(Trisha Ruiz, Buzz columnist)

At the start of this school year, in a tizzy over my first apartment, I spent nearly $300 on cookware alone. Saucepans, stockpot, skillet, heavy-duty grill pan—all in stainless steel and cast iron. But as the year wore on and my stockpot sat unused under the sink, only one piece of cookware remained frequently in-use. A mere $20 purchase —god bless Ikea—and a miracle in caramelization: my sauté pan.

Of all the shining, perfect works of stainless steel in the world, this pan is perfection. And while I can extol the glories of stainless steal, the one most important-above-all detail of this pan is its thick, heavy bottom. Anthony Bourdain said once, in his book Kitchen Confidential, “A proper sauté pan should cause serious head injury if brought down hard against someone’s skull. If you have any doubts about which will dent—the victim’s head or your pan—then throw that pan right in the trash.”

And it’s true. Because when you have perfect heat conduction and control under a pot, the chances that your pasta will stick and the rest of your food will come out charred and black significantly lowered. Perfectly caramelized food, golden-brown on the surface, can give a home cook a professional edge to flavor and presentation.

But it’s not all about the pan—there are some tricks to perfecting your caramelization techniques. Besides high heat and a well-oiled pan (just barely enough so your food doesn’t stick), the most important rule is this: do not overfill your pan. Everything you are cooking should fit into the pan in one layer. If there is too much food, the pan will not be hot enough, all the juices will come out, and your food will steam instead of sauté. Also, when cooking meat in a sauté pan, never prick the meat. The sauté will seal all of the juices into the meat, and pricking it will only give those juices a way to escape. It’s all about keeping the juices—and the flavor—in the food and not running all over the pan.

The story doesn’t end with sautéing! I can’t tell you how often I’ve made a simple garlic-tomato-basil pasta sauce and tossed the (cooked) pasta right in the sauté pan. It’s the most delicious way to eat quickly and the quickest way to eat deliciously. Want to make a roast but don’t have a roast pan? Use the sauté pan in the oven, with the glorious caramelization on the bottom of the roast. And I haven’t tried it yet, but, I’ve just realized, this pan is the perfect size for baking a cake.

I love my sauté pan dearly. If I had known that such a simple piece of cookware could give me everything I needed, I would have saved the other $280 I spent for something else—like actual food.