Did You Know You Can Cook With Magnets? Check Out These Induction Cooktops (2024)

The GE Profile PHP9036DTBB is our favorite induction cooktop because it has five cooking zones, responsive touch controls with a child lock option, and a robust set of smart home features with both voice controls and guided cooking. The cooktop includes a flexible set of induction elements to accommodate everything from a small frying pan to large stew pots and even big griddles. It also supports Hestan Cue smart pans, although it doesn’t come with one.

The cooking zones include a powerful 3,700-watt burner that accommodates up to 11-inch cookware, and two bridge elements. Bridge elements work separately, each with its own pot or pan, or synchronize together to provide even heat to large cookware like griddles.

When used separately, one of the bridge elements supports a melt setting optimized to melt chocolate and simmer sauces. The other has a warm mode that’s good for keeping dishes at a safe temperature until it’s time to eat. All of the elements, including the 11-inch, 3,700-watt central element, feature a power boost for times when you need extra heat fast.

Controls are provided by an intuitive touch panel, with each burner having its own temperature control and display. GE refers to this configuration as glide controls, because you slide your finger along an element’s associated temperature ring to raise or lower the heat.

With 19 power levels, this cooktop provides professional-level precision control over the temperature of your cookware (the baseline we look for is just 10 levels). The control panel includes an all-off feature to switch off all elements at once.

Smart home connectivity works with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. It also supports guided cooking—a smart feature that ties into your phone and connects to any compatible smart pan. This feature automatically adjusts the cooking time and temperature to match pre-set recipes, so all you have to do is follow along in the app.

How do you know what cookware will work with induction?

Since they generate heat using magnetic fields, induction cooktops only work with ferrous metal cookware like cast iron, stainless steel, and ceramic-clad iron. Not sure if your cookware will work? Laurie Klein, a former consumer test kitchen specialist at Hamilton Beach has this advice: "Place a magnet on the bottom of your cookware; if it sticks, it is induction cooktop ready."

The large central element is perfect for large cookware like stew pots, and the flexi-bridge zones provide a lot of flexibility as well. Each flexi-bridge zone has two heating elements that can work separately or in unison, so they’re good for both small pots and pans and larger cookware like griddles—just like our best overall pick.

This cooktop has the look and feel of a higher-end device and the performance to match. The burner configuration provides a lot of flexibility in terms of the types of cookware it can accommodate, and the digital touch controls make it easy to achieve accurate temperature control.

Is it normal for an induction cooktop to make noise?

Induction cooktops can make clicking, humming, and buzzing sounds, which are all part of normal operation. “Induction cooktops can be noisy due to the electromagnetic vibrations. Some are quieter than others, depending on their design and insulation," says Chris Nirschel, chef and owner of NY Catering Service.

The Thermador Freedom Series provides the ultimate level of flexibility, with a 36-inch, fully usable cooking surface, convenient MoveMode for adjusting the position of your cookware, and intuitive MyZone temperature controls. We also love the TeppanyakiPro mode that lets you quickly transfer ingredients from a heated to a non-heated area.

This cooktop includes extra features like automatic pot detection that senses the size and shape of your cookware, and embedded LEDs light up to indicate hot areas. Its built-in Wi-Fi enables useful smart features, like the ability to synchronize with a compatible hood for automatic ventilation and lighting, monitor the cooktop from your phone, and access a variety fo cooking settings and programs through the app.

When you place an induction-compatible pot or pan on this cooktop, sensors allow it to tap into an array of 56 elements to accommodate the unique size and shape of the cookware. This gives you total freedom of placement, not restricted by element size and location like a traditional induction cooktop. It can adjust to six heating zones simultaneously, so you can arrange up to six pots or pans on the cooktop, and set each to its own individual temperature with the MyZone temperature controls.

This feature-rich cooktop includes five induction elements, 19 power settings for fine temperature management, an intuitive touch control panel, and a suite of useful capabilities enabled by smart home connectivity. Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connect this cooktop to your Alexa or Google-powered smart home ecosystem, your smartphone, and compatible smart pans as well.

To get the most out of this cooktop, you’ll need Wi-Fi, a compatible smart speaker, an Android or iPhone, and a compatible smart pan. With all those pieces in place, you can check on the status of the cooktop with voice commands, view power levels and temperatures from your phone, and use the guided cooking feature to breeze through brand-new recipes.

Guided cooking leverages smart pan technology to automatically adjust cooking temperatures and times, while you follow along with recipes provided in the connected phone app. (It's a feature you can also find in our best overall pick.) If you have a compatible Cafe range hood or microwave, the Chef Connect feature will turn the lights and fan on when you start cooking.

Aside from the wealth of smart features, this is a highly capable cooktop has two bridge elements and a large, 11-inch central element that tops out at 3,700 watts. Each element has its own temperature control and heat indicator. The one caveat with the touch controls is that they don’t work well when your hands are wet.

We like that this portable cooktop comes with a 9-inch pan too, which makes it the perfect entry point to induction cooking if you don’t already own a full set of compatible cookware.

The PIC Flex provides tight temperature control, with a built-in temperature sensor and display. Instead of just selecting a power level, you set the cooktop to the desired temperature—anywhere from 100 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, in 10-degree increments. If you’re in a hurry, it also has 45 common cooking temperatures pre-programmed that you can access with a few button taps.

Since this is a portable cooktop, you can use it in your kitchen or anywhere you have electricity. That means you might not always have access to an outlet capable of handling 1,300 watts, which is why the PIC Flex has three wattage modes.

Having a small kitchen doesn’t mean you need to stick to small cookware. This 24-inch induction cooktop from Bosch is proof, with a huge, powerful 11-inch cooking zone that’s perfect for big cookware like griddles and especially large skillets, all in a form factor that’s perfect for a compact kitchen or small kitchen island. An element that large comes at the cost of a fourth cooking zone, which this cooktop lacks, but the utility of having such a big element is important.

The 11-inch cooking zone takes up most of the available space on this compact cooktop and provides up to 3,700 watts of power. The smaller 6 and 7-inch zones top out at 1,400 and 1,800 watts respectively. The cooktop has a power boost feature to apply rapid heat, but it only works on one zone at a time.

If you have room for a 30-inch cooktop and want to make the most of your space, the Frigidaire Gallery GCCI3067AB is the perfect fit. This cooktop doesn’t have a warming zone, instead using all of the available space to squeeze in two large, 8-inch burners and a pair of 7-inch burners that can operate separately or in bridge mode to accommodate larger cookware like griddles. It’s a thoughtfully designed layout that improves the discontinued Frigidaire Gallery model that it replaces.

This cooktop has a conveniently located touch-based control panel in front of the two larger burners, so you don’t need to reach over hot cookware to make adjustments. The controls are a little temperamental, especially if your hands are wet, but they provide tight temperature control.