These are my cast iron skillets. I adore them. I won’t make pineapple upside down cake or cornbread in anything else. My great grandmother bought them; she used them, my grandmother used them, my mother used them, and now I use them. They are seriously seasoned. And they survive and look fabulous to this day because I follow, as taught to me by all those women before me, The Rule of Cast Iron: Soap is the enemy. Look, it just IS. You just cannot convince me it’s okay to use soap on a cast iron skillet. It’s not. I once nearly fired a maid service because they used SOAP to clean a skillet. I wanted to cry.
So here’s what I do: after frying up bacon (saving the grease for green beans and cornbread, obviously), sausage, pancakes, whatever, I get to work cleaning the pan. It’s easiest to do this while the pan is still warm, so hop to it. For most situations, I do a quick rinse under HOT running water. If there’s anything really stuck, I use a stiff brush that I keep just for the purpose of cast iron and scrub stuck-on bits off under HOT running water. Then I set the pan back on the warm burner on the stove and leave it on till all the water evaporates (rust is not your friend). When it’s completely dry, put a little oil in the pan — olive oil, shortening, whatever — and briskly rub it around with a paper towel till all surfaces are covered. The end. I keep mine stored in a stack with paper towels in between them to absorb any errant moisture in the air (again, that rust thing).
And that’s it. Seriously. It’s not hard, but there is a method to it. And the method does not, ever, not even once, involve soap.
/lecture
What to do if your cast iron is a little less than kitchen-ready?
Start by removing any possible rust. Pour some salt on the pan (kosher is great) and cut a potato in half. Use the potato like a brush and scrub the salt around to loosen everything up.
Then scrub it under super hot water with a stiff brush (not wire — like a stiff dish scrubbing brush), and set it on a burner on low-medium to dry completely.
Now the stinky part: re-seasoning! Cover the bottom rack of your oven with foil — it’ll make any drips easier to clean up. Now melt about a Tbsp or so of Crisco in the cast iron on the stove top. Use a paper towel to wipe the melted crisco over ALL surfaces of the pan — the handle, the top, the bottom, the edge, etc. Everywhere.
Put it upside down in the oven, and turn the oven on to 350. Bake for at least an hour, then turn the oven off, but leave the pan in there till it’s cool. And voila! I bet you have a pretty spiffy looking pan at the end.
Hooray for cast iron! I’ve had my skillet for more than 15 years now, and it’s my favorite piece of cookware. I’ve completely stripped and re-seasoned it once…b/c the Dude accidentally cooked (and left) TOMATO sauce in it. Grrrrr. He knows better now.
Ack! Left it IN there! The Yankee has a healthy fear (okay, I instilled it) of cleaning the cast iron. He loves them for cooking, but when he’s done he (wisely) says, “Okay if I leave this skillet for you to clean?” Hee hee…. wise indeed!
What an awesome how-to. My husband is obsessed with the care of our cast iron, which makes it easy on me!
How fabulous!
That DOES make it easy!
I collect tips on how to do this at my cast iron skillet blog, but have never heard this one. You don’t bake the skillet with high heat? Just coat and forget? For generations??
The seasoning is SO baked in and on at this point that it’s just not necessary.
Well in the beginning with a newer pan to season, yes, and to save a damaged pan yes — bake. But for daily use? Nope, just coat and forget. For generations.
You are my hero of the day! THANK YOU!
LOL! My cast iron addiction finally pays off!
[...] I had made last week from leftover no-knead bread. He fried the coated chicken in olive oil in a cast iron skillet, then drained the chicken on a rack over paper towels — not just on paper towels; [...]
[...] to remember: I have a love of cast iron. A serious, deep, and abiding love. And the pretty, shiny skillets to prove [...]
[...] baking time pull out some refrigerated dough, form it into a ball and set it in a olive oil brushed cast iron skillet to rise for about 45 [...]
[...] a large cast iron pan melt a pat or two of butter over medium heat and add a Tbsp. or two of olive oil; adjust amounts [...]
i agree that what you describe is satisfactory for a skillet that is already pretty well seasoned. but for years i battled with CI skillets’ tendency to have food adhere to it until i came across one cleaning tip that changed everything for me. whenever the skillet gets gunked up with sticky or cruddy stuff that won’t seem to come off with just hot water and a stiff brush (or your fingernail, bleh!). pour a small mound of course sea salt in the skillet, then dump some oil over the salt, then scrub the oil/salt mix into the skillet with a rag in a circular motion until the stuff comes off, and it always does. the salt will often turn brown as you go, but it usually takes less than a minute to get it perfectly clean. then just wipe the salt into your sink and your done. though the salt can definitely cut right through your patina if you scrub too hard, since there is oil already in the mix, any exposed raw CI is instantly coated with more oil so it doesn’t oxidise in a split second as it tends to do.
Hey Erin! I also love cast iron, but would like to strip one of my great grandmother’s pans that I use all the time. It has a lot of stuff gunked on the bottom that just irritates me. It looks like several years of gunk, not just a left on stick as you were describing with the potato/salt method. Do you have a proven method to strip all this off and re-season it?
Hey girl! Do you have a picture of it? I would be wary of taking off too much on a pan that old. I can tell you that I tried the self cleaning oven cycle on a pan and it was a colossal failure — created rust! I would try salt/oil and a stiff brush, then bake on some more oil and see how that looks.
What am I supposed to do if I have a new set of cast iron? I read that the company puts a coating on it that I need to remove and am afraid to do anything because there seem to be so many different opinions…
Andrea, what kind did you get? If it’s pre-seasoned (the pans will be black) then you’re good to go right out of the box. If it’s unseasoned (silver, not black) then you’ll want to wash the food-grade wax off with very, very hot water, a stiff scrubbing brush and soap. This is the only time to use soap on your cast iron. From there you can carry on with seasoning your cast iron as in the post; the part below “What to do if your cast iron is a little less than kitchen-ready?.” Hope that helps!