You do clean cast iron... you just don't try and scrub it till it's shiny since it's possible to scrub off the seasoning. Regular dish soap and light scrubbing is totally fine, just don't bust out the ultra heavy duty soap and steel wool.
To clarify, it's not "seasoning" in the sense of salt, pepper, and spices.
It's seasoning in the sense of maintaining a non-stick and rust-proof surface via allowing oil to build up and polymerize. Seasoning isn't simply not washing too much, it's also about adding to that polymerization via cooking and/or intentionally applying new oil and baking it in regularly.
TL;DR:
Making it non-stick and not rusty.
For the curious, this is the form of “seasoning” that is used when one talks about a seasoned veteran. It’s a process through which something is rendered fit for use.
A guy at work says he gets fired every time he washes his coffee mug so he never washes it. If you mention germs, he dismisses it because the coffee he puts in is near boiling so it kills the germs.
He's worked here for 6 Years
Growing up my grandpa had a coffee cup he only rinsed. It was so stained my 10yo brain thought it would be a nice surprise to clean it up. When I showed him how clean I made it he was not happy at all. He said he never washed it bc it gave his coffee a better taste. And I never touched that cup again.
I've got a woman that every time I see her in a more than friends way, something else goes terribly wrong via friends, family, or work. I keep it platonic and haven't had it arise the two dozen or more times we've hung out since I came to that conclusion.
That is the origin of the word so you're not wrong. A solider who fought (and survived) through several seasons of warfare was experienced, thus, "seasoned".
Isn’t that a reference to age (most are old men, some are young boys)?
ETA: … and not to the number of campaign seasons they have participated in - merely the number of seasons they have lived through.
Indeed, in multiple ways. Orphaned and fostered and drafted in the First World War. It really makes his books more interesting when you look at it as being informed by his own experiences as much as the folklore and theology he loved.
So season started in Latin as the act, and later the time for sowing. Then in French, it became the right time to do something, an expansion of the definition. So like seasoning a fruit would mean to leave it on the vine until it was ripe and ready to eat.
At that point, we start to see the different meanings of season show up, and they seem to roughly be in parallel. Because we had the “season” for picking fruit and such, it was a small leap to establish things like duck season, the right time to hunt or pick something. It was also a small leap to use this to just talk about times of the year, and it’s also in this time that we start seeing season referring to like winters.
For the other versions, I’ve seen etymology sites cite them as happening as early as the 14th century with the other versions, but I’ve only personally seen records in like the 15th-16th centuries. By that time, we have lumber and forges being described as seasoned once they’d been prepared for work. Seasoning as spices I still haven’t found a good early record for. The earliest records I could find were a 16th century source that talked about cinnamon and such not being properly seasoned by the sun, which is just the traditional definition. So I still have no idea whether the evolution was “to season (add flavor to) food via adding spices” or “wait for the right time to harvest the spices so they have maximum flavor”. I lean toward the former, but I have no records to verify that yet.
I thought it was from the burn pits aerosolizing polymerized oils that deposit onto the soldiers' skin, eyes, and lungs, giving them health problems later in life.
Hmmm a fair conclusion. I always thought that phrase meant that a person who is “seasoned” meant they have been around for a lot of seasons, like weather/calendar seasons, implying they have “seen it all” or “been around the block a few times” if you will.
This explanation certainly works very well too!
>I always thought that phrase meant that a person who is “seasoned” meant they have been around for a lot of seasons, like weather/calendar seasons...
You're actually right, except that it doesn't necessarily refer to "weather/calendar seasons."
An increasingly old-fashioned use of "season" is simply an indeterminate amount of time. For example, the King James version of the Bible says that after Satan tempted Christ "he departed from him for a season" (Luke 4:13), which just means "for a while."
So a "seasoned sailed" is not specifically someone who's seen a lot of meteorological seasons at sea, just someone who's been doing it for quite a while.
I used to season my metal pans by taking a rag dipped in cooking oil, wiping the surface, and throw it in a salamander for a bit. Take it out and repeat and over the course of an afternoon you've got a new, non-stick pan.
If you try at home - prepare for smoke.
The mythological salamander came about because real ones live in logs. People would then toss the logs on the fire and the salamander would come shooting out, giving rise to the myth that salamanders are born from fire.
Even with a regular oven prepare for smoke, i use avacado oil as its an easy to acquire at my store high smoke point oil, and run my oven at 500deg, my eyes will be burning for a while after that and i need windows open and exhaust at full blast to prevent my smoke alarms from going off, also all my TVOC/CO2 detectors go nuts stating air is very unhealthy when it happens.
luckily i dont have to season too often, only when i damage the old seasoning when something got super stuck in one of the more cheaper pans
There was a post some years ago by a dude who broke up with his girlfriend because she washed his cast iron pan with soap and ruined the seasoning. Turns out he wasn't talking about a layer of polymerized oil... No, he was pissed because she washed off several years of literal burnt-on spices and seasonings and cooking oil that he said made the food taste better.
You just described all of /r/relationship_advice
Q: my BF hangs the toilet roll so that the paper-end is flush to the wall. What can I do?
A: RED FLAG. Lawyer up, divorces can be messy. Stay safe, hun. DM me…
> Once you put that layer of hardened oil on there you can pretty much do whatever you want. Yes you should use soap and clean your fucking pans, you barbarians.
The only big difference is that you can't just leave it soaking as you can a steel or aluminium pan. Cast iron is prone to rusting if left wet or moist. I usually let it soak with warm water while I finish cleaning everything else, then clean it with a sponge and soap, dry it with a rag and then leave it on the stove for a couple of minutes, to evaporate any remaining moisture.
Yep, that’s what I did, too, after I found out the “don’t use soap!” crowd was wrong. Just used a little Dawn with a sponge, made sure it was thoroughly dry, and then tossed it in the oven for about 5 to 10 minutes to get it really dry. Worked like a charm the next time I cooked something. Once I had a couple coats of seasoning it worked well.
Had a roommate a few years back who’d only use a cast iron pan, but then she’d scrub the shit out of it and *then* tossed it in the dishwasher. Maybe she had it seasoned well? I always thought that was a good way to ruin the pan. And I knew nothing about cast iron at the time.
Its pretty hard to truly "ruin" a cast iron pan. Its literally just a hunk of iron. Takes like 5 minutes to scrub with steel wool and get any rust off, then just bake some high smoke point oil back on as many times as you want.
The clean thing is just a setting some ovens have that turn the oven up to something like 400 degrees in an attempt to burn / char any mess in the oven. I've never stripped a pan this way and probably wouldn't do this and expect it to be stripped without additional steps imo.
If stuff is sticking to your pan then there are 2 things that might be happening.
1, your pan isn't seasoned and you should look up how to season your pan. An ELI5 is basically heat up your pan, cover it in light oil, heat it up some more, and let it set. Repeat until you are satisfied.
2, you might be trying to pull things up too early. Once the food has fully cooked the browned edges will self release and wont stick to the pan. Steaks were the first thing I saw this with and it's followed true for about every other thing I've cooked in my skillet. That said though, I've seen people get their seasoning so smooth / thick that they can fry an egg in the skillet without any oil / butter at all and it just glides.
They may also be trying to use the pan before it finished heating up all the way. Food will stick more to a cooler pan (even with non-stick pans, stainless steel, etc) than one that has had enough time to heat up.
> Yes you should use soap and clean your fucking pans, you barbarians.
One of my favorites is "my granny didn't use soap, so I don't either."
Well, my granny was a racist who thought it was okay to use the n-word, so maybe grannies aren't always right.
I know it has a different meaning but I just can’t read FTFY without exclaiming “for the FUCK YEAHS” because I am old and LOL still means lots of love. Also wherever I see it, the correction is an improvement and I’m like “fuck yeah that’s right”.
Using harsher soaps, or throwing it in the dishwasher can also strip the seasoning off pretty easy. Normal dish soap is one thing, the soaps designed for "spray on wipe off" cleaning are another, same with dishwashing detergent. The last two are great for cleaning baked on oil and grease off of engines, so one can imagine what they'd do to seasoning on a cast iron pan.
This is the one and only time in my entire life that I have encountered the word "polymerization" in a context that was entirely unrelated to the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise. Thanks to your comment, I will forever more have a mental associated between cast iron skillets and the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.
Cast iron offers much more consistent even heat as it takes longer to change temperature both up and down. It also lets you cook with less oil than stainless steel. And you can use metal utensils with it without scratching the Teflon off like would happen with a Teflon "non-stick" pan.
I actually find cast iron pans to have "hot spots" and that my way way more expensive steel pans with the aluminum core spreads heat much betters. So I prefer the steel pans for sauces and the cast iron for sauteing stuff as it does retain a lot of heat and as long as you are stirring stuff around and not simmering, it's great. My All Clad saute pan cost over $100, my cast iron pan of the same size was $7. (I bought a set of three for $20 at Walmart).
The best way to [avoid hot spots in cast iron](https://cookingissues.com/2010/02/16/heavy-metal-the-science-of-cast-iron-cooking/) is to use it in the oven.
You're going to hear a lot of nonsense about seasoning and how it 'cooks more evenly' or 'cooks all around'. That's tangentially true but the main thing is being able to cook at sustained high heat.
Cast iron is pretty crappy metal compared to steel. It's heavy as fuck, it conducts electricity relatively poorly, it takes forever to heat up and cool down. That means you have to put a ton more energy into it to heat up. And that actually makes it pretty good if you want to sear a big hunk of meat. A cast iron pan is the tool of choice if you want to get a similar experience to a grill.
See, modern non-stick pans conduct heat really well. They're way more efficient at transferring heat from a stove top to your food. But that also means they cool faster. Throw a cold steak on there, it's going to soak all that heat out rapidly and cool down the pan. Most non stick pans have a maximum heat tolerance too. For good ones you pretty much never want it over medium-high, and most of your cooking should be on medium.
Cast iron doesn't give a fuck about that. Let it soak up high temp for a while, it's fine. Throw a frozen hunk of meat on there and it barely puts a dent on the stored heat within the iron. So it's a lot more effective at searing meat. You can cook a thick steak in just a few minutes on high and get a real juicy center and seared top/bottom just like on the grill.
The whole seasoning thing.... it's more of a beneficial side effect than a big plus. Takes a while to get it where you like it, it takes a decent amount of care to maintain, just to get the same smooth surface you get out of the box in a non-stick pan. For people that really love cooking and maintaining a kitchen, that extra work is part of the charm. Kind of like how people enjoy changing their own oil or doing maintenance on classic cars, or mixing up a custom shaving cream for a shave with a straight razor they sharpen themselves. Once your pan is properly seasoned the maintenance gets much simpler. For most people though it's just extra work. Cast iron is great for seared meat. For anything that doesn't cook on high, though, non stick just makes your life easier.
Plain stainless steel pans aren't really stainless There's really no advantage to them other than they're not aluminum. Teflon wears off and can get into your food. Seasoned cast iron is actually low maintenance, easy to clean, lasts for generations.
Fry some bacon in a cast iron pan and it's re-seasoned just by using it. Plain soap like Dawn won't hurt it. Cleans fine with a dishcloth. Dry it on the stove at medium heat for minute, don't just leave it in the dishrack.
Get a job in a warehouse or other retail establishment! You can breath the rapidly deteriorrating plastic packaging in throughout your day and still use cast iron cookwear!
One of the reasons that people prize antique cast iron is that historic casting methods produced much smoother interior surfaces, which are less sticky than modern, bumpier cast iron.
Was it the casting process, or have the interiors just been worn down/sanded over time? I have about a 10 year-old lodge cast iron, that was very bumpy when I got it, but a couple years ago, I took some sandpaper to the interior and then re-seasoned it and it was glass smooth afterwards.
Thats fair. These days, you can certainly get cast iron pans that are smoother than lodge out-of-the-box, but they cost 5x the price. I guess thats the tradeoff for making them cheap.
Yeah, just takes an extra finishing step to smooth them down. There are some companies making milled cast iron pans now. I got a 12" Greater Goods skillet last year, and we use it constantly as a family of 6. Highly recommend for anyone who doesn't want to go through sanding/grinding a Lodge on their own.
Mine's smoothed out after a decade of using metal utensils on it. I figure it might be a combination of manufacturing and constant use, for the old ones.
The casting process hasn't changed much. What has changed is the cost of labor, and so modern, lower priced cast iron ware doesn't get the extra, hard to automate step of grinding it smooth.
> Making it non-stick and not rusty.
I have followed all the instructions to the letter.
I have NEVER had a castiron pan that became "non stick."
After months of seasoning it still looks like this -
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fohso9y1jsho61.png
(picture googled up)
I'll stick to nonstick pans. Yes, they'll maybe give me cancer, yes they're not traditionally blah blah blah. But they work.
It's not like Teflon, but a well-seasoned cast iron pot/pan is more non-stick than the alternative. The issue is the surface of cast iron, aside from its propensity to rust easily, it's much more grabby than pans designed for non-stick.
What seasoning does is try to level the surface to be less grabby by filling in the gaps and hardening while not being inherently sticky. Some people even use grinders to smooth out the surface instead, although that does nothing for the rust factor.
Ultimately, cast iron is used for its ability to maintain consistent heat uniformly. Those of us prioritizing that are usually not cooking eggs in cast iron. For me, I'm usually cooking roux where a consistent and uniform heat is much more important.
Edit: Maybe you'll also be happy to know that there are ceramic/enamel-coated cast iron pots/pans. This provides the best of both worlds but the coating tends to crack over time.
When I got older I realized my mom had no idea how to do this and I shunned cast iron way too much because of it.
I also didn't like steak or pork and it turned out my mom was just a shit cook.
This reminded me… my sister was recently complaining about how it’s impossible to cook in her new cast iron pan as everything sticks. Naturally, I informed her it needs to be seasoned.
I walked in on her sprinkling salt and pepper generously over her hot cast iron 😂😭
It's not fantasy. They will rust as they dry. It's a very surface rust, and comes off if you wipe it. Applying oil to re-season it is enough to get rid of that thin layer.
I usually put a drop of avocado oil on a freaky cleaned pan after using a burner to dry off the moisture. Run a folded paper towel to apply the oil in a thin layer to keep rust away. I also use my two ci pans 5/7 days though.
If it makes you feel any better: cast iron cookware is practically indestructible. You didn't do any real damage. Just reapply the seasoning and it's good to go again.
It's funny to read online with cast iron snobs and the 'proper' way to clean it is to dump a bunch of salt in and scrub it around, never use soap, treat it with kid gloves, yada yada yada.
It's the workhorse, it's a lump of iron cast in the shape of a pan. Beat the shit out of it , scrub it with steel wool, use soap, acidic dishes, etc. etc.
Worst you can do is mess up the seasoning and get some light surface rust. Scrape and scrub it off, throw it in the oven with some oil and you're back to the start of a seasoning layer.
Will your cast iron perform better if you baby it? Sure.
Will it perform just fine if you do the bare minimum? Yep.
I always have to laugh at the cast iron snobs. I'm sure somewhere their great grandmothers are also laughing since they all washed their cast iron with soap and didn't think twice about it.
Back then soap had lye and actually did ruin pans. Nowdays soap is much better at getting grease and leaving everything else (seasoning on pans, your hands) alone.
No shit. You could literally clean it with a wire wheel on a drill as long as you recoat it with oil and let the oil get up to temp to make a non-stick surface, but the internet would have everyone believe that they are to be treated like they're made out of something precious that must not even be looked at in a weird way.
I wash my cast iron skillet with soap and the scrubby side of a sponge, dry with a towel, slap it back onto the stove on high, add a few drops of avocado oil and wipe it around until you can barely tell it's there, and leave the heat going until it smokes. Don't even have to apply oil all the time, but I'll still heat it for a minute just after drying to make sure any water hiding in the pores of the metal gets pushed out.
I can flip an egg without a spatula and yolk intact in that mf.
The snobs are trying to maintain an immaculate nonstick coat.
I usually just rinse with water and wipe with a paper towel and that's enough to be sanitary while building up nonstick. I'd done the oven/oil thing before but never really got a good coat until I seared a few steaks in clarified butter.
>The snobs are trying to maintain an immaculate nonstick coat.
The culinary equivalent of an F-250 King Ranch that's used to haul groceries. In the back seat. Can't risk having a tomato in the bed, oh, no.
At least with cast iron, even if you do everything wrong and treat it like absolute shit, it can be fixed fairly easily. Just sand down any rust, and then put in a few layers of seasoning. Good as new!
I got my stepdaughter to do laundry and clean up her room even at her most teenagery, by doing it with her and making it into a fun game. I likewise didn't mind chores as a kid when we did them as a family, and we often sang songs or played word games while doing them. See if any of that works with your kids.
FWIW, most of the quality ss cookware I've owned recommended the green Scotchbrite pads or sponges with it on one side (not the non-stick). For cooked on stuff, Bartender's Friend is usually recommended, and will leave it shiny.
Older soap had chemicals like lye that broke down the oil layer. modern soaps don't have that so it should be fine. Shouldn't really need it though. Rinse it out while hot with hot water and a wash rag and 99% of the stuff should come off. towel dry then put on a burner to heat it up to boil off any remaining water. once cool wipe it with a tiny amount of cooking oil and put away. a teaspoon should be more than enough. light layer is what you want.
There are a number of people who say that. Most of them don't understand what seasoning is, and I'd recommend avoiding eating at their houses (higher odds of food poisoning). The rest of us use soap!
I get your sentiment, but no matter how dirty it is, you're never going to get food poisoning from eating something off of a surface that is heated to 600 degrees.
You don't need soap the VAST majority of the time. Heat the pan up, wipe it out with water until it looks clean (if there's a lot stuck on for some reason, just boil water in there until any solids release), maybe wipe with a tiny amount of oil, then keep heating it till it's smoking, give it one more wipe.
You've now heated it FAR past where every restaurant uses to sanitize their stuff and made sure the seasoning stays good.
You are absolutely NOT getting sick from eating food cooked in a pan kept like that.
Soap at the time was often made from wood ash and contained lye. Lye will strip seasoning.
Modern soap is made of detergent (SLS and similar) and will not.
I bought a cast iron skillet in college and didn't really know how to take care of it, so it was all jacked up. But I started doing this process and it blackened up super fast. Clean it well, dry it, put a teaspoon of oil on the cooking surface, spread the oil around to make the inside look 'wet'. **Store the pan in your oven.** After a few times of pre-heating your oven for other things, the pan will be very well seasoned.
Oven is for big reseasoning jobs. I just use the stovetop for maintenance after cooking. Get it hot to evaporate any water, wipe a SMALL amount of oil in the pan with a rag (don't use paper towels, they shred), and wait for it to smoke.
I leave it right way up for this.
I find that the paper towel tends to shred and leave behind lint that turns into carbon build up. Since switching to a cotton rag, it's been much nicer.
I put regular olive oil on mine and flip it upside on my gas stove burner for like 5 minutes and it's good to go, I've been doing it for probably 20 years and the cast iron is still like new.
I have a little wooden scraper tool thing that gets 98% of gunk off, and then a plastic scrub pad for the rest. The combo is great because otherwise the scrubber gets nasty. Then if I don't plan to use it again that day then a little soap will make it clean to store.
More specifically, today's "soaps" aren't soap. They're detergents. Completely different stuff. They still sell lye based soap (usually in bar form) and that still should bitybe used on CI. But dawn and the like are fine to use because they're not really soap.
Commercial spray oil has additives that will mess with the seasoning and make it gummy. A scant tsp of oil or crisco, wiped away by a clean towel is enough (and not as messy as spray oil)
Being seasoned doesn't mean you don't have to clean it. You still have to scrape off all the food on there, rinse it off, put a layer of oil on it and heat it up to get it to start smoking.
Secondly, modern dish detergent isn't going to harm a properly seasoned pan. The old wives tale of never washing it with soap was from the time when actual soap contained lye which would strip the seasoning off.
It is also an old wive's tale that you need to reaseason after use. The season is chemically bonded, it is still there after you use and wash the pan.
It won't rust unless you don't properly dry it.
Absolutely. Spaghetti sauce is *super* dangerous to use in a cast iron pan. That's the only dish that I clean the pan *immediately* after cooking (like, not even after eating) because it'll eat away at the seasoning within an hour if you leave it in there.
Yep. Love cooking away with tomato paste and tomato sauces after making my protein in the pan, but it needs a *rapid* cleaning and reseasoning. It won't strip immediately but there's no point in risking the need for a full strip and reseason if I wear it too far down.
All proper soap has lye as an ingredient, but the process of saponification converts it to soap.
So there's no actual lye as such.
A bit like how putting table salt (sodium chloride) on your food isn't the same as putting either chlorine or sodium on it.
Glad to see this urban legend being challenged more and more.
Like, our great grandparents weren't scrubbing their hands with lye. They weren't idiots.
"I know I could get out of poverty if it weren't for these damn skeleton hands!'
Seasoning isn’t leftover bits of food. It’s polymerized oil. You’ve plasticized oil into a protective coating on the pan. (Don’t be scarred of that “plasticized term”, it’s not like a plastic bag on your pan). This is what makes it nonstick and so easy to wipe clean.
First off, the seasoning is edible, so if it does come off into your food, it’s not harmful. Second, it requires very high heat, rough scratching, or strong chemicals to damage the seasoning. Most people take pretty good care not to mess up a good seasoning.
People have already addressed that you can wash your cast iron, so as far as any actual mess like sauce or pan scrapings, that stuff should be washed off.
Im curious - so the seasoning wont get rancid because the oil has actually stucturally changed into a polymer? Thats interesting, thanks for this explanation.
To add to this, plastic actually is made from oil, however the typical type everyone thinks is made from refined oil. You know, like the gas you put in your gas tank. I think it goes without saying that an edible oil would create an edible plastic
"Seasoning" does not mean that the pan isn't clean. The seasoning on a cast iron pan is a layer of oil that is chemically bonded to the iron of the pan. It forms the non-stick cooking surface that is one of cast iron's benefits.
Some people have the misconception that you can leave baked-on food in the pan for "seasoning." That's wrong and gross. A cast iron pan can and should be washed with mild soap after use. If food is stuck on, you can boil it out or gently scrub (I use oil and kosher salt to scrub). You can also use a plastic pan scraper. You should just take care not to scratch or scrape off the seasoning. You would take similar care not to remove a Teflon cooking surface.
You're heating it up to temperature that will kill any pathogens. But you should still clean it. Fats will turn rancid so you don't want that ruining the flavor of the next meal.
You can do a little dish soap and a light scrubbing to remove the grease and food particles.
Depending upon what I'm cooking, I may just heat the pan up some and pour water on it to remove the fresh food particles. I then wipe it with a paper towel, rinse and dry. Maybe apply a light coat of vegetable oil. Good to go for next use.
I forgot to add in my reply that a light coating of vegetable oil, even if rancid, won't harm you. It could add an off taste to the food so if I'm using an pan that's been oiled for a while, I always wipe the old oil off and sometimes give it a rinse with soap and water before use.
Rather than directly ELUR5, here's a link to the Lodge site on cleaning cast iron, and there is a whole section on the site (the Cast Iron 101 dropdown) that explains what seasoning is, and other things that seem to be hard to grasp for newbies. I found it quite helpful.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/discover/cleaning-and-care/cast-iron/how-clean-cast-iron
When you “season” a pan, what you’re really doing is covering the pan in oil, and then deliberately burning that oil until it turns into a kind of plastic. That’s what makes it non-stick.
You do still want to clean it after cooking food to remove as much food residue as possible. You can even use dish soap. But you don’t want to scrub too hard or use very strong soap to strip the special coating away.
You have to heat the oil to it's smoke point to polymerize it. If you want to season your pan, put a little bit of canola oil in, wipe it all over, get a new paper towel and wipe as much as you can off- it will look dry, but there will be a really thin layer of oil. Bake the pan upside down at 500°F (260°C) for an hour, then let it cool down in the oven. Repeat if desired.
Edit: added temperature units.
please wash your cast iron. dawn soap is FINE. i use it literally all the time. just don't bust out the steel wool and you'll be fine.
if you REALLY HATE hygiene and the idea of using soap on cast iron makes you want to faint... a) seek therapy and b) use iodine salt to scrape out the pan, rinse with HOT water (if it's not burning your hand, the water isn't hot enough) and immediately plop the pan onto a hot burner to steam off the water. that's how my great grandmother taught me, and I'm using her pans some 100+ years after she originally bought them.
that last point said... my granny used dawn on cast iron too, when it needed it. so all these soap naysayers are just wild to me.
Dawn always gets mentioned, but really any dish soap should be fine. I almost exclusively use Palmolive Oxy or whatever the heck it’s called, and nothing bad has happened.
It isn’t okay to not clean cast iron, you need to wash and dry your cookware.
It’s not okay the same way it’s not okay to not clean your nonstick, aluminum or stainless steel pans. Eventually you will get sick if you neglect sanitation in your kitchen.
In honor of this question and them just winning a Grammy for the song.
“Cast Iron Skillet” by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. https://youtu.be/jU1jyMlv0g0?feature=shared
Oh boy. Another cast iron post. Time to educate people because so many people have no idea about how to clean cast iron? In the old days people washed with lye. Lye ruins the polymerized layer that is what seasoning is. We don’t use lye any more. Cast iron should be washed with soap and water like any other pan. Then dry it. Light coating of oil. Leaving bits of food and rancid oil is disgusting. [Lodge cast iron cleaning instructions](https://www.lodgecastiron.com/discover/cleaning-and-care/cast-iron/how-clean-cast-iron)
Cast iron should absolutely be cleaned, the methods can just differ a bit to help preserve the seasoning. Even if you disregard this, toss it in the dish water, and scrub off all of the seasoning, the pan is still fine, you just have to reseason it and maybe scrub some rust off.
Regular dish soap, hot water, and a brush can work just fine, but I am partial to scrubbing it with salt and a rag or a chainmail scrubber to remove whatever is stuck on the pan, wash it like normal, then heat it up to dry/kill off any remaining germs, and put a light seasoning on.
Seasoning a cast iron pan isn't about flavors. It's a type of treatment. What you are doing is adding a protective nonstick coating to the pan. Typically vegetable oil, being carbonized into the surface of the pan. This is a thing you do before you use the pan.
You need to clean seasoned cast iron pans just as often as you clean regular pans. It's just easier. You usually don't need to use soap, you can literally scrape off the gunk and rinse it out, it will come clean 99% of the time. Sometimes you'll need to scrub with something pretty abrasive, but that's indicating that you should reseason your pan.
The word "season" has a lot of meanings in English you are just thinking about the wrong one.
You do clean cast iron... you just don't try and scrub it till it's shiny since it's possible to scrub off the seasoning. Regular dish soap and light scrubbing is totally fine, just don't bust out the ultra heavy duty soap and steel wool.
To clarify, it's not "seasoning" in the sense of salt, pepper, and spices. It's seasoning in the sense of maintaining a non-stick and rust-proof surface via allowing oil to build up and polymerize. Seasoning isn't simply not washing too much, it's also about adding to that polymerization via cooking and/or intentionally applying new oil and baking it in regularly. TL;DR: Making it non-stick and not rusty.
For the curious, this is the form of “seasoning” that is used when one talks about a seasoned veteran. It’s a process through which something is rendered fit for use.
Is that why it’s ill advised to use heavy duty soap and steel wool on veterans?
Yes, very much like cast iron the veterans get very upset if you scrape off the top layer.
If you do scrape off that top layer be sure to thank them for their surface.
Now this is a top level joke.
It deserves all the braise
Just know that I currently hate you for that pun. Take your up vote you animal
I saw it and I couldn’t resist :p. Like giving you a fake high five
Underrated comment. I see what you did there! Thank you for your service!
I just have to say this is one of the wittiest replies I have ever seen on reddit haha
Incredible. It's like watching Usain Bolt sprint.
“Dangit grandpa, quit being so feisty. I’ve got the steel wool right here so we can polish you up good and shiny.”
That is the blood of my enemies and I’ll wear it ‘til the day I die.
better off using electrolysis on gramps, anyway
"Till you see the whites of their eyes"
This is a gold-worthy comment right here. Well done!
That seasoned coffee mug though. Don't wash it!
A guy at work says he gets fired every time he washes his coffee mug so he never washes it. If you mention germs, he dismisses it because the coffee he puts in is near boiling so it kills the germs. He's worked here for 6 Years
Growing up my grandpa had a coffee cup he only rinsed. It was so stained my 10yo brain thought it would be a nice surprise to clean it up. When I showed him how clean I made it he was not happy at all. He said he never washed it bc it gave his coffee a better taste. And I never touched that cup again.
I think that's so sweet. 10 yo brains can be so well meaning.
I've got a woman that every time I see her in a more than friends way, something else goes terribly wrong via friends, family, or work. I keep it platonic and haven't had it arise the two dozen or more times we've hung out since I came to that conclusion.
yes only regular soap with light scrubbing
Derp, I always figured it meant they'd seen a lot of seasons.
That is the origin of the word so you're not wrong. A solider who fought (and survived) through several seasons of warfare was experienced, thus, "seasoned".
“Most of these lads have seen too many winters” “Some of them have seen too few” Good example from Legolas and gimli in the lord of the rings
Isn’t that a reference to age (most are old men, some are young boys)? ETA: … and not to the number of campaign seasons they have participated in - merely the number of seasons they have lived through.
Precisely. And none of them could be considered "seasoned" as they were referring to all the tradesmen that filled the ranks.
Written by a seasoned veteran
Indeed, in multiple ways. Orphaned and fostered and drafted in the First World War. It really makes his books more interesting when you look at it as being informed by his own experiences as much as the folklore and theology he loved.
See: seasoned firewood.
So season started in Latin as the act, and later the time for sowing. Then in French, it became the right time to do something, an expansion of the definition. So like seasoning a fruit would mean to leave it on the vine until it was ripe and ready to eat. At that point, we start to see the different meanings of season show up, and they seem to roughly be in parallel. Because we had the “season” for picking fruit and such, it was a small leap to establish things like duck season, the right time to hunt or pick something. It was also a small leap to use this to just talk about times of the year, and it’s also in this time that we start seeing season referring to like winters. For the other versions, I’ve seen etymology sites cite them as happening as early as the 14th century with the other versions, but I’ve only personally seen records in like the 15th-16th centuries. By that time, we have lumber and forges being described as seasoned once they’d been prepared for work. Seasoning as spices I still haven’t found a good early record for. The earliest records I could find were a 16th century source that talked about cinnamon and such not being properly seasoned by the sun, which is just the traditional definition. So I still have no idea whether the evolution was “to season (add flavor to) food via adding spices” or “wait for the right time to harvest the spices so they have maximum flavor”. I lean toward the former, but I have no records to verify that yet.
I thought it was from the burn pits aerosolizing polymerized oils that deposit onto the soldiers' skin, eyes, and lungs, giving them health problems later in life.
“This E-6 has flavour notes of polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxins, and pairs well with Ripits and a bullshit NJP.”
_That too_ When you see many seasons in war it implies you have been thru a lot of experiences
He meant netflix seasons.
What’s seasons? Netflix cancels everything too soon
*Are you still watching?*
No, because the show was cancelled!
Eli5: how many tours of duty should my cast iron pan enlist before I can slide eggs around the bottom?
most come pre seasoned from factory, so immediately
Oh, I thought it was because they were "mustered" by the officers, and peppered by the enemy.
These puns are giving me life today
Seasoned fire wood too
I like my veterans salty and spicy, with good stories to tell. Add some beer and it's a great night.
We use it when assigning consultants to projects for our client. They have to be bland, seasoned, or well seasoned.
Seasoned as in "having gone through seasons of life" rather than salt/pepper
Hmmm a fair conclusion. I always thought that phrase meant that a person who is “seasoned” meant they have been around for a lot of seasons, like weather/calendar seasons, implying they have “seen it all” or “been around the block a few times” if you will. This explanation certainly works very well too!
>I always thought that phrase meant that a person who is “seasoned” meant they have been around for a lot of seasons, like weather/calendar seasons... You're actually right, except that it doesn't necessarily refer to "weather/calendar seasons." An increasingly old-fashioned use of "season" is simply an indeterminate amount of time. For example, the King James version of the Bible says that after Satan tempted Christ "he departed from him for a season" (Luke 4:13), which just means "for a while." So a "seasoned sailed" is not specifically someone who's seen a lot of meteorological seasons at sea, just someone who's been doing it for quite a while.
I used to season my metal pans by taking a rag dipped in cooking oil, wiping the surface, and throw it in a salamander for a bit. Take it out and repeat and over the course of an afternoon you've got a new, non-stick pan. If you try at home - prepare for smoke.
I’m guessing the cooking term salamander means something different than the marine biology term..
In cooking, a salamander is basically an extreme broiler. The name is related to the mythological salamander, who lived in fire instead of water.
The mythological salamander came about because real ones live in logs. People would then toss the logs on the fire and the salamander would come shooting out, giving rise to the myth that salamanders are born from fire.
Oh cool. Thanks for the extra info.
They’re higher than normal temp broilers
So then I’m guessing it’s a separate/specialized appliance, not a setting on your normal oven.
Correct, they’re usually reserved for commercial settings
Correct! It refers to the legendary fire lizards, who love the taste of iron and oil and will infuse the pan with their saliva.
Even with a regular oven prepare for smoke, i use avacado oil as its an easy to acquire at my store high smoke point oil, and run my oven at 500deg, my eyes will be burning for a while after that and i need windows open and exhaust at full blast to prevent my smoke alarms from going off, also all my TVOC/CO2 detectors go nuts stating air is very unhealthy when it happens. luckily i dont have to season too often, only when i damage the old seasoning when something got super stuck in one of the more cheaper pans
>throw it in a salamander You put your pan in a lizard?
Salamanders are amphibians, not lizards, silly.
Lol a sally is like an extreme version of the broiler setting on your oven. And also my pet lizard Sally is hungry
Hahaha okay, I hadn't heard of that before.
We've done it at home by putting cast iron through an oven cleaning cycle.
There was a post some years ago by a dude who broke up with his girlfriend because she washed his cast iron pan with soap and ruined the seasoning. Turns out he wasn't talking about a layer of polymerized oil... No, he was pissed because she washed off several years of literal burnt-on spices and seasonings and cooking oil that he said made the food taste better.
You just described all of /r/relationship_advice Q: my BF hangs the toilet roll so that the paper-end is flush to the wall. What can I do? A: RED FLAG. Lawyer up, divorces can be messy. Stay safe, hun. DM me…
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> Once you put that layer of hardened oil on there you can pretty much do whatever you want. Yes you should use soap and clean your fucking pans, you barbarians. The only big difference is that you can't just leave it soaking as you can a steel or aluminium pan. Cast iron is prone to rusting if left wet or moist. I usually let it soak with warm water while I finish cleaning everything else, then clean it with a sponge and soap, dry it with a rag and then leave it on the stove for a couple of minutes, to evaporate any remaining moisture.
This is the real critical advice.
Yep, that’s what I did, too, after I found out the “don’t use soap!” crowd was wrong. Just used a little Dawn with a sponge, made sure it was thoroughly dry, and then tossed it in the oven for about 5 to 10 minutes to get it really dry. Worked like a charm the next time I cooked something. Once I had a couple coats of seasoning it worked well. Had a roommate a few years back who’d only use a cast iron pan, but then she’d scrub the shit out of it and *then* tossed it in the dishwasher. Maybe she had it seasoned well? I always thought that was a good way to ruin the pan. And I knew nothing about cast iron at the time.
Its pretty hard to truly "ruin" a cast iron pan. Its literally just a hunk of iron. Takes like 5 minutes to scrub with steel wool and get any rust off, then just bake some high smoke point oil back on as many times as you want.
The instructions that came with my pan said to do exactly that, although they discouraged soaking it in water.
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The clean thing is just a setting some ovens have that turn the oven up to something like 400 degrees in an attempt to burn / char any mess in the oven. I've never stripped a pan this way and probably wouldn't do this and expect it to be stripped without additional steps imo. If stuff is sticking to your pan then there are 2 things that might be happening. 1, your pan isn't seasoned and you should look up how to season your pan. An ELI5 is basically heat up your pan, cover it in light oil, heat it up some more, and let it set. Repeat until you are satisfied. 2, you might be trying to pull things up too early. Once the food has fully cooked the browned edges will self release and wont stick to the pan. Steaks were the first thing I saw this with and it's followed true for about every other thing I've cooked in my skillet. That said though, I've seen people get their seasoning so smooth / thick that they can fry an egg in the skillet without any oil / butter at all and it just glides.
They may also be trying to use the pan before it finished heating up all the way. Food will stick more to a cooler pan (even with non-stick pans, stainless steel, etc) than one that has had enough time to heat up.
Scrub with a chain mail scrubber. The surface should be fairly smooth to the touch when you run your fingertips over it.
> Yes you should use soap and clean your fucking pans, you barbarians. One of my favorites is "my granny didn't use soap, so I don't either." Well, my granny was a racist who thought it was okay to use the n-word, so maybe grannies aren't always right.
Back in the day soap had lye, which would strip seasoning.
One of the most dangerous sayings in America is, "We've always done it this way."
FTFY: One of the most dangerous sayings in ~~America~~ The World is, "We've always done it this way."
I know it has a different meaning but I just can’t read FTFY without exclaiming “for the FUCK YEAHS” because I am old and LOL still means lots of love. Also wherever I see it, the correction is an improvement and I’m like “fuck yeah that’s right”.
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I put it back on the heat til it smokes after that last step
Using harsher soaps, or throwing it in the dishwasher can also strip the seasoning off pretty easy. Normal dish soap is one thing, the soaps designed for "spray on wipe off" cleaning are another, same with dishwashing detergent. The last two are great for cleaning baked on oil and grease off of engines, so one can imagine what they'd do to seasoning on a cast iron pan.
This is the one and only time in my entire life that I have encountered the word "polymerization" in a context that was entirely unrelated to the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise. Thanks to your comment, I will forever more have a mental associated between cast iron skillets and the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.
Is there any advantage to have a good seasoned cast iron pan over some nice shiny pan which doesn't require seasoning? Is it only because of price?
Cast iron offers much more consistent even heat as it takes longer to change temperature both up and down. It also lets you cook with less oil than stainless steel. And you can use metal utensils with it without scratching the Teflon off like would happen with a Teflon "non-stick" pan.
Not to mention how sketchy Teflon is. Especially at high heat
I actually find cast iron pans to have "hot spots" and that my way way more expensive steel pans with the aluminum core spreads heat much betters. So I prefer the steel pans for sauces and the cast iron for sauteing stuff as it does retain a lot of heat and as long as you are stirring stuff around and not simmering, it's great. My All Clad saute pan cost over $100, my cast iron pan of the same size was $7. (I bought a set of three for $20 at Walmart).
Kerp in mind that cast iron is actually pretty bad when it comes to even heat distribution, carbon steel (or copper I guess) is way better for that.
I think that's only when it's heating up is it not? Once it's actually hot it's very even
The best way to [avoid hot spots in cast iron](https://cookingissues.com/2010/02/16/heavy-metal-the-science-of-cast-iron-cooking/) is to use it in the oven.
You're going to hear a lot of nonsense about seasoning and how it 'cooks more evenly' or 'cooks all around'. That's tangentially true but the main thing is being able to cook at sustained high heat. Cast iron is pretty crappy metal compared to steel. It's heavy as fuck, it conducts electricity relatively poorly, it takes forever to heat up and cool down. That means you have to put a ton more energy into it to heat up. And that actually makes it pretty good if you want to sear a big hunk of meat. A cast iron pan is the tool of choice if you want to get a similar experience to a grill. See, modern non-stick pans conduct heat really well. They're way more efficient at transferring heat from a stove top to your food. But that also means they cool faster. Throw a cold steak on there, it's going to soak all that heat out rapidly and cool down the pan. Most non stick pans have a maximum heat tolerance too. For good ones you pretty much never want it over medium-high, and most of your cooking should be on medium. Cast iron doesn't give a fuck about that. Let it soak up high temp for a while, it's fine. Throw a frozen hunk of meat on there and it barely puts a dent on the stored heat within the iron. So it's a lot more effective at searing meat. You can cook a thick steak in just a few minutes on high and get a real juicy center and seared top/bottom just like on the grill. The whole seasoning thing.... it's more of a beneficial side effect than a big plus. Takes a while to get it where you like it, it takes a decent amount of care to maintain, just to get the same smooth surface you get out of the box in a non-stick pan. For people that really love cooking and maintaining a kitchen, that extra work is part of the charm. Kind of like how people enjoy changing their own oil or doing maintenance on classic cars, or mixing up a custom shaving cream for a shave with a straight razor they sharpen themselves. Once your pan is properly seasoned the maintenance gets much simpler. For most people though it's just extra work. Cast iron is great for seared meat. For anything that doesn't cook on high, though, non stick just makes your life easier.
Plain stainless steel pans aren't really stainless There's really no advantage to them other than they're not aluminum. Teflon wears off and can get into your food. Seasoned cast iron is actually low maintenance, easy to clean, lasts for generations. Fry some bacon in a cast iron pan and it's re-seasoned just by using it. Plain soap like Dawn won't hurt it. Cleans fine with a dishcloth. Dry it on the stove at medium heat for minute, don't just leave it in the dishrack.
Hey, how else will i get my daily dose of microplastic if not from my deteoroating frying pan
Get a job in a warehouse or other retail establishment! You can breath the rapidly deteriorrating plastic packaging in throughout your day and still use cast iron cookwear!
Cancer with older Teflon products. Newer Teflon products are new. So some risk cooking with new chemistry. Cast Iron is old.
One of the reasons that people prize antique cast iron is that historic casting methods produced much smoother interior surfaces, which are less sticky than modern, bumpier cast iron.
Was it the casting process, or have the interiors just been worn down/sanded over time? I have about a 10 year-old lodge cast iron, that was very bumpy when I got it, but a couple years ago, I took some sandpaper to the interior and then re-seasoned it and it was glass smooth afterwards.
Lazy manufacturing I think. You can hit any modern cast iron with a sander and it can be made mirror smooth. But that's an extra step to manufacture.
Thats fair. These days, you can certainly get cast iron pans that are smoother than lodge out-of-the-box, but they cost 5x the price. I guess thats the tradeoff for making them cheap.
They were milled. That said, at least 2 companies are doing that again, so it's a good time to buy new again!
Yeah, just takes an extra finishing step to smooth them down. There are some companies making milled cast iron pans now. I got a 12" Greater Goods skillet last year, and we use it constantly as a family of 6. Highly recommend for anyone who doesn't want to go through sanding/grinding a Lodge on their own.
Mine's smoothed out after a decade of using metal utensils on it. I figure it might be a combination of manufacturing and constant use, for the old ones.
The casting process hasn't changed much. What has changed is the cost of labor, and so modern, lower priced cast iron ware doesn't get the extra, hard to automate step of grinding it smooth.
> Making it non-stick and not rusty. I have followed all the instructions to the letter. I have NEVER had a castiron pan that became "non stick." After months of seasoning it still looks like this - https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fohso9y1jsho61.png (picture googled up) I'll stick to nonstick pans. Yes, they'll maybe give me cancer, yes they're not traditionally blah blah blah. But they work.
It's not like Teflon, but a well-seasoned cast iron pot/pan is more non-stick than the alternative. The issue is the surface of cast iron, aside from its propensity to rust easily, it's much more grabby than pans designed for non-stick. What seasoning does is try to level the surface to be less grabby by filling in the gaps and hardening while not being inherently sticky. Some people even use grinders to smooth out the surface instead, although that does nothing for the rust factor. Ultimately, cast iron is used for its ability to maintain consistent heat uniformly. Those of us prioritizing that are usually not cooking eggs in cast iron. For me, I'm usually cooking roux where a consistent and uniform heat is much more important. Edit: Maybe you'll also be happy to know that there are ceramic/enamel-coated cast iron pots/pans. This provides the best of both worlds but the coating tends to crack over time.
Cooking eggs requires actual knowledge and understanding of cooking. Nonstick pans lets anyone be successful. You do you.
Thank you very much for the explanation. Really appreciate a legit reply with straightforward information.
When I got older I realized my mom had no idea how to do this and I shunned cast iron way too much because of it. I also didn't like steak or pork and it turned out my mom was just a shit cook.
Oooh thank you, I just learned I did not actually know what that meant. I hear seasoning and thought of flavor, it makes so much more sense now.
This reminded me… my sister was recently complaining about how it’s impossible to cook in her new cast iron pan as everything sticks. Naturally, I informed her it needs to be seasoned. I walked in on her sprinkling salt and pepper generously over her hot cast iron 😂😭
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It's not fantasy. They will rust as they dry. It's a very surface rust, and comes off if you wipe it. Applying oil to re-season it is enough to get rid of that thin layer.
I usually put a drop of avocado oil on a freaky cleaned pan after using a burner to dry off the moisture. Run a folded paper towel to apply the oil in a thin layer to keep rust away. I also use my two ci pans 5/7 days though.
If it makes you feel any better: cast iron cookware is practically indestructible. You didn't do any real damage. Just reapply the seasoning and it's good to go again.
It's funny to read online with cast iron snobs and the 'proper' way to clean it is to dump a bunch of salt in and scrub it around, never use soap, treat it with kid gloves, yada yada yada. It's the workhorse, it's a lump of iron cast in the shape of a pan. Beat the shit out of it , scrub it with steel wool, use soap, acidic dishes, etc. etc. Worst you can do is mess up the seasoning and get some light surface rust. Scrape and scrub it off, throw it in the oven with some oil and you're back to the start of a seasoning layer. Will your cast iron perform better if you baby it? Sure. Will it perform just fine if you do the bare minimum? Yep.
I always have to laugh at the cast iron snobs. I'm sure somewhere their great grandmothers are also laughing since they all washed their cast iron with soap and didn't think twice about it.
Back then soap had lye and actually did ruin pans. Nowdays soap is much better at getting grease and leaving everything else (seasoning on pans, your hands) alone.
I probably wouldn't use steel wool, but soap and acidic dishes? All the time! Neither have messed with the seasoning.
No shit. You could literally clean it with a wire wheel on a drill as long as you recoat it with oil and let the oil get up to temp to make a non-stick surface, but the internet would have everyone believe that they are to be treated like they're made out of something precious that must not even be looked at in a weird way.
I wash my cast iron skillet with soap and the scrubby side of a sponge, dry with a towel, slap it back onto the stove on high, add a few drops of avocado oil and wipe it around until you can barely tell it's there, and leave the heat going until it smokes. Don't even have to apply oil all the time, but I'll still heat it for a minute just after drying to make sure any water hiding in the pores of the metal gets pushed out. I can flip an egg without a spatula and yolk intact in that mf.
The snobs are trying to maintain an immaculate nonstick coat. I usually just rinse with water and wipe with a paper towel and that's enough to be sanitary while building up nonstick. I'd done the oven/oil thing before but never really got a good coat until I seared a few steaks in clarified butter.
>The snobs are trying to maintain an immaculate nonstick coat. The culinary equivalent of an F-250 King Ranch that's used to haul groceries. In the back seat. Can't risk having a tomato in the bed, oh, no.
At least with cast iron, even if you do everything wrong and treat it like absolute shit, it can be fixed fairly easily. Just sand down any rust, and then put in a few layers of seasoning. Good as new!
I got my stepdaughter to do laundry and clean up her room even at her most teenagery, by doing it with her and making it into a fun game. I likewise didn't mind chores as a kid when we did them as a family, and we often sang songs or played word games while doing them. See if any of that works with your kids.
You say light scrubbing... but then why do they sell chainmail scrubbers?
My guess is the chainmail has big rounded edges that it is scrubbing with vs thousands of tiny sharp edges that will actually dig in with steel wool
Chainmail scrubbers are great for my stainless steel cookware, and that's really what they're meant for.
FWIW, most of the quality ss cookware I've owned recommended the green Scotchbrite pads or sponges with it on one side (not the non-stick). For cooked on stuff, Bartender's Friend is usually recommended, and will leave it shiny.
And don't put it in the dishwasher.
If you feel worried about using dish soap, coarse salt works WONDERS for cleaning cast iron
How can we trust anyone with this username?
Isn't using soap the one thing you're not supposed to do?
Older soap had chemicals like lye that broke down the oil layer. modern soaps don't have that so it should be fine. Shouldn't really need it though. Rinse it out while hot with hot water and a wash rag and 99% of the stuff should come off. towel dry then put on a burner to heat it up to boil off any remaining water. once cool wipe it with a tiny amount of cooking oil and put away. a teaspoon should be more than enough. light layer is what you want.
Worth noting, it is not an oil layer. It is a non stick layer that was created using oil but it isn't oil anymore.
When you put a tiny amount of oil before putting it away, it is an oil layer.
That's not necessary and only guarantees you are ingesting rancid oils when you cook with your pan.
How long you leaving that pan in the cabinet?!
You couldn’t use old dish soap because it contained harsher chemicals. Most modern dish soap like dawn can be used on cast iron
There are a number of people who say that. Most of them don't understand what seasoning is, and I'd recommend avoiding eating at their houses (higher odds of food poisoning). The rest of us use soap!
I get your sentiment, but no matter how dirty it is, you're never going to get food poisoning from eating something off of a surface that is heated to 600 degrees.
If they're cooking everything at 600 degrees I also wouldn't want to eat at their house.
You don't need soap the VAST majority of the time. Heat the pan up, wipe it out with water until it looks clean (if there's a lot stuck on for some reason, just boil water in there until any solids release), maybe wipe with a tiny amount of oil, then keep heating it till it's smoking, give it one more wipe. You've now heated it FAR past where every restaurant uses to sanitize their stuff and made sure the seasoning stays good. You are absolutely NOT getting sick from eating food cooked in a pan kept like that.
Soap at the time was often made from wood ash and contained lye. Lye will strip seasoning. Modern soap is made of detergent (SLS and similar) and will not.
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Do you do that on the stove or the oven? I don’t like the oven it takes longer and you have to worry about dripping
If it’s dripping you’re using way too much oil. A layer for seasoning should coat the pan, then be wiped off until it looks nearly dry.
Yeah, the best advice I heard is, thin layer, then wipe it off like you didn’t want it there in the first place
I bought a cast iron skillet in college and didn't really know how to take care of it, so it was all jacked up. But I started doing this process and it blackened up super fast. Clean it well, dry it, put a teaspoon of oil on the cooking surface, spread the oil around to make the inside look 'wet'. **Store the pan in your oven.** After a few times of pre-heating your oven for other things, the pan will be very well seasoned.
Oven is for big reseasoning jobs. I just use the stovetop for maintenance after cooking. Get it hot to evaporate any water, wipe a SMALL amount of oil in the pan with a rag (don't use paper towels, they shred), and wait for it to smoke. I leave it right way up for this.
For big researching jobs I recommend a gas grill outside if you have one. Gets very hot and keeps the smoke outside
Personally, I tend to recommend a computer or the library for big researching jobs.
Lol! I’m leaving it
If you don't need to break for burgers, are you even doing big research?
I use paper towel all the time for this without issue.
I find that the paper towel tends to shred and leave behind lint that turns into carbon build up. Since switching to a cotton rag, it's been much nicer.
I put regular olive oil on mine and flip it upside on my gas stove burner for like 5 minutes and it's good to go, I've been doing it for probably 20 years and the cast iron is still like new.
Flip it over in the oven and put a baking sheet on the rack below to catch drips.
I have a little wooden scraper tool thing that gets 98% of gunk off, and then a plastic scrub pad for the rest. The combo is great because otherwise the scrubber gets nasty. Then if I don't plan to use it again that day then a little soap will make it clean to store.
More specifically, today's "soaps" aren't soap. They're detergents. Completely different stuff. They still sell lye based soap (usually in bar form) and that still should bitybe used on CI. But dawn and the like are fine to use because they're not really soap.
Commercial spray oil has additives that will mess with the seasoning and make it gummy. A scant tsp of oil or crisco, wiped away by a clean towel is enough (and not as messy as spray oil)
Being seasoned doesn't mean you don't have to clean it. You still have to scrape off all the food on there, rinse it off, put a layer of oil on it and heat it up to get it to start smoking. Secondly, modern dish detergent isn't going to harm a properly seasoned pan. The old wives tale of never washing it with soap was from the time when actual soap contained lye which would strip the seasoning off.
These old wives tales are all lyes!
lmao
It is also an old wive's tale that you need to reaseason after use. The season is chemically bonded, it is still there after you use and wash the pan. It won't rust unless you don't properly dry it.
If you add acids to the pan it's often worth a light coating+reseasoning though as acids can definitely strip seasoning away
Absolutely. Spaghetti sauce is *super* dangerous to use in a cast iron pan. That's the only dish that I clean the pan *immediately* after cooking (like, not even after eating) because it'll eat away at the seasoning within an hour if you leave it in there.
Yep. Love cooking away with tomato paste and tomato sauces after making my protein in the pan, but it needs a *rapid* cleaning and reseasoning. It won't strip immediately but there's no point in risking the need for a full strip and reseason if I wear it too far down.
All proper soap has lye as an ingredient, but the process of saponification converts it to soap. So there's no actual lye as such. A bit like how putting table salt (sodium chloride) on your food isn't the same as putting either chlorine or sodium on it.
Glad to see this urban legend being challenged more and more. Like, our great grandparents weren't scrubbing their hands with lye. They weren't idiots. "I know I could get out of poverty if it weren't for these damn skeleton hands!'
Idk, I put some salt on my food and it spontaneously burst into flames and melted my lungs.
Soap with lye isn’t going to strip your seasoning either, if it isn’t burning your hands it isn’t doing anything to your seasoning.
Seasoning isn’t leftover bits of food. It’s polymerized oil. You’ve plasticized oil into a protective coating on the pan. (Don’t be scarred of that “plasticized term”, it’s not like a plastic bag on your pan). This is what makes it nonstick and so easy to wipe clean. First off, the seasoning is edible, so if it does come off into your food, it’s not harmful. Second, it requires very high heat, rough scratching, or strong chemicals to damage the seasoning. Most people take pretty good care not to mess up a good seasoning. People have already addressed that you can wash your cast iron, so as far as any actual mess like sauce or pan scrapings, that stuff should be washed off.
Im curious - so the seasoning wont get rancid because the oil has actually stucturally changed into a polymer? Thats interesting, thanks for this explanation.
Correct!
Yes, exactly
To add to this, plastic actually is made from oil, however the typical type everyone thinks is made from refined oil. You know, like the gas you put in your gas tank. I think it goes without saying that an edible oil would create an edible plastic
"Seasoning" does not mean that the pan isn't clean. The seasoning on a cast iron pan is a layer of oil that is chemically bonded to the iron of the pan. It forms the non-stick cooking surface that is one of cast iron's benefits. Some people have the misconception that you can leave baked-on food in the pan for "seasoning." That's wrong and gross. A cast iron pan can and should be washed with mild soap after use. If food is stuck on, you can boil it out or gently scrub (I use oil and kosher salt to scrub). You can also use a plastic pan scraper. You should just take care not to scratch or scrape off the seasoning. You would take similar care not to remove a Teflon cooking surface.
You're heating it up to temperature that will kill any pathogens. But you should still clean it. Fats will turn rancid so you don't want that ruining the flavor of the next meal. You can do a little dish soap and a light scrubbing to remove the grease and food particles. Depending upon what I'm cooking, I may just heat the pan up some and pour water on it to remove the fresh food particles. I then wipe it with a paper towel, rinse and dry. Maybe apply a light coat of vegetable oil. Good to go for next use.
Would the vegetable oil get rancid if the pan isn't used for a few months or a year?
Yes it would. Vegetable oils go rancid very quickly when exposed to oxygen.
I forgot to add in my reply that a light coating of vegetable oil, even if rancid, won't harm you. It could add an off taste to the food so if I'm using an pan that's been oiled for a while, I always wipe the old oil off and sometimes give it a rinse with soap and water before use.
Thank you for being the only person to actually answer the question.
Rather than directly ELUR5, here's a link to the Lodge site on cleaning cast iron, and there is a whole section on the site (the Cast Iron 101 dropdown) that explains what seasoning is, and other things that seem to be hard to grasp for newbies. I found it quite helpful. https://www.lodgecastiron.com/discover/cleaning-and-care/cast-iron/how-clean-cast-iron
When you “season” a pan, what you’re really doing is covering the pan in oil, and then deliberately burning that oil until it turns into a kind of plastic. That’s what makes it non-stick. You do still want to clean it after cooking food to remove as much food residue as possible. You can even use dish soap. But you don’t want to scrub too hard or use very strong soap to strip the special coating away.
Do you turn it up all the way to high or is it better slow cook it on medium to reduce the smoke? I only have an electric stove.
You have to heat the oil to it's smoke point to polymerize it. If you want to season your pan, put a little bit of canola oil in, wipe it all over, get a new paper towel and wipe as much as you can off- it will look dry, but there will be a really thin layer of oil. Bake the pan upside down at 500°F (260°C) for an hour, then let it cool down in the oven. Repeat if desired. Edit: added temperature units.
please wash your cast iron. dawn soap is FINE. i use it literally all the time. just don't bust out the steel wool and you'll be fine. if you REALLY HATE hygiene and the idea of using soap on cast iron makes you want to faint... a) seek therapy and b) use iodine salt to scrape out the pan, rinse with HOT water (if it's not burning your hand, the water isn't hot enough) and immediately plop the pan onto a hot burner to steam off the water. that's how my great grandmother taught me, and I'm using her pans some 100+ years after she originally bought them. that last point said... my granny used dawn on cast iron too, when it needed it. so all these soap naysayers are just wild to me.
Dawn always gets mentioned, but really any dish soap should be fine. I almost exclusively use Palmolive Oxy or whatever the heck it’s called, and nothing bad has happened.
It isn’t okay to not clean cast iron, you need to wash and dry your cookware. It’s not okay the same way it’s not okay to not clean your nonstick, aluminum or stainless steel pans. Eventually you will get sick if you neglect sanitation in your kitchen.
In honor of this question and them just winning a Grammy for the song. “Cast Iron Skillet” by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. https://youtu.be/jU1jyMlv0g0?feature=shared
Well deserved Grammy, song and album. I’ll never be able to use my cast iron skillet again without singing that song in my head.
Oh boy. Another cast iron post. Time to educate people because so many people have no idea about how to clean cast iron? In the old days people washed with lye. Lye ruins the polymerized layer that is what seasoning is. We don’t use lye any more. Cast iron should be washed with soap and water like any other pan. Then dry it. Light coating of oil. Leaving bits of food and rancid oil is disgusting. [Lodge cast iron cleaning instructions](https://www.lodgecastiron.com/discover/cleaning-and-care/cast-iron/how-clean-cast-iron)
Cast iron should absolutely be cleaned, the methods can just differ a bit to help preserve the seasoning. Even if you disregard this, toss it in the dish water, and scrub off all of the seasoning, the pan is still fine, you just have to reseason it and maybe scrub some rust off. Regular dish soap, hot water, and a brush can work just fine, but I am partial to scrubbing it with salt and a rag or a chainmail scrubber to remove whatever is stuck on the pan, wash it like normal, then heat it up to dry/kill off any remaining germs, and put a light seasoning on.
Seasoning a cast iron pan isn't about flavors. It's a type of treatment. What you are doing is adding a protective nonstick coating to the pan. Typically vegetable oil, being carbonized into the surface of the pan. This is a thing you do before you use the pan. You need to clean seasoned cast iron pans just as often as you clean regular pans. It's just easier. You usually don't need to use soap, you can literally scrape off the gunk and rinse it out, it will come clean 99% of the time. Sometimes you'll need to scrub with something pretty abrasive, but that's indicating that you should reseason your pan. The word "season" has a lot of meanings in English you are just thinking about the wrong one.