Portable induction burners allow you to cook just about anywhere or add an extra burner to your kitchen in a pinch, but the best two-burner induction cooktop might just inspire you to abandon your full-size stovetop for good. I tested five popular models to find the most powerful, most programmable, most precise dual-burner induction cooktop for home cooks and professionals alike.
Induction cooktops are safer and more energy efficient than gas or electric stovetops, and if you need something you can move around and plug in, portable induction cooktops are far superior to hot plates, which are essentially mini versions of crummy electric stoves. Portable induction burners are also an affordable way for induction-curious home cooks to try induction cooking without investing in a new major appliance.
But what happens when you fall in love with induction cooking while you’re renting or you’re just not quite ready to go all in on a full-size induction range? If you aren’t regularly firing up all four burners on your gas or electric stovetop (and let’s be real, how often do you need four burners at once?), a double induction burner with two cooking zones is a great middle ground.
The best two-burner induction cooktop: Nuwave PIC Double Induction Cooktop
The Nuwave PIC Double Induction Cooktop is the largest, most powerful, and most precise two-burner induction cooktop I tested. And though it costs a lot less, it has features that rival our high-tech upgrade pick for the best single-burner induction cooktop, Breville’s $1,300 Control Freak.
The PIC in the name stands for Precision Induction Cooktop, and at $230 at the time of writing, this is, by far, the most precise induction cooktop in its price range. As far as I can find, it’s actually the most precise portable double-induction cooktop period. It has a temperature range of 100ºF to 575ºF that you can adjust in five-degree increments. That’s a whopping 94 temperature settings per heating element. It has an 1800W output, however, like all of the portable two-burner induction cooktops I tested, that output is for the entire device, so you can’t cook at full power on both heating elements at the same time.
Each side has a numerical touchpad which saves you from cycling through all 94 temperature settings to reach the one you want and it makes it easy to use or program presets. This cooktop is preprogrammed with 50 multistep, timed, recipe-specific presets that correspond with an included recipe booklet (for example: #1 Texas-Style Chili starts with 2 minutes on the Sear setting followed by 30 minutes at 275ºF). You can also program an additional 150 multistep presets.
Using the highest setting (Max/Sear), this cooktop boiled four cups of water in just over four minutes (only one other model worked so quickly). And after I added ice to the boiling water, the Nuwave returned to a rolling boil more quickly than any other model.
The timers (one for each heating element) can be set for up to 99 hours and 60 minutes, which is obviously longer than you will ever run the cooktop, but does make it a great option for sous vide–style slow-cooking that could easily take 24 hours. This is also the only two-burner induction cooktop I tested that had an actual power switch on it, which is a nice safety feature. The 8″ induction coils can accommodate pans with up to a 12″ diameter and each side can hold up to 25 lb.
What I didn’t love about the Nuwave PIC Double Induction Cooktop
There’s not much to dislike here, though I was surprised by how long it took to heat a heavy enameled cast-iron Dutch oven full of canola oil when I deep-fried potato chips. I don’t expect the set temperature to match the temperature inside of a cooking vessel, but after setting the cooktop to 375ºF, I got impatient waiting for the oil to reach 350ºF (measured with a candy/deep fry thermometer). I actually had to set it at 425ºF to maintain the ideal frying temperature as I added cold potato slices to the hot oil.