Cast Iron Skillets: Everything You Need To Know - How To

Stephen Muscarella from The Field Company explains everything you need to know about using a cast iron skillet (but were afraid to ask).

Stephen dispels the myth that you can’t clean your skillet with soap, talks about the environmental benefits of cast iron cookware, and walks you through how to correctly season a pan with grapeseed oil. Finally, Stephen demonstrates his tips for cooking staple dishes in a cast iron pan.

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[timothygu]

As a man who’s used the same cast iron skillet and wok for the last 10 years, I can tell you my care and maintenance routine. You want to “season” a new pan with an oil that has a high smoking point. Simply coat the entire cold pan using a paper towel and oil. Then heat the pan slowly over med heat, then let it cool. Do this a few times over. This should provide a nice base coat and ensure nonstick quality. After cooking proteins (don’t cook acidic foods as they can ruin the pan) I simply take the hot pan and run it under HOT water and scrub out any excess residue with a brush as the water meets the pan and creates steam, it will help lift anything left in the pan or wok. Don’t run a hot pan under cold water, it will crack. If there’s any tough grime, use coarse salt and the brush and more hot water. Soap will remove the oils from your pan, which you don’t want to happen. After cleaning, wipe any water off the pan and reseason the ENTIRE pan inside and out with a little more oil and let it sit for the next use. Don’t leave water on it, it will rust and the oil will help prevent that from happening. Thanks for reading and “LIKE” this comment so others can see it too.

[dugjay]

Whenever I need to 'clean' my cast iron pots, I use hot running water and a plastic 'scrub' without soap to eliminate any leftover debris. Works just fine.

[annepeters]

man everyone is giving him a hard time! I felt like this was extremely helpful - not in providing one straightforward simple routine but in helping you realize it's more chill than the internet can let on sometimes.
Happy seasoning everyone! :)

[oneper]

I inherited a cast iron pan that my grandparents and mom used almost daily. It was crusted on the outside but the inside appeared clean. Nothing sticks to this pan, however there were rules. Never cook foods that were acidic as in tomato sauce in this pan. Frying was fine and to keep it clean cook your veggies in it. Especially, after using it to cook proteins that stuck to it, giving the veggies “ grandma’s flavor”. I did wire brush the outside of the pan and soda blasted it and discovered it was a Wagner frying pan, it was from the mid thirties early forties. Now that I’m sixteen driving a sixty five year old car I’m making eggs for my grand kids with bacon telling them about two old women who used to do it for me when I was their age in this old pan!

[bassam]

He sounds like even he is not convinced of the quality of his pans

[shoeboxeater]

I use castiron because when the apocolyse comes, my cast iron will double as body armor lol

[splintersoup]

As someone who’s spent hours researching online to try to find the perfect “how to” of cast iron, I’d say there’s a lot of useless information out there, and a lot of “tips and tricks” that are unnecessary.

My method isn’t the “be all end all”, I’m sure some cast iron aficionados could poke holes in parts of my method cause it doesn’t follow their cast iron religion or beliefs. But in my opinion the method below is just a pretty failsafe way, and it just works.

1. You don’t need grape seed oil. Yes it has a higher smoke point than other oils, but who the hell wants to spend $30 on a tiny jizz bottle of that overpriced shit just to fry a goddamn single egg. Vegetable oil or crisco works perfectly fine. I personally use beef tallow (beef fat) or crisco since that’s what my grandma used. (Don’t worry, once you heat the shit out of these pans it’s impossible for it to go rancid or smell or stink, so don’t believe that bs.)

To season a pan:

You can do this as many times as you want. I’ve found repeating this entire process 5 times is a good average amount to get a good base seasoning on your pan.

Place a sheet of tinfoil on the bottom rack of your oven to catch any oil drippings that may drip. Place second rack in middle of oven.

Place pan in oven and turn oven on to 200 degrees F.
Leave it in there for about 20 mins to warm up, it apparently opens the pours of the iron and the oil soaks in better.

Take the pan out and turn oven to 500 degrees f.

Use a lint free rag or those blue shop towels (they’re lint free) the guy is using in the video, you don’t want to season a bunch of cotton or paper towel fibers into the pan.

Wipe the inside and outside or pan with a generous amount or oil, prob like a few tablespoons, but not a giant pool since you’re going to wipe it all off anyway. Make sure you get the handle as well.

Wipe it all off top and bottom so it almost looks dry. Don’t be afraid that all the seasoning is wiped off, it’s still in there.

Place the pan upside down into the oven (so if any excess oil is in there, it drips off onto the tinfoil instead of pools in the pan). If you seasoned correctly there shouldn’t be any drops on the foil.

Leave the pan in the oven until it’s preheated to 500 degrees, once it hits 500, set a timer for an hour.
(There’s a lot of times out there, I don’t fuck around with time, or the temp, the last thing you want is a pan that isn’t hot enough or doesn’t get enough time in the oven and it’s sticky splotchy mess. 1 hour/500 degrees is the failsafe method for any oil. Is it overkill? Who gives a shit, it just works.

Why so high? As he sort of touched on, bringing the pan beyond its smoke point turns the oil into a polymer and sort of becomes one with the pan, which is what we’re going for. It won’t be greasy or oily after it’s cooked trust me that seasoning is just a part of the pan now.

Turn the oven off, Leave the pan in the oven till it cools down and you can repeat the process once the pan is cool enough to handle without burning through your oven mit. (Back to around 200 degrees)

To clean a cast iron after cooking use warm water, and a plastic scrubby, also a cloth, water, and some sea salt in the pan works well too since it’s abrasive and gets off stubborn stick on grease. Wipe it dry. And place in the oven for about 20 mins @ 250 to remove any hidden excess water in the pan. Others have just thrown it on the element to cook out any water in the pan. I just use the oven method.

After that before you put your pan away you can repeat the process by coating with some oil and throwing in your oven for an hour at 500 again.

I’m not sure if this step is completely needed, I’m sure you could go a few cooks without re seasoning, but my grandma did that shit every time and she’s had that pan since it’s was probably invented.


Reviving a fucked pan:

If you have a rusty ass pan. Throw it in your oven and turn on the self cleaning cycle and turn your hood fan and open your windows cause your house is going to stink. Make sure your cat didn’t sneak in the oven when you weren’t looking or he or she is 100% gonna be cremated.

Once the cycle is done and the pans aren’t lava, throw it in the sink with warm water, some steel wool and some sea salt and scrub the shit out of it, you can use ‘00’ steel wool for a finer finish but the main point is to remove rust and get it back smooth. Any old seasoning should crumble off, and you’re gonna get your pan back to a gun metal looking grey. Try to get it so all the rust spots are removed, you shouldn’t see any left once your done. (Don’t forget the bottom and sides the pan.) I suggest watching some YouTube videos on this, more fucked your pan is, the more methods you could use.

Once this is done, dry it in the oven for 20-30 mins @ 200 to dry out the pan of water. Then you can start the seasoning process from scratch.

Hope this helps people, hate that there’s no consensus with this type of shit, was the most annoying part of researching online.

So this is my version which hasn’t given me any trouble and has worked every time.

Cast iron is a pain in the ass to maintain but the more layers of seasoning you develop on the pan the better the pan will be and the more used to the process you’ll be.

Oh yeah, last thing is apparently never cook acidic shit in cast iron, so no tomato sauces, or vinegar lemon juice type things since the acidity can eat away at the seasoning apparently.

Happy seasoning people

[jonmatz]

Cowboy Kent Rollins ain’t none too happy about this.

[CBCEDD]

Talks 4 minutes about cast-iron non stick features.

Steak residue sticks all over the pan. "It's alright"

[gregusmc]

My kids got me one of your 12 inch skillets for Christmas last year and it’s just now becoming that perfect non-stick, slick as glass cooking surface I have been waiting for. Just USE IT! Cook in it! Avoid scraping the snot out of it and I avoid soap if at all possible. Like he said, it’s a marathon but if you’re patient you will have a skillet your grandkids grandkids will fight over when you’re pushing-up daisies. Grape seed oil is the way to go and the little 12 ounce bottle I’ve had for the last year is still over half full. It doesn’t take much! There’s nothing confusing about any of it. Use it and wipe it out and keep it from drying out by putting super light coats of oil on it when you’re done with it! Cast iron was all our great grandparents used and it worked great then and it works great now! Plus, the folks at Field are making skillets that are about 1000 times smoother than those cheap 20 dollar skillets—although I have one of those too and it is also super non-stick. (Just took about 3 times as long to get there and it weighs five times more)

[ericjamieson]

The one genuinely good piece of advice he gives is at the beginning, where he says to use unsaturated oil. I still have the basic $20 Lodge skillet I bought in college, and at the time I seasoned it with Crisco, as was the style at the time (I also wore an onion on my belt). It really never did have a good season on it until I re-seasoned it with peanut oil.


Otherwise this is just confusing. Should you use soap on a cast-iron pan? Yes, you should, you don't want to taste the rancid remains of your steak dinner in your morning omelette 3 days later. Use a very small amount, don't soak it, don't use an abrasive scrub pad, rinse and dry thoroughly. It won't touch the seasoning.

[domoblazesunderplane]

"I think of seasoning like how you grow like a strong, a strong tree. The the strongest trees are gonna be in not as much light, they're gonna be blowin all around, they're gonna uh-learn that they have to be strong. And then they're gonna build into that... that level... so I feel, same thing that's going on with seasoning."

[internetshaquille]

multiple verified bruh moments encountered

[tylerandrew]

Just bought my first field skillet, I have been using lodge for years, and I can say as a brand new skillet there's performs as well if not better than my old sanded down lodge skillets, the field skillet is amazingly smooth out of the box.

[bakedwithrealchez]

One of the first things I bought when I moved out of my parents house. 12 years later I'm still using it and actually pride myself on my cast iron skillet. If I ever see one at someone else's house I'm always asking how long they have had it.

[arfreak]

How to clean after a steak: well...ummm...I guess... don't

[stefan]

If you sear a steak, put the oil on the steak and not in the pan. All of the unused oil in the pan has no purpose and just amplifies the smoke and smell 🤷🏼‍♂️

[wolfhound]

Please don’t listen to this guy. “A sweet and a savory pan.” Run a warm skillet under hot water and wipe the residue from cooking off. Warm the skillet over the stove with a few tbsp of canola oil in it, until it’s smoking, and wipe it all around the whole skillet. Wipe all the excess off and let it cool. Done. Boom. Seasoned. If a wooden spoon scrapes off your seasoning, your seasoning sucks.



Not using a stainless steel fish spatula would be a good start too.

[kathym]

This is the most helpful video I've found. NO ONE else mentioned the difference between saturated and unsaturated fat on a cast iron pan. I've watched several videos and was left in confusion. This is the video I will keep on file. Martha Steward said to use Crisco (aka solid shortening) which I just looked up and it has some saturated fat in it.

[mikesartorii]

I inherited 2 (100+ year old!) cast irons. I would NOT let this man touch either of them!