolate, aeration of eggs, etc Is so much easier.

On the gas flame comments (10:52), you need to have a professional adjust each knob for your altitude and conditions. Typically, pull the control knob off as for cleaning and there is a little screw down in the center. My new stove was scorching everything here at 5000 ft MSL, so I adjusted them all to have nice little low flames and the high is just right now.

East Asian viewer here. We have always used gas stoves in the kitchen, but had a portable induction for making soup and hotpot dinners. I have actually given up the wok and been using cast iron pans for stir frying on the gas stove, and it’s still good. I like how good at heat retaining the cast iron is. The wok is retained for steaming. So you don’t have to choose only one, there can be a mix of different stoves. And depending on the cost of gas vs electricity prices you can choose what suits you the most.

I just switched from gas to induction cooker after my stove caught fire. I found the learning curve for induction is quite steep ~ it either heated up too quickly or took too long. There's a fair bit of testing before I learnt the correct settings. Not all pans that are induction friendly work well though, and the hot spots are a bit annoying. Thank you for your video. It was very informative.

I just adore the traditional gas stove of all it is and isn't. Sure, it's a pain to clean, but I love the blue flame under the pan, its reliability in case of a power outage, and the metal gates on top of the burners can survive a hit or two by cast iron pans and pots, something I hear scratches or cracks the top of the other two stoves

Not all induction is equal, from a sustainability perspective I'm excited to see all of the affordable induction options on the market, but for the best induction performance the high end induction cook tops are amazing. From my personal experience the Wolf induction cook tops and ranges are fantastic. I feel that the best on the market today are the Freedom induction cook tops from Thermador and the Vario Induction cook tops from Gaggenau, both of which are full surface induction cook tops and don't have the "hot spot" issue, they are quite, have immediate response and extremely low settings. However, while these are phenomenal cook tops their retail price is above $5,000.00. The humming at high energy output is common, although noticeably less so on the higher end units, it will take a future technology advancement to resolve. It doesn't bother me and I currently own the Thermador and the sound at high energy use is barely noticeable and is less annoying than my old gas 48-inch Thermador range that clicked all the time at the lowest settings. I'm sure that there will be a lot of innovation in the induction space over the next few years. Love your content, all my best. C

what a godsend - i was just dreading the kitchen and watching YT and i found you! faith and enthusiasm restored!! thank you!!

After a gas leak in our building we went all electric for appliances. (Scary stuff being awakened with pounding on your door in the middle of the night by the gas company!) When we were upgrading our electric system, I bought an induction plate and fell in love with it. I now have an induction stovetop. I agree with Mike's pros and cons. My biggest annoyance besides the hot spot issue is my stove top beeps if you put anything on the touch control areas, we are cursing at is regularly (and have friends do the same, lol). One thing to note, some companies are giving you a set of pretty good cookware that is an incentive to buy the range.

Without having a gas stove I could imagine that it’s really cool that you can easily heat up something like a tortilla or roast some peppers or something right on the flame without using a pan

Can't wait to get an induction, currently using the old school electric coil ones, and they are hard to clean, slow to heat up, slow to cool down, etc. This was really informative, thank you for this!

We had an older electric stovetop. I hated it and wanted to switch to gas. While I had gas in the house, I still needed to have gas plumbed to the range area. I finally bit the bullet and got the gas range. We got one that had like 4 different size burners. For large pots, we use one high temp burner and one slightly lower heat. if we need to simmer, we have two different low heat burners. The oven is a convection oven as is the microwave/exhaust fan. We've NEVER regretted the money spent. LOVE the even cooking and INSTANT heat change. Nice job on the site. Thank you.

Love his kitchen and the way he set up those shelves.. you can tell this channel does live to his name, because he is a Pro indeed.

I've always preferred gas stoves for the control, not needing flat bottoms (warped pans are a deal breaker on electric stoves, really) and the "primal" feel of cooking on a flame. However: Induction brings the same punch, can deal with a bottom that has a slight warp... and is so frigging easy to clean. Bottomline: I'll take either of the two, but induction generally won me over because I'm lazy when it comes to cleaning the stove.

I've been selling appliances for 21 years. Even though Induction was actually introduced at the World's Fair in the 1930s and its been very popular in other countries for decades. It's really just now becoming technology advanced and catching on in the US. Cheap pans make more noise and don't heat as evenly on Induction. Cheaper Induction cooktops vs high end cooktops are also very difficult in performance. The Frigidaire range used in this video is a pretty low end model. My dream is one 27k BTU gas power burner for certain things like a wok cooking or charring with fire, and a really wide pan. If the pan is wider than the burner it's looses a lot of heat around tge edges. Then have a 5 eliminate induction cooktop also. Paired with a double oven and a combination steam oven. All by Miele

Cooked in professional and home kitchens with gas, for years. Came here because I’m now using and living (and stuck) with my first electric range. Came here for tips, and your mention of precision and a need for patience really helped! I usually preheat pans, and can do other things, simply to come back when the pan is ready. It’s bizarre but it seems to work.

We were re-doing our kitchen which had had a double wall oven and glass electric range. We opted for a double wall oven -top is combo microwave/ convection oven, bottom a larger reg oven/convection oven with a temperature probe and an induction cook top range. I learned to have great range results with even cooking you need high quality pans. I love how fast I can boil and heat liquids and how well I can control the heat. It did take a while to become used to it. I also love how easy it is to clean and care for and how nice it looks. We didn’t have the option for gas or propane so i am very happy.

With the induction cookers, I've been using two on my stove top for 4 years. One of my biggest favorite characteristics is the fact that I have direct temperature control. Love that aspect.

you look like the main character in ratatouille

Thanks for making this. It isn't click baity or trendy so it'll trickle in views pretty slow, no doubt. I put this on the back burner (lol) for a few days and watched it today while doing some research into new homes/kitchens and it was incredibly helpful.

Excellent review. Practical, informative and full of common sense. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this video. It's much appreciated.

As a pro chef i can say: Induction definitely is the best. Some just cant get over it and prefer gas, but it’s only about aesthetics

This is amazing. I like that you’re creating content around information that’s hard to find elsewhere

I found Mike during the Pandemic, and I always enjoy his content. The guy is an amazing cook!!! I love my induction 2-burner table top unit with my cast-iron cookware. The only bummer is the noise it makes. I love cooking, so my fix for the noise issue is I click onto my current Auditable Book using WiFi earbuds. So ladies, this is proof that (some men) can walk and chew gum at the same time. I never have enough time to read books (or listen to authors read their books). Needing to eat everyday, combining these makes cooking fun for me. If I walk into a house that has a gas stove, especially the kitchen, I say to the people "how do you handle that bad smell and poor air quality" The answer is always the same: "What smell?" 95% of gas stove user NEVER run the ventilation fan. If you cook on a gas stove without turning on the fan, my friend you are really cutting years off your life span and also hurting everyone else in the house.

This is a very timely video, our electric glass cooktop has cracked and we need to replace and are trying to decide if we want to switch over to gas, go with an induction or get another electric; I've been trying to explain the pros and cons to my wife, who does 90% of the cooking and this video is going to make that much easier...thanks...

On the Induction Cook Top, you stated one of the "cons" is "hot spots" in the pan. This is the fault of the pan, not the cooktop. Not all pans are created equal. Just because the pan is rated for induction, does not mean that its iron core has the best distribution of material. You may need to re-evaluate this "con".

I think another way to pick a type of stove is by thinking about the type of food that you want to cook. I personally just move to a new house and I went with an induction stove to replace the previous gas burner that the previous owner left. I usually cook a lot of food that doesn't really need much pan movement like stir fry, so the induction works well for my household. Stews, grills, or saute are pretty convenient and the cleanup is amazingly easy. The one time I tried to do a stir fry with a flat wok, it was kinda messy, especially on the temperature control and even heating of the wok. My induction stove has a crescent-shaped hot spot and it almost ruined my egg fried rice. Also, trying to do the wok movement is borderline dangerous (I kept hitting the glass surface), I don't think I'll ever attempt another high temp stir fry. If you like stir fry and want to use a wok, gas is definitely a way to go. I also used a coiled electric stove in my old dorm, and I can easily say that cooking stir fry there is completely impossible. The heat up time is also incredibly slow and the coils developed a thick oxidized crust that made the problem even worse. Can't really comment on the glass-topped ones, but my wife used it on her old apartment and seems to be fine. But she's definitely prefers our current induction.

Induction is the way to go. Here in Scandinavian area about 75 % of electricity is produced with wind or water, and therefore not sending CO2 out. It is heating , and stops heating as fast as gas, so easy to use.

12:52 100% accurate! Exactly what I experienced in 3 weeks of use. It's lovely.

I absolutely love induction. It's just so handy and easy to use, however, I think that induction alone is a bit limited. So if I had to choose "just" one type, I'd go for gas. The setup I'm going for though has two gas burners on the left and then 3 induction on the right. This means that 9/10 times I'll be using the induction thanks to the efficiency and speed, and when I need to cook something like a stir fry in a wok, I can instead use the gas burners (or when I want to use a flat top for pancakes or burgers).

Thanks for a thorough, systematic comparo. 3 thoughts: You mention the quick response & high power of induction, but not the exacting control. The shower sweet-spot thing you mention for resistive electric also applies to induction in my experience, only without the wait. You mention the sometimes poor very-low-heat-performance of some gas stoves. Induction cookers are well known for their excellent low temp. controlability - I'm talking chocolate-melting low temps. Worth noting. Lastly, while expensive versions of all technologies are available, very affordable yet wholly effective induction cookers are available - certainly where I am (Melbourne, Australia). As you can tell I'm pretty much a fan of induction.

Great review, been a chef for around 15 years. So gas is a must in a professional kitchen. But at home I got rid of my gas top for an STOVES electric cooker and it turned out to be a beast. Only issue is that I can't use my Dutch pot which is curved to cook up Jamaican dishes. But still no regret.

Thank you!! for being the sharing the most honest and informative video for stovetops

Great vid! Can you maybe make another video like this one for ovens? You would be saving my life 🙏

Induction plates are pretty common and cheap in France. You seem to say it's kinda new in the US so I thought I could point that out. (and yes, they do the same "buzzing noise" here too, but I'd say it's just the sound of the vibrations induced by the magnetic flux)

Love this review! As you said, we are shopping for a new range and am leaning hard on a gas stove, for the pros you mentioned. We had a gas range years ago in the place we were renting and purchase a standard coil stove for our budget and always wanted to return to gas. Thanks for this review!

Thanks Mike.ive been forced to work with a electric stove at work after our broke and has been a learning experience. Some elements actually heat quik but also takes forever to cool down and alot of burn potential but I'm adapting.i love the the easy clean up butt in a restaurant I feel I need a better stove.its also on a slant ao luckily i use flat bottem rock pans.been bugging the boss lol.thanks for the details.ive experienced a bit of each but learnt alot here.

I have always had an electric coil-style stove, including at my parents' house. You get used to the quirks of cooking, such as knowing it takes 5 minutes for water to boil. If it gets too hot for what I am cooking I may lift the pot above the burner for a moment, or slide over to an used burner until the coils cool down. Like most things, there is a learning curve, but once you understand what it can or cannot do you are good to go.

Great content. I have an induction cooktop and agree with all you said, however, I have a smaller, well used kitchen and the efficiency and the fact that it doesn't heat my whole kitchen up is a huge plus. Also, so much quicker response than even gas. Would be a nice series to see you cook dishes that maybe specifically work best with induction??? Or how to adjust to cooking on induction. I find that is the most frequent question I get asked...that and cookware requirements. I've been using induction for over a dozen years and still learning. I miss gas at times, specifically when stir-frying, but otherwise enjoy it.

I recently moved and got a gas stove top. Before I had electric. It is glorious! I love it so much ey

I have induction and I wouldn't trade it for anything. We got onto induction because of friends of ours and they convinced us that was the way to go. We used a single induction element until we were ready to buy the stove. The boiling of water, cooking an egg - the speed can't be beat. You can cook the egg before the bread is toasted. Our friend felt his quality of life was improved with the induction.The other part is how low the temperature can go. I have never burned a sauce, or had one curdle with this stove. You can also melt chocolate without having to use the bowl over the pan of water. Yes there are a couple of minor issues such as the buzzing on super high, but that is so minor. We had a glass top regular stove before and being as we are messy cooks, there were a few spots that had stuff burned on. With induction that just doesn't happen, and it's nice just to take a bit of boiling water and have a stove top that looks like it's in the showroom.

One big Pro for gas cooking you forgot to mention, is that you can still cook when the power goes out. That’s huge for me! But I am upset that it’s the least efficient.

Great video! Would love a similar one regarding different pans like nonstick, cast iron, and stainless.

Oh boy I have been looking for this for so long!!! Thank you so much!!

We are building a new house and are going with induction with the air fryer oven. I currently use a nuwave pic induction top and nuwave oven in our RV and fell in love with them.

"I am a pyro because I am a cook" 😂 Well, I feel exactly the same lol! You are not alone! 😅🔥

You are missing the one thing an induction top. The change is immediate when you adjust the temp as it is with gas. Hot spots can be slightly over come by warming the pan up to temp before you cook. Convection is your friend.

Thanks for the great review of all 3! We are in the market for a new stove top and I think we will go with Induction for our needs. Thanks!!

Got myself a single induction hob for use at my office. Incredible how quickly it heats the pan. It'll bring a 1/4 inch of water to the boil in ten seconds!

I've been very tempted by induction for a long time, but after I discovered and fell fiercely in love with copper pans that temptation has been tempered a bit. Interesting video!

Gas and inductions are my favorites! 😍

Wow Just wow You explained almost everything, and the methodology of explaining is great.

Hi, a diffuser is your friend with a gas stove for low heat/simmering.

Omg I was just thinking about this topic a few days ago. Nice timing 😄

Thank you for this. 🤗 I tried getting info in oven options some time ago but couldn't find something reliable. You could do a kitchen hardware series.

My family switched from gas to induction... We're not planning on changing :D VERY efficient and we control the cooking a lot better like this!

The buzz is what drives me bonkers about induction - I’ve warred with myself about replacing my electric with induction (because I’d have to pipe gas in to get a gas stove) but when I taught cooking classes with induction cooktops, the buzzing was like torture after 2 hours! Haha

I use a combined stove, half electric - half gas, but I only use the electric part when I run out of gas. I also think that the actual fact that you're cooking over real fire is what makes gas so cool and enjoyable to cook on, in addition to the fine adjustability. Furthermore, gas in my country is quite cheap, so despite the low efficiency, it's still by far the cheapest method for cooking.

I have all three and say did a good job outlining the pros and cons. If I had to choose one I could not although I want to love induction and do the the hot spot issue is irksome

Thanks, we're contemplating induction but have only had experience with the old coil electric. But we love wok cooking.

🔥🔥I could never give up the flame 🔥🔥

I have an electric glass top stove and it seems like such a pain to keep clean. Makes me miss the gas stove top at my parent's house.

I just used my electric (with coils) stove to make lunch, which I'm eating right now, and yes I absolutely agree the cleaning is pain, doesn't differ much from using a gas stove.

Great info on the induction stove top. Loved the video. Thanks.

I've used electric coil stove tops all my life, so I compensate for the lag time between dial changes, by keeping an eye on the food & lowering the heat when it starts reaching the desired color. If I risk burning something, I simply lift the pan off the coil until things get under control. If I had a choice, I would switch to a gas top electric stove for the cleanliness & price. Or a gas stove because it opens a world of new cooking techniques (ie griddle, roasting).

A little fun thing with induction: it is literally impossible to go over a certain temperature with induction with an iron pan, simply because when Iron goes to about 700C, it loses its magnetic properties and won't get energy from induction. You probably wouldn't want to cook actual food at this temperature obviously, I guess you could say it's a safety feature that it loses efficiency when it becomes too hot.

Thanks for the video. My plan for my tiny house is to get a 2 burner portable induction burner and a stove top cutting board cover for my 3 burner propane stove/oven. This way I can use the induction most of the time powered by solar energy (hopefully) and when I need to bake or use gas I can move the induction burner and use the gas flame. Saves on propane but is flexible. Still going to eventually build an outdoor kitchen with a solar oven outside but this sounds very efficient and less dirty for indoor cooking.

Gr8 video.. thanks for the info.. helps a lot to know the pros and cons

My aunt uses an "induction adapter" to use her old pots. Search it up on google. It's pretty simple and you can use your old pots on an induction stovetop! :)

One key feature of the gas top is you can directly char or roast veggies such as eggplants or peppers... And it is very important feature. I'm not sure how did you miss it

Thank you for this video! My husband and I are looking to buy a new stove and I couldn't decide between the 3

It looks so delicious. You're very good at cooking. That's a good recipe. 🥰😋🧡💚💜

I've been cooking exclusively on induction for about 15 years now it definitely has its pros and cons. I can really suggest one thing though DO NOT buy one with touch screen controls on the glass surface, even the slightest splash of water and the whole cooker turns itself off

I love gas, ive been cooking with it forever. but Electric coils are terrifying. You set it too high to heat it up faster, then try to figure out aimlessly where it is. But they can overload. Ive had a friend of mine, get her favorite dutch oven's Enamel Melted Off!! by one of those things. Cracked, and just stuck to the heating element

It might be different in smaller options for (single burner). I have tried two induction cooktops and have seriously hated both. I primarily cook with old iron pans and 5 ply steel/waterless cookware type. Stir-fry foods & eggs are a disaster on my induction. The one I have currently cycles down and the temps are so inconsistent that it will boil water at 100 degrees but won't even warm a tortilla shell at 260 without having to bump it up several times. I specifically chose one that has 10 degree increments, thinking I would have more control, but even warming water, like I said earlier, can't be accomplished with any accuracy. It is easy to clean though! I have loved the videos you have put out since I started following these past couple of years. I have so many saved recipes from the site, and I very much appreciate the variety of content, from quick meals to week prep with sauces. Thanks...your avid follower : ) P.S. Also, at least on the two countertop models I have had is not the buzzing, but the fan is loud. The fan will run whenever the unit is running. When I turn it off, I feel so much relief.

Buzzing noise is caused by the pan not having enough magnetic iron in it. Please just look this up to have it better explained. Love your page!!!

I’ve cooked with gas all my life. At one short period in my life I had electric-could not cook for the life of me!!

Is Induction being expensive and uncommon an American thing or am I missing something here? Cuz here in India they start at around 30- 40 dollars, they've been used widely for at least the past 7 years and most students get one when they move to uni

Yes!!! Thanks for the video which I have been looking for. Thank you

II didn’t know about the tech of induction. Thanks. Well done. We’re accustomed to gas but bought a new house that has the old coil type electric but it’s a 40” range which makes it very expensive to replace. Someday I hope. Thanks again!

Professionally, I use gas. At home it's induction. Between the two for home cooking I'd prefer induction. Honestly the ability to "fine tune" the flame on gas is a little bogus. All the stoves I've used gas on have 90 degrees of rotation so there's only so much you're going to be able to tune the flame and it still be noticeable. What the average person is going to notice in differences in flame are comparable to the power increments (26 on our first and 10 on our second) on an induction range. And because it heats up so quickly, it's as responsive as gas. I do have a couple of gripes with induction though. The first, which I think could be resolved with more development, is that each burner on an induction range is setup to be used with cookware of a certain size. So you can't use whatever sized pot/pan on whichever you want. Not really that big an issue when you're using medium to large pots and pans but when you have small saucepans you can, assuming you can even use them, only use them on the backburners; at least that's my experience. And that sucks when you are having to lean in over the stove to keep an eye on what you're cooking rather than having it conveniently near the front. The second is, and this may just be me, you can't necessarily pick up a saute pan and (this is my best description for it) flick it so you're juggling the food in the pan, without running the risk of hitting the pan off the glass and damaging it. I have no idea how easily those things are damaged but hitting the glass even once can be jarring and induction ranges are expensive enough not to want to risk it. Gas you can get away with it because you know if you hit it, you'll only be hitting solid cast iron.

The hotspots on an induction (I feel) is an incorrect sweeping generalization. This has more to do with your pan quality and your stove top quality than it does apply for the entirety of the technology. Like anything, buyers will need to do their research on both the pans they use and the induction tops they purchase. Your milage will vary.

Thanks for the video, it has a lot of good information.

So helpful, thank you so much! Setting a new kitchen and definitely going with gas now...

One pro of gas stoves not mentioned: you can cook in a power outage. Which is a really important consideration if you live in an area with mostly above-ground power lines or frequent storms

i think there is an error at 10:58 -- in the gas stove con section there is an electric stove text slide on the screen. Otherwise great video!

Thanks for your video. I'm a little bit a pyro myself, but your content helped me choosing induction for our household with little kids and not feeling bad I'm leaving gas behind. Not for the open flame danger (I burnt my hand badly after touching a shut glass-top electric stove and gas burns don't go near to this hell), but it's simply so much faster in boiling and easier to clean. Also, with electric glass surface, if you overboil something (like potatoes or milk), it immediately burns on the stove and is NOT easy to clean.

Excellent video. EXACTLY what I was looking for

Missed the advantage of having timers on the induction, really great feature