Le Creuset - middle class nirvana or unnecessarily heavy con?

[PersonaNonGarter]

The Le Creuset from my wedding list (10yrs) is coming to it’s life end and tbh it hasn’t been a great ride. Each one is stained, with chipped handles, horrible to clean etc.

Do I repurchase at £££ or is there something better out there?

I love Le Creuset - the three stainless steel pan set is indeed heavy but indestructible. I don’t find them hard to clean. I love them.. great lids as well

Love mine. I only have one but use it all the time.
Massively underrated are the Romertopf chicken bricks - my mum has one and I got one for my wedding last year and use it all the time (the name is misleading can be used for any meat, veg too).

I’ve had my LC dutch ovens for 25 years and use them all the time. They are amazing and have never chipped. I love my skillet but have had two fry pans which I would never buy again.
My dd’s have both recently gone to uni share houses and they both bought LC dutch ovens from ebay second hand but hardly used.
I also have the Staub pumpkin which I adore!

Try Denbys and find an outlet . You get them for about 40 pounds.

www.denbypottery.com/cast-iron

I bought my two large Le Creuset nearly 30
years ago in Paris and they're still going strong. They weren't nearly as eye wateringly expensive as they are now. I also have a smaller non Le Creuset and DH had a Le Creuset of the same size. I use that one for making bread twice a week. I have a new one that was my long term service gift from work but not used it yet. If I had to buy again though I'd probably buy the Sainsbury's ones as they look just as good.

I got one of the cast iron lidded casseroles for about £40 from HoF, I think it had been left forgotten on the shelf in there, it was marked up at £65 which was very cheap and went through the till at about £40, I couldn’t believe my luck and always have a lurk round the shelves in there ever since.

Mine are older than me and still look great. Brilliant for cooking on Rayburns or Agas too.

Yes I have le creuset and I buy from TKMaxx who always have sales
Did try their kettle and it was so heavy, a real effort to lift. So I didn’t buy it

Aldi version is identical (I have le cruset and Aldi) and a fraction of the price!

I have one of the LC cast iron lidded casseroles, it's 15 years old and looks almost new. I use it for everything -- it's AMAZING for bread.

I have a Sainsbury's skillet which is supposed to be the same thing and it's probably five years old, it's not holding up as well.

Aldi do a similar item?cheers for the tip, I’ll have to take a look

Jeanette Winterson have any spares?

Netherton Foundry hand spun fascinating to watch made.

Love mine. Find it surprisingly easy to clean - burnt on bits just seem to glide off.

Why on earth would you buy the same again when you say all those negative things about it ?. Middle class shit. Why do you care? Just get to the supermarket or M&S if you're really bothered about brands and get something that does the job better.

I like 1 casserole one and ours is over 30 years old. I have recently got the frying pan linked up the thread and I do love that.

However, our everyday pans are not and never will be Le Crueset I simply find them too heavy to lift around.

SKK or Greenpan last better imho.... our LeCs have been consigned to storage in the basement🙈

Heavy and actually quite ugly. Especially the orange version.

I like the casserole/oven dishes and use them all the time, however I seldom use the pots and prefer the cheap ones I’ve had for about twent years and seem to have lasted the pace. The issue with the le creuset ones is they are just so so heavy when full, that they become unwieldy.

I've just bought the Aldi range and it's brilliant

Sainsbury's knock offs are ok but I've had a Sainsbury's and a Denby's wide shallow pan and both had to be binned as the lids didn't fit properly and food regularly stuck to the pan.

My LC casserole pan has lasted nearly twenty years. The enamel has chipped and the outer enamel is dull but it out performs anything else that I've ever had.
But for lightness , it's GreenPan for me. It's immediately reactive to heat and never sticks. It's also safe from nasties.

Decades ago I had two friends getting married about the strums and their wedding list was like the Le Creuset wars. I never really got it. I have one Le Creuset pan, which I bought for a specific purpose. Apart from that I’ve got mostly Cuisinox and it’s excellent.

Strums??? Same time.

I've just bought a new omelette pan from Dunelm with the name Green Chef. OMG. Its so massively non-stick that my omelette flies out of the pan if I just wiggle it. I'm thinking of buying more Green Chef pans.

Love mine and by coincidence I was looking at them on wayfair last night and just couldn't believe the prices. I have a small roaster that I bought in the eighties for £14 in a closing down sale. I since have bought the large one which is brilliant for roast potatoes as you can put it on the stove to keep the fat hot.

I also got a large oval casserole for a wedding present which I am thinking of giving away as I really no longer use it and would love someone else to get the use out of it. It's still in pretty good condition. Tbh if I needed a casserole dish in the future I would look at the ones in Sainsbury or Mark's which seem very good. TK Maxx is very good for the earthen ware by Le Cruset. Got my white teapot there which I looked everywhere for and only paid £9.99 so I bought 2. Also was in a big department store and they were selling the lime green Le Cruset at half price. Bought a casserole pot which I ended up giving as a wedding present. I kinda wished I had kept it.