I'm sure someone else has covered this, but my initial digging through past posts did not turn up anything.

In the interest of saving some weight on our next trip, I'm considered alternatives to the fry pan. Does anyone have any experience or suggestions regarding the use of a disposable pie tin over a wood fire for, say, frying fish? I would be keeping the tin on the fire grate for safety and stability. Would it work?

I wouldn't try it. Find a light weight fry pan at a thrift store and cut the handle off. In fact I found one that is lighter than the one that came with my MSR BlackLite cookset. OR you could take a regular pie pan. A little lighter. Just watch for things burning in it.

I would worry about burning through the aluminum.

it might melt. You could test ahead of time. I assume you are using this on a burner and not open fire. I have melted an aluminum pie tin on fire.

uncoated aluminum commercial pizza pans

I wouldn't use them on a concentrated heat source like a stove but on the fire grate I've cooked pancakes, potato pancakes, fried fish, hash browns. Even done some pancakes on non stick foil on the fire grate.

butthead

Over direct heat, they will weaken and burn through over time.

This might not be much of a weight saver, but some cast iron companies make cast iron pie pans. They are much smaller than a skillet & no handle but 2 small hand grips. My brand is Kitchen Cabin, probably from Cabelas, was a gift.

I sometimes bring a couple of the disposable pie tins to use as an oven. I put the cake mix or corn bread into one tin, cover it with the other, and use metal binder clips to hold them together. cook about half way over a fire and then turn it over.

for frying, i love the aluminum pan i ordered through the boundary waters journal many years ago. well worth the extra weight.