Yes, You Really Do Need a Wok — Here's Why

Eastern cultures know that woks are multipurpose workhorses. But they can be used for a variety of Western cuisines as well.

By

Su-Jit Lin

Published on October 18, 2021

Cooking Wok filled with a steamy dish — Photo: Hinterhaus Productions/Getty Images

To some, the idea of owning a wok may seem intimidating. To others, it's commonplace, a cookware staple it seems unimaginable not to have.

Funnily enough, both attitudes are rooted in the same premise: that they're so deeply tied to East Asian cooking that many have a hard time separating the two.

This classic, 2,000-year-old vessel design has become iconic, symbolic even to those cuisines. Chefs across China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, even southern India (but interestingly, not Korea) have found utility in this instrument, elevating cooking in a wok to an art. These cooks chase wok hei, that elusive element as fiery and difficult to pin down as a just as trope-ish dragon.

But in the Eastern mysticism attributed to this cookware, the Western world sometimes forgets that it's far from a one-trick pony. Cooking in a wok isn't just for stir-fries over open flame. Woks are actually incredibly utilitarian and universally appropriate for cuisines from all over the world.

Think about it: If so many cultures across the biggest continent in the world use it as their primary tool, developing some of the most exciting cuisine in the world, its purpose must be close to infinite.

Because trust us: if you purchase a wok for your home cooking, you might find yourself reaching for it more often than or even instead of your Dutch oven or cast iron skillet. That's how much you might just love your wok. And here are all the techniques that will show you why.

Accessories

It doesn't take much to get started cooking in a wok. Most woks now come with flat bottoms that allow you to cook on gas or electric stoves, but ideally, you'll have a gas stove.

If you have a gas stove and a traditional round-bottomed wok, you'll also need a wok ring to hold the wok in place and help direct the heat up the sides, which are used as additional gradient-temperature cooking surfaces.

The next thing you absolutely need is a chuan, which is a wide spatula designed to follow the angles of the wok. A straight conventional spatula won't hug the curves and makes it a little tougher to scoop and toss ingredients; a wooden spatula is typically too straight and narrow, too, and too thick to get under the food.

Optional, like the wok ring, is a lid or a drying rack for deep-frying. Both are useful for specific applications, but may not be necessary.

Stir-Frying & Sautéing

Ginger Veggie Stir-Fry on white plate — OkinawanPrincess

First, the most common application: stir-frying, which is not that different from sautéing, to be honest. Both require smaller cuts of ingredients, agitated well in a pre-heated pan slicked with a light glaze of oil.

The main differentiator is the heat level used for cooking — very high for stir-fry, medium for sautés. Some may argue that when and how the ingredients meet their sauce differ as well.

For our intents and purposes, we'll call them tomatoes and to-mah-toes and sum it up with this: Anything you sauté in a pan, you can cook in a wok. You may be trading off some searing base in a smaller-floored flat-bottom wok, but you're gaining the safety and security of higher sidewalls. Not only will that solve the problem of errant leafy greens fleeing from your pan, but these walls allow you to flip, toss, and tumble with abandon.

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Tossing & Mixing

No, we're not saying your next salad should be wok-made, but when it comes to mixing up small ingredients or distributing sauces in family-sized dishes, it's hard to beat a wok. With its high sidewalls and graduated heating zones, it's an ideal instrument for covering anything you're making in sauce, and evenly.

Saucepans are often not big enough to handle anything more than their namesake. Skillets have low edges that can make a mess of your stovetop. And while pots are great, a broad hot surface can cause scorching and sauces to dry out too quickly as you try to mix your one-pot wonder together.

The smaller floor of a wok helps prevent your sauces from reducing too quickly while the sloped edges keep your food visible, avoids it steaming, and restrains it from jumping out.

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Searing

Pan-Seared Lemon and Garlic Scallops in a pan — DonBosco Vazhappilly

We mentioned that wok floors have less direct-heat surface area since the floor is less than the diameter of the pan. You might think that makes it less suitable for searing, but good news — it's not!

The space may be smaller, but your burner's heat gets intensely concentrated in it, making it easy to get your sizzle on. And you won't have to use as much oil since there's less ground to cover.

All you need is enough at the bottom for the initial sear, after which, you can shift your ingredient to the cooler but still heat-conducting side wall in a "keep warm" function, providing more even results for large batches than you might even get in a skillet.

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Frying

Whether your frying style is pan or deep, woks have you covered in either execution. Despite the need to use more oil to reach your desired depth, they're actually exceptional deep fryers since the splayed-out form naturally prevents crowding.

Whatever you're frying will drop down into the well initially, serving as a built-in guide for batch size. It also won't spatter outward as much, and you can even use the slope to gently glide your food down into the oil bath for less splashing. Then, once it fries up, it'll balloon and float up to the surface for easy retrieval, spreading out on its own so that the pieces aren't on top of one another.

And no need for a deep skimmer! The flared edge of a wok reduces the risk of burning yourself against the side of an overly deep pot or Dutch oven, and gives you a lot more room to maneuver.

As for pan-frying, the same advantages that go with searing in a wok continue to apply. You may have to cook in smaller batches, but using the sidewalls to maintain the temperature of pieces that are already done makes it a non-issue. And oil-wise, the opposite is true in this application. Because of its basin-like shape, you can get away with using far less fat since it's all funneled to the wok floor and not wasted across a wider expanse.

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Steaming

If you plan to steam in your wok, you may need a couple more accessories. Bamboo steamers are special-built for steaming in a wok. These nesting baskets are made to hover over a pool of water, suspended by the curved edges of a wok.

Metal steaming baskets work well, too, but then you'll just have to make sure that your wok is made of traditional carbon steel, cast iron, or another scratch-proof, metal-safe material. Either way, these are great for healthy vegetables or classic dim sum items like stuffed baozi like pork buns.

If you don't have a steamer tower, you'll need a lid, of course, to seal in all that good water vapor. Silicone, plastic, metal, and folding steamer baskets can all adjust to fit in a wok. And if you don't have any of those, a metal rack (with a cabbage leaf to keep food from slipping through or simply to hold up a plate or bowl) can do just fine.

Sure, in the latter case, your food won't drain and can collect condensation, but this was my parents' go-to solution their whole lives. And for dishes like steamed whole fish or dim sum style small plates, it's a perfect way to capture the run-off juices for a delicious sauce.

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Stewing & Braising

I know. You get it — woks have high walls. So put them to good use! Even though the top edges flare out quite a bit, you can still get quite a lot of volume in there, and with lesser chance of scalding with low attendance than a Dutch oven.

With traditional Western cookware, the cooking surface is as wide on the bottom as it is at the opening, which is excellent for the searing stage of a stew or braise. But left on your stovetop unstirred, it could mean a disaster of stuck-on ingredients across a broad area. In a wok, that space is limited while more ingredients remain in suspension rather than touching a cooking surface. No wonder there are so many braised dishes in traditional Chinese cuisine!

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Pan Roasting

A traditional skillet is far better for pan-roasting — I'll give you that. But that doesn't mean it can't be done in a wok. Vegetables are great roasted in one, picking up a char from the high heat that engulfs its sides. Pile them on and you actually have more opportunities for steam to collect both between the ingredients and around them, making your interiors more tender. This is ideal for ingredients that need a little more time to cook all the way through.

On top of that, you'll be using less fat for an overall healthier dish since you'll be able to toss-coat more effectively. Just be sure to agitate frequently.

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Poaching

What's nice about poaching in a wok is that it can be a shallower bath than if you were to use, say, a stockpot. You can get more of what you're poaching alongside the other pieces for a more evenly cooked batch. Also, the wider opening means that more liquid comes into contact with the air above it, providing it a chance to cool down versus maintaining a warmer temperature that may potentially continue to increase if your settings aren't just righ

Because the poaching liquid won't get as hot as quickly, it's easier to maintain a lower level of heat.

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Boiling & Sous Vide

Sous Vide Lemon-Butter Shrimp — Photo by France C.

To boil anything, the most important element is depth. Fortunately, good-quality woks have that.

The lower end of the height scale is usually in the four-inch range, but more traditional and commercial ones hover around six. This allows as much boiling capabilities, if not more, than a high-rimmed sauté or braiser pan.

And just like boiling, if it's deep enough to hold water, it's deep enough to sous vide in. The sloping walls of a wok are great for keeping vacuum-sealed or freezer bags in place and from piling up if you're cooking several things at a time.

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Smoking

This is an advanced superpower, and requires a lot (a lot) of aluminum foil to protect your wok and several wire racks. Indoor smoking by way of wok is a great way to infuse smoky flavor into smaller-batch projects — you don't want to have to fire up and babysit a whole grill or smoker for just a handful of wings!

That said, using a stove and a wok allows more control and precision over the wood chips, tea leaves, or peels you're smoking. This guide breaks down the specifics of the how-to.

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