What is the Difference between Electric Griddles and Electric Skillets?

Electric griddles and electric skillets are great kitchen appliances. They are easy to use, handy, and save cooking time.

Also, cleaning on any of them is quite easy. However, a significant number of people find it difficult to choose between an electric griddle and an electric skillet.

What is the difference between an electric griddle and an electric skillet? A significant difference between an electric griddle and an electric skillet is their cooking capability and physical appearance. For instance, electric griddles feature a rectangular shape and very shallow wall on the cooking surface, while most electric skillets feature a square or round shape and have a lid.

Keep reading down here to explore more differences.

What is an Electric Skillet?

An electric skillet is a skillet that has an electric heating element, has small heat-insulated legs for support on a countertop.

Unlike regular pans that depend on stovetops as their heat source, electric skillets use electricity as their power source. Electric skillets are also called electric frying pans.

Electric skillets are suitable appliances for pan-frying, deep, and sautéing. Most importantly, they maintain a consistent heat while cooking. Electric frying pans are also used for keeping food warm on a buffet. The lid cover offers a better-controlled cooking process.

Lastly, electric skillets have a temperature control setting/ knob that helps you set and regulate the cooking heat.

What is an Electric Griddle?

An electric griddle is a cooking appliance that features a large flat cooking surface (like a pan) and has shallow sidewalls.

As the name suggests, it’s powered by electric power and has a heating element beneath the cooking surface.

Similar to an electric skillet, an electric griddle has a temperature control setting. Therefore, you efficiently manage the heat while cooking. It also provides even heating and uniform cooking.

The wide flat cooking surface allows easy flipping of food and cooks various foods such as pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast, etc.

Lastly, electric griddles feature a drip tray where excess grease or oil is drained while cooking.

Differences between an Electric Griddle and Electric Skillet

Physical appearance

Electric skillets have a lid, while electric griddles don’t. In addition, electric skillets have deep walls that support the lid cover, and it’s significant for the skillet to accommodate foods that require a lot of liquids.

On the other hand, electric griddles have extremely shallow walls to prevent grease or cooking oil from spilling out of the cooking surface. The deep wall allows easy stirring and mixing of ingredients with ease.

While most electric griddles have a rectangular shape, electric skillets feature a round or square shape.

Cooking surface area

Electric griddles feature a wide, flat, and smooth cooking surface area, while an electric skillet has relatively smaller cooking surface areas. However, electric skillets are deeper.

As a result, you can cook a lot of food at once on an electric griddle than on an electric skillet. Additionally, the lack of wall and the flat surface allows you to flip food using a spatula easily.

Cooking capability

Electric griddles are primarily used for dry heat cooking with a bit of grease. They are also great appliances for searing foods.

In contrast, electric skillets handle both dry heat cooking and moist heat cooking techniques such as searing, poaching, steaming, braising, stewing, sauteing, etc.

Foods cooked

There are foods you can cook on an electric skillet and an electric griddle. However, there are others you can cook on an electric skillet and not on an electric griddle due to the varying cooking capability.

For instance, you can cook eggs, bacon, pancakes, and sear a steak on any of these cooking appliances.

However, you can make fried potato pies, ginger-pork wontons, fried mushrooms marinara, fried jalapeños, egg rolls, crispy bows, sautéed vegetables, among others, on an electric skillet.

Price

Prices of electric griddles and electric skillets vary widely depending on the manufacturer and model.

Usually, there are electric griddles of all budgets from low to high. On the other hand, most electric skillets are medium to high priced.

Check out to learn more about the differences between a grill and a smoker.

Besides, view Atgrills indoor electric griddle to cook food on a cookware with natural stone coating.