Don't be cheap when it comes to buying a frying pan - if you shell out for something decent, you'll get years of pleasure from it. But there are a number of options for good frying pans. In this guide we run through the basics of choosing one.

Non-Stick Frying Pans

This is your general workhorse on the kitchen stove. A good non-stick frying pan is versatile and great for cooking all types of meals. If you pay for a decent piece of cookware, you should get years of use from it. Non-stick frying pans allow you to drastically reduce the amount of fat you use in your cooking, so they're a healthy option too.

Cast-Iron Frying Pans

These heat up slowly, but once they do they hold and radiate heat, and conduct heat very evenly. This makes them great for grilling meats - especially if you buy one with ridges to give your meat that lovely char-grilled look. Cast-iron pans are very heavy, but essential for the serious meat lover.

Stainless-Steel Frying Pans

From an aesthetic point of view, these pans are great. They can also be great from a practical point of view, but make sure you're aware of a few things first. Food tends to burn on to stainless steel pans more easily than with other types of metals. Also look for a base that's an alloy of stainless steel and copper or aluminium - that way, your pan will conduct heat better.

Blue Steel Frying Pans

Like non-stick frying pans, these do not need much fat or oil during cooking - but they're a bit tricky to care for. You need to treat your blue-steel frying pan buy seasoning it with oil - this involves heating the oil in the pan until it binds with the metal. You need to repeat this a number of times, but once you do, you'll have created a non-stick surface that just gets better as more things burn on it. The only problem is, you can't scrub them in soapy water or they'll rust. Instead, just wipe them out with a damp cloth and forget about the little bit of black gunk that's left over - it'll just burn on in the end.

Frying Pan Shape and Size

You are likely to need more than one frying pan - different sizes and shapes are better for different jobs. Small pans are good when you're cooking for one - bigger pans tend to dry out small amounts of food. But you'll need your big pan when you're cooking for the whole family. Shallow pans are good for dishes where food needs to slide out easily, but pans with high sides are great for making sauces, searing pot roasts and the like. So think about what kinds of cooking you like to do and decide from there.

Also - make sure that whatever frying pan you buy, it has a good, solid base on it.