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J. Kenji López-Alt · 2026

I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Watch or listen to I Answer All Your Wok Questions in full, 46 minutes, published by J. Kenji López-Alt.

61 claims about 7 products extracted from I Answer All Your Wok Questions (J. Kenji López-Alt). Quotes are short and link back to the moment they were said; we publish no transcripts.

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An index to I Answer All Your Wok Questions. Each timecode opens the recording at that second.

0:00 supports J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product
It's the wok from our place. Um we designed it according to my specs and it's sort of the wok I've always wanted.

recommendation about Our Place wok I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites maintenance, non-stick surface

J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product. Stated in the source: “It's the wok from our place. Um we designed it according to my specs and it's sort of the wok I've always wanted.” Kept and labelled rather than dropped: a paid endorsement is still evidence, and you should be the one to decide what it is worth.

But, um if you want something that is going to be a little bit easier to maintain, a little more nonstick, uh and a little easier to work with, um and you have the budget for it, um then the wok that I designed with Our Place, I think, would be the wok for you.
0:30 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
the wok um you want to build in these heat zones. So you want the bottom to be very, very hot and then sort of progressively cooler around the sides. The other thing is that you want the heat kind of in a jet going up. You want this like real hot steep column of hot air so that when you're tossing food, um the food…

performance about Woks I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites heat control, non-stick surface

the reason a wok is not made with that is because, first of all, we don't want aluminum in a wok because we want there to be uneven heat patterns. We don't want the entire wok to get hot. You kind of end up wasting energy that way because you want the bottom to be very hot. You don't really do much cooking on the…
But yeah, if they're if they're greasy, use less fat, use a better seasoned wok, use higher heat, and emulsify a little better, and you should be good to go.
1:30 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
A western pan on the other hand, typically you're going to be using it for a couple things. You might be using it to sweat or sauté vegetables, in which case you want to be able to spread your vegetables all around uh and you want the heat to be really nice and even.

use-case fit about western style pan I Answer All Your Wok Questions

1:30 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
A western pan on the other hand, typically you're going to be using it for a couple things. You might be using it to sweat or sauté vegetables, in which case you want to be able to spread your vegetables all around uh and you want the heat to be really nice and even. Um that way you can sort of eliminate moisture, you…

performance about western style pan I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites even heating

2:30 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
So stainless steel is dense and heavy and really good at retaining a lot of heat energy. So it's almost like a a battery. You put energy into it from the burner or the induction burner, and it holds onto that energy really well.

performance about Stainless Steel Cookware I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites even heating, heat conduction, heat retention

Um carbon steel is not a very good heat conductor. So um if you put a carbon steel pan over a burner, it will show a very distinct heat pattern from that burner. Um whether it's a star shape, a ring shape, or in the case of a good wok burner, it's going to be just heating the very bottom of that wok.
You're able to do that in a cast iron pan because uh you're generally heating it very evenly.
4:31 objects J. Kenji López-Alt
However, the nonstick [clears throat] coatings that we know of, whether they are traditional Teflon style or modern ceramic, they're not very heat resistant. So, they tend to they tend to break down over time as you cook with them. So, they can flake off when you scratch them too much. They're not that hard. And as…

durability about Non-Stick Cookware I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites heat resistance (against), safety (against), scratch resistance (against)

5:01 supportsobjects J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product
It's not as nonstick as Teflon, but it's much tougher.

Two judgements rest on this sentence:

  • supports durability about Our Place Titanium Pro Pan cites durability
  • objects performance about Our Place Titanium Pro Pan cites non-stick surface (against)

I Answer All Your Wok Questions

J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product. Stated in the source: “It's the wok from our place. Um we designed it according to my specs and it's sort of the wok I've always wanted.” Kept and labelled rather than dropped: a paid endorsement is still evidence, and you should be the one to decide what it is worth.

6:01 objectssupports J. Kenji López-Alt
the other nice thing about carbon steel uh versus say cast iron, um cast iron is also a poor heat conductor, um but cast iron is more brittle than carbon steel. So in order to make a wok that you're able to sort of toss around in, hit you hit with utensils, um and will last a long time, um you'd have to make a uh cast…

Two judgements rest on this sentence:

I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Um so, if you have a wok that has some polymers built up, you've probably noticed that it tends to flake off um a lot more easily than in a cast iron pan.
6:32 supports J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product
it creates this um much harder. It's about about two times harder than than raw carbon steel, um and also much sort of slicker. Also importantly, um much more robust. So it's not um you know, nitrided carbon steel won't rust as easily.

durability about Our Place wok I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites coating durability, durability, rust resistance

J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product. Stated in the source: “It's the wok from our place. Um we designed it according to my specs and it's sort of the wok I've always wanted.” Kept and labelled rather than dropped: a paid endorsement is still evidence, and you should be the one to decide what it is worth.

The process we use on this wok involves both high heat uh and high pressure in the nitrogen treatment. Um so it comes out about twice as thick as a standard nitrided steel wok.
Um, not too much of an issue with the super nitrided wok because it's not reactive the way carbon steel is, but definitely if you have if you have a raw carbon steel wok, you're going to not want to skip this step.
7:02 supports J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product
Um things won't stick to it. Acids won't affect it as much.

performance about Our Place wok I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites acid resistance, non-stick surface

J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product. Stated in the source: “It's the wok from our place. Um we designed it according to my specs and it's sort of the wok I've always wanted.” Kept and labelled rather than dropped: a paid endorsement is still evidence, and you should be the one to decide what it is worth.

Um so, the super nonstick one is slick out of the box.
7:32 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
I used one for like 20 years before I upgraded to this one.

durability about Woks I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites durability, maintenance, rust resistance

Owned 20 years, no longer

So, if your wok has little spots of rust on it, it's no problem. You can just wash them out. I mean, honestly, the best way to maintain a wok is to just cook in it regularly. You know, the cooking is going to naturally coat it with oil. It's going to make sure that it maintains any seasoning you put on there. If it…
7:32 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
Um if you're just starting out in wok cooking and you don't have a lot of budget for it, those woks will do you just fine.

use-case fit about Woks Owns it I Answer All Your Wok Questions

You can absolutely cook on a wok on an induction stove.
The vast majority of dishes, you can cook very easily on an induction burner. Anything that doesn't really require that sort of wok hay flavor, you can do it on an induction burner.
which is, you know, one of the reasons I love using a wok for cooking for groups or doing dinner parties because you can cook one dish after another all in the same pan.
7:32 supports J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product
That's why we call it super nitrided, and why um you know, why it's my favorite wok.

best in class about Our Place wok I Answer All Your Wok Questions

J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product. Stated in the source: “It's the wok from our place. Um we designed it according to my specs and it's sort of the wok I've always wanted.” Kept and labelled rather than dropped: a paid endorsement is still evidence, and you should be the one to decide what it is worth.

9:32 objects J. Kenji López-Alt
the metal is kind of warping every time you cook in a wok, which means that any layer of sort of hard polymers that you build on it are going to have a really tough tough time sticking on.

durability about Woks I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites acid resistance (against), repairability (against), rust resistance (against), seasoning durability (against), warp resistance (against)

The other thing is that with a wok, pretty much every time you're cooking in it, you're going to be deglazing it with a liquid, you know, at the end you're going to be putting a sauce in there. Um and that liquid is very often going to be um acidic. So, that's also going to strip the seasoning.
Um so, if you order a raw carbon steel wok, the first thing you want to do uh is scrub it out really nicely because um there's a layer of sort of thick machine oil on there that's there to protect it from moisture because moisture will cause carbon steel to rust.
if you leave your wok uncoated with oil, the moisture in the air is going to interact directly with the carbon steel and it can cause it to rust.
You know, the only extreme cases are if you put it in storage for a couple years and you come back and the rust has attacked the metal so much that there's actual sort of pitting. Sometimes I've even seen carbon steel pans that are almost eaten all the way through as the rust spreads. In those cases, there's not…
11:33 supports J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product
And my wok also comes pre-seasoned. So this one will be ready to cook with straight out of the box. And because of the supernitriding, there's actually no coating on it when it comes out of the box. So it's it's ready to you just rinse off to make sure you don't have any, you know, cardboard particles or whatever from…

use-case fit about Our Place wok I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites maintenance, shape and form

J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product. Stated in the source: “And my wok also comes pre-seasoned.” Kept and labelled rather than dropped: a paid endorsement is still evidence, and you should be the one to decide what it is worth.

That's why we designed this one flat bottom.
14:04 objects J. Kenji López-Alt
Uh, I wouldn't do butter just because butter burns at too low a temperature. Most of this cooking you're doing in a wok, like I want the metal to get hotter than what butter will do. But, butter also tends to sputter a lot and burn, and then you're going to get end up with those brown butter solids in there. Um, so…

recommendation about butter Owns it I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites heat resistance (against)

17:04 objects J. Kenji López-Alt
If it's rusted completely all over, you can also do the same thing you could do you can do with a cast iron pan, which is treated like in an electrolysis bath, but that's sort of like a big process and woks are honestly generally inexpensive enough, at least the kind that are going to rust are generally inexpensive…

repairability about Woks I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites price, repairability (against)

18:35 objects J. Kenji López-Alt
It's difficult to get on an induction cook top because that flavor comes part of it is directly from the food interacting with the carbon steel, with the metal surface itself and the seasoning on there.

performance about Woks I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites flavour impact (against), induction compatible (against)

The other problem that an induction burner can cause with wok cooking is that often times when you're cooking in a wok, you know, you're going to be doing a lot of sort of this tossing motion. So, often times your wok is actually not going to be in direct contact with the induction burner.
18:35 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
So a gas burner is sort of essential for dishes that require you know, what we call wok hay, the breath of the wok. So that sort of smoky flavor that you get with certain dishes. I think the most classic example would be a dry fried beef chow fun or other types sort of stir fried noodle dishes or fried rice where that…

performance about gas burner I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites flavour impact

24:36 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
there's two things I could I could recommend. Either getting an outdoor wok burner if that's an option for you or just getting a portable, you know, butane canister powered burner.

recommendation about portable butane burner I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites power and output

Um, you want one that's going to be at least around 12,500 BTU per hour.
24:36 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
But anyway, people when they get them they work pretty well. You can they're basically these little domes that go over your burner to concentrate the heat into the center.

performance about WokMon heat concentrator dome Passing on someone else's experience I Answer All Your Wok Questions

25:06 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
there's one by Camp Chef, there's one by Iwatani. This one is from Balmuda. It's only made in Japan so it's not available here but there are a number of options available in the US. So just look for ones that um, have a uh, you know, 12,500 or above uh, BTU rating and these will actually work better for you than a…

Three judgements rest on this sentence:

I Answer All Your Wok Questions

25:36 objects J. Kenji López-Alt
you know, like I've tried I've tested turkey burners outside and those are designed to heat up really big pots and those have really wide rings and those are actually quite bad you even though they get up to like 80,000, 100,000 BTU per hour they're not very good for wok cooking because they heat up the entire thing,…

use-case fit about turkey fryer burner Tested it I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites heat control (against), safety (against)

27:07 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
some induction burners like the Breville, the Control Freak here, um they even will let you let you um control how fast they get to the temperature. So it'll say slow, medium, and fast as sort of your options for how you can um for how quickly, how much energy per unit time you're putting into there.

performance about Breville Control Freak Owns it I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites adjustability

29:38 objects J. Kenji López-Alt
The problem is that when you put a wok ring on top of the grates of a regular home burner um you're greatly sort of elevating the distance from the flame you know, and flame heat sources they follow the inverse square law so um you know, when you're twice as far away you have four times less heat.

performance about wok ring I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites heat conduction (against)

30:38 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
Generally though you know, any any kind of neutral oil is a good choice, you know, um uh canola, which is sort of a a refined rapeseed oil, um grapeseed oil will work, vegetable oil will work, um peanut oil is very common. Avocado oil works fine.

use-case fit about neutral cooking oil I Answer All Your Wok Questions

32:08 supports J. Kenji López-Alt
But, usually I use either these, you know, traditional wooden wok lids. Um this one's a little bit too big for you. I I do like these wooden wok lids though. I use them for all kinds of things because there's no rim on them, so you can use them to cover virtually any size pot or pan. So, it becomes sort of like a…

performance about wooden wok lid Owns it I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites versatility

32:39 supports J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product
Um, but the the um, the wok that I designed has its own glass lid which fits really nice and tightly so that you can smoke in there and steam in there uh, efficiently and you can also sort of see what's going on inside.

performance about Our Place I Answer All Your Wok Questions

Cites lid

J. Kenji López-Alt co-designed this product. Stated in the source: “the wok that I designed has its own glass lid which fits really nice and tightly” Kept and labelled rather than dropped: a paid endorsement is still evidence, and you should be the one to decide what it is worth.