How to Season and Care For Cast Iron Skillets

Looking for a non-stick frying pan that you know you will be able to fry the perfect over easy egg?  Look no further than your own cast iron skillets.  "What?" you ask.  It's true.  With a properly seasoned and cared for cast iron skillet you will be able to fry anything in it with all the confidence you get from current non-stick cookware on the market today.

In this article I will show you how to wash your skillet and how to season your skillet so it will remain non-stick.  In general, you will learn how to take care of the skillets that have been in the family for years but are probably stuffed in the back of your cabinets getting rusty.  When you are finished, your cast iron skillets will be like brand new, and will be healthier to cook with than any brand of skillet you find on the market today.   

In my opinion, nothing cooks like a good old-fashioned cast iron skillet.  My great aunt even made her delicious homemade butterscotch for her homemade pies in her cast iron skillet.  Fried chicken tastes better when fried in cast iron.  When properly seasoned, your cast iron skillet will out-cook and out-last any other cookware you own.  I am using skillets that were my grandparents' as well as those I purchased on my own throughout my lifetime.  That means that the newest of my skillets are at least 30 years old and the oldest are far beyond 60 years old.

If you are like me, cooking websites might make you hungry.  The sooner you have your skillets seasoned, the sooner you can make those wonderful eggs!  (Cooking those eggs will also require the thinnest metal spatula you can find so that when you flip the eggs, you have not cut into those beautiful yolks.)

Washing Cast Iron Cookware

 

If you have not used your cast iron for awhile, it might be a little (or a lot) rusty.  Even if you have been using your cast iron recently, you will probably still have to season it properly.  If you have cooked things like gravy or other items that will soak up the previous seasoning, you will have to start from scratch with these washing instructions.  In fact, it is a good idea to start from scratch every now and then anyway, just to make sure your skillet has the best cooking surface possible.

For the initial washing of your cast iron, whether it is old or brand new, wash in warm soapy water.  If there is rust or stuck on food, you may use a copper scrubber to clean it.  Even if all the rust does not come out right away with this washing, that is okay.  It will be cleaned out with the seasoning procedure.

One time many years ago I read a story about a woman who would put her cast iron skillets into the fireplace and burn off all the old crusted grease and food that accumulated over the years of use.  She left the cookware in the flames until the flames died down and the iron was reddish in color.  If you choose to try it, make sure to allow the iron to cool sufficiently before trying to remove from the fire.

How to Season Cast Iron Cookware 

After you have thoroughly washed your cookware, it is time to season it.  This takes time to do so you can stop periodically and let the cookware cool in between steps.  The more your cookware has been neglected, the longer this process will take.  You will need to make sure you have plenty of paper towels available for this process.  You will also need to stay close to your stove while seasoning your cookware so you don't let a fire get started. (I have read about those who do this in the oven rather on top of the stove, but I have never done that.  I prefer having the cookware where I can control it in case it gets too hot and starts a fire.)

To begin, place your cookware on a burner and turn the heat on high.  Make sure the burner is the proper size for the cookware. Allow the cookware to heat up until you can feel the heat on your hand when you hold your hand above the pan.

Next, pour enough vegetable oil into the pan to cover the bottom of the pan completely.  You will need to watch the pan carefully from here on so that the oil does not get so hot that it catches on fire.  Once you see the oil is getting hot, remove the pan from the burner and set aside on a cool burner until the oil is cooled enough to not burn your hands.

Once the oil has cooled, fold some paper towels thickly and rub the oil around the entire inside of the cookware.  You will see that the paper towels have become discolored as they pick up rust and other residue from years of use and neglect.  Throw away the used paper towels and set the pan back on the burner to heat up again.  If you previously wiped out all the excess oil, add some more.  (During these cool down periods you may walk away and do other things before continuing the seasoning later.  Just make sure to turn off the stove first.)

When the oil has reheated, again set the pan aside on a cool burner for awhile.  Repeat the process of wiping out the pan with the paper towels.  Each time you repeat this process of wiping out the inside of the pan with the paper towels you will see that they come out cleaner.  Continue to repeat the heating and cooling proces until the paper towels come out clean except for the oil itself.

Allow the pan to cool completely and wipe the entire pan inside and outside with a clean paper towel to make sure the entire pan has been coated with a thin covering of the oil.  Doing this on the outside of the pan helps prevent it from rusting while it is not in use.

At this point, your skillet is seasoned.  The heating of the pan allows the iron to expand and the oil soaks into it.  When the pan cools, the oil is trapped into the iron and this gives your pan a non-stick finish as well as prevents it from further rusting.  Rust, by the way, is the byproduct of iron being oxidized when it comes into contact with the oxygen in the air.  It will not hurt you.  But it is unappealing and will cause foods to stick.  Wiping the rust out with the paper towels helps get as much of it out of the pan as possible even after washing.

My grandfather would reuse his skillet with the same fats and oils in it from previous uses, causing the cast iron to pick up the meaty flavors.  He especially used bacon grease repeatedly.  Reusing your skillet between washings makes the skillet even more non-stick.  But wash it out once there are food particles in the grease.  You don't want food poisoning.  If foods begin to stick, that is another sign that it is tie to wash the skillet.  There are washing instructions further on.

A side note:  Even when you have seasoned your cast iron cookware in this manner, if you have not consistently used it, you may need to do a quick seasoning again before each use.  All this entails is to quickly heat up the pan with the oil and wipe it out once with the paper towels.  You can go ahead and cook with it immediately after this.

How to Wash and Care For Seasoned Cast Iron 

The more you use your seasoned cookware, the more non-stick it will become.  However, to keep it that way you have to wash it properly.  When I was growing up my mother always used SOS pads to wash the cast iron skillets.  She taught me to wash them that way too.  I hated cooking with cast iron because everything stuck to it and cleaning it up was a pain in the neck.  Once I learned how to season it and wash it properly, I've never had a problem with it since, and I've never bought another SOS pad.

So how do you wash a properly seasoned cast iron skillet?

It's simple.  Wash your seasoned cast iron in very warm water (as warm as your hands can stand) and use only a plastic scrubber.  Do not use soap.  Do not use a dish cloth.  Do not use a copper scrubber or one of those green scrubbers.  All of those will remove the seasoning and you will have to season the cookware all over again.  You will be amazed at how easily the cast iron cleans with this method once it is seasoned.  The only thing I ever have problems with are scrambled eggs and only then if I have used a pan that was not fully seasoned.  The plastic scrubbers take even scrambled eggs out easily.

You will notice that water bubbles off of your cast iron and that it does not stay wet as long as it did before it was seasoned.  You will want to allow the cast iron to air dry again because using a dish towel wipes out the oil that you have seasoned it with.  But overall, you will have cookware that is much better than the non-stick pans and won't leave any of the chemical residue so many warn us of from use of those pans.  The iron from the cast iron is not harmful and is a naturally occurring nutrient in our foods.

You will want to store all your cast iron cookware together because of the seasoning.  This is another reason to keep the outsides wiped with oil occasionally as stacking pans inside each other will cause rust without the oil coating.  Do not leave them so coated with oil, however, that they puddle because that can cause a fire when you put them on the stove.  Make sure that all the excess oil on the outside is wiped clean before storing or cooking.

Now that you have learned how to season, wash, and care for your cast iron cookware, I hope that you get a lot of enjoyment out of using it daily when you cook.  You can even bake safely with it.

Utensils For Cast Iron Cookware

When you are cooking with the current, modern idea of non-stick cookware, you are supposed to use either rubber or plastic, or wooden utensils so you don't scratch the surface of the cookware.  Scratched non-stick cookware is no longer non-stick, and it is said that it will leach harmful chemicals into your foods.

With cast iron you don't have to worry about scratching the surface or about harmful chemicals leaching into the food.  You can use any type of utensil that you wish to use when cooking with cast iron.  It will just depend on what you are cooking, not what you are cooking in.  Of course, for fried eggs, you might need a specific type of spatula to be able to pick up the egg and/or flip the egg over without breaking the yolks.  I have found that the rubber, plastic or wooden spatulas are too thick to do this well.  Most metal spatulas are also too thick.  The best spatulas I have found for making eggs are very thin metal spatulas.  I've been lucky and still use the spatula that my mother used way back when I was a child.  It is slightly cracked at one of the rivets and I treat it very gently so I can keep it around for many more years.  I've only found a few spatulas in the stores that work for me with eggs.  If you are lucky enough to find a thin metal spatula, take good care of it.  In fact, I have found that my spatula is also pretty well seasoned from years of use, and if I wash it the same way I wash the skillets, I have very little trouble cleaning it.  Sometimes I do have to break down and use the copper scrubber on the spatula, but not often.  Most of my skillets and that spatula are as old or older than I am.  Can you say that about products manufactured today?

Squidoo Issues and Resolves

Basically, I may be moving the content of many, if not all, of my Squidoo lenses to this blog or to other blogs of mine.  I am having issues with Squidoo's newest policies, so I am in the process of closing down my current lenses.  At the moment I don't have any time frame in mind for starting this process.  There is a lot on my plate lately and I have not been very involved in any type of writing at all.  More on that later as well.  For now, just know that changes are in the works.

America Will You Watch This Movie?

Today I watched what may be the most important movie that all of America needs to watch.  So without any other commentary about it, here is the link to this movie.  Right now it is free to watch, so please take advantage of that.  Set aside time for your whole family to watch.  Get it to your pastors to show to the congregation of your church.  America depends on it.  This country needs you.

Spring and Early Summer

Once again I let this blog slide for awhile.  It's been a busy and chaotic couple of months as I have moved in with my son and his family, spent time recovering from a fall and sprained ankle, and now finally on the mend.  Why the move?  Well, not because I need to be cared for or anything like that.  But I was getting tired of living alone and he and his wife had been asking me for several months to come live with them.  So finally I decided it might be a good idea and I took the plunge.  It's going to be a leap of faith, this move.  I have gone from a household of one plus a dog, to ten plus a dog.  Quite a jump, I'd say.  While there will naturally be some adjustments for each of us during this time of transition, I must say that this change should be a good one.  Living with seven grandchildren ranging from age two through age twelve supplies me with plenty of hugs and kisses each day.  And to say there is never a dull moment would be an understatement.  The Waltons we are not, but there could end up being some interesting stories come out of this.

Tolerance, Christianity, and Being Politically Correct

 It seems that the 21st century comes with some pretty strong "buzz words", such as "tolerance" and being "politically correct".  The concept of being politically correct actually began prior to the beginning of this century but it did not have as strong a negative connotation as it does today.  At first it was applied to changing how we used certain terminology such as handicapped/disabled. We were told that it was offensive to call someone handicapped.  It was more appropriate to say they were disabled.  I am disabled and I never have understood the problem with saying I am handicapped.  I can remember in the 1990's what a big fuss was made over the signage on doors to public buildings, restrooms, and parking spaces if they were not changed quickly enough from handicapped to disabled. We were never to say that someone "had a handicap."  Instead it was very important that we say they "had a disability."  There were other words and phrases that we were expected to change as well.  None of them really seemed to make any real impact however.  At least it didn't seem to at the time.  

 

On television and in the movies, it was suddenly a joke about how we all had to start speaking in politically correct ways.  Gradually, with the more words and phrases that we were expected to change, we were being told we were "intolerant" if we refused.  Suddenly the new buzz word was "tolerance".  Comedians on the late night talk shows were constantly making jokes about what was and wasn't politically correct and what was and wasn't showing proper tolerance.

 

Along the way it became apparent that all these new rules were focused at Christians.  Anything any Christian said anywhere in the country was judged as to whether or not it met the new politically correct tolerance.  Christians really tried to work with all of the impossible standards that were being put upon them.  What was never really understood at the time was why.  Why were Christians the targets of all this new system?  All we knew was that suddenly nothing we did was right.  It didn't matter if we had friends and even family members that were of different races than we were.  We were being called racist no matter what we did.  It didn't matter if we had gay friends or family members.  We were called "homophobic", "judgmental", and guilty of hating our fellow citizens.  Suddenly Christians became the most intolerant people in the world.

 

Now let me say this before I go on to my main points.  Many Christians, and those who call themselves Christians but don't even know what it means to be Christian, have not done much to help the situation.  Christianity has to be the most misunderstood "religion" in the world. First of all, to clarify just what being a Christian means according to the Bible which Christians consider to be the Word of God, to be a Christian means that one has been born again into a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Being a Christian is not about what church you go to or grew up going to, or what your parents' beliefs are, or even what country you were born in. A true Christian believer does not consider their faith to be a religion.  Mankind has created religion.  Christianity is a relationship.  Therefore, because of the misunderstanding of the meaning of Christianity and who is or isn't Christian, there has been a lot of confusion as to what is or isn't Christian behavior.  However, even those who have lived their lives following Biblical principles, in general, know what is right and wrong in most situations.  But being human, whether we are Christian, or of some other faith, we each and every one of us make mistakes.  Christians are told emphatically in the Bible that we are not to judge anyone other than ourselves so that we will not be judged.  Unfortunately, there is much misunderstanding even within the Christian community about the difference between passing judgement upon others and being what some Christians call "fruit inspectors."  You see, we are told in the Bible that we can often tell a person's relationship with Christ by looking at the fruit they have produced or that has been produced in their lives.  But the problem here comes when these same Christians forget just what that fruit is and start "inspecting" things we ought not to.  Galatians 5:22 spells it out clearly for us this way: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith."  Therefore the only fruit we are to be inspecting at all are these.  When Christians go overboard into judging actions and behaviors we see in others and start finger-pointing we are only hurting ourselves and giving our brothers and sisters in Christ a bad reputation.  So, in being human like all other humans, we judge when we are not supposed to judge.  And we give Christianity a black eye in the process.  We, as Christians, are to love each other, and our neighbors in the same way that Jesus Christ loved us when He laid His life down for us. Jesus made it very clear when He told one of the Pharisees, one who happened to be a lawyer, that in Mat 22:37-40: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." The Bible gives us God's definition of love and many people already know it because they use this passage in weddings all over the world. God says of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (the word "charity" is translated also as "love")
^"4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
⁵ Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
⁶ Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
⁷ Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
⁸ Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away."

According to Dictionary.com the definition of the word "tolerance" is as follows:

tol·er·ance

[tol-er-uhns] 

noun

1.

a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.

2.

a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.

3.

interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.

4.

the act or capacity of enduring; endurance: My tolerance of noise is limited.

5.

Medicine/Medical, Immunology .

a.

the power of enduring or resisting the action of a drug, poison, etc.: a tolerance to antibiotics.

b.

the lack of or low levels of immune response to transplanted tissue or other foreign substance that is normally immunogenic.

Origin:

1375–1425; late Middle English  < Latin tolerantia.  See tolerant, -ance

Related forms

non·tol·er·ance, noun

o·ver·tol·er·ance, noun

Synonyms
1, 2. patience, sufferance, forbearance; liberality, impartiality, open-mindedness.  

Tolerance , toleration agree in allowing the right of something that one does not approve. Tolerance suggests a liberal spirit toward the views and actions of others: tolerance toward religious minorities.  Toleration implies the allowance or sufferance of conduct with which one is not in accord: toleration of graft.

 

There is no intolerance in the kind of love God calls all Christians to have for all man-kind. However Christians are just the same as every other human in this world.  Christians screw up on a daily basis.  So does every other human being in this world.  We all mess up.  We all judge our neighbors, our friends, our family members, strangers, even those we have never met before.  But that is not what makes us Christians.  That is our failing as Christians.  
So why is there this push in our country and around the world to charge Christians with intolerance?  Why is there such a move in this country to make the Christian life-style not politically correct?

The answers to these questions are also in the Bible.  The problem is, the world in general doesn't want to turn to the Bible for those answers.  Many who call themselves Christians do not even read their own Bibles, if they even have their own Bibles.  Many who call themselves Christians do not have anyone that they learn about Christianity from.  They believe they are Christian simply because that is what their parents and grandparents were but not because they have come to any kind of personal knowledge of Jesus Christ.  Jesus told us that the only way to be saved was to be born again and He explains that when he speaks to Nicodemus in John 3:1-21.  Simply put, being born again means to accept and believe that Jesus Christ really is the Son of God, born of a virgin, gave His life as payment of our sin debt when He was crucified on the cross, died, was buried, and rose again on the third day.  When we believe this, confess it with our mouths, and accept His free gift of salvation, then we are born again believers and true Christians.  It is not a religion, but it has had a religion made out of it.  It is an individual personal relationship.  The church of Jesus Christ was never meant to be the organized business that it has become today.  It was meant to be the body of Christ reaching out to a world in need of love. It was meant to be a fellowship of believers helping and supporting each other in love and friendship and passing on the love of Jesus Christ to everyone around us.  

In the Bible we are told that Satan is the enemy of God, the enemy of all His believing followers. Satan wants only to destroy us all and become like God in power and control.  But God does not control people.  God gives people the freedom of choice.  Satan on the other hand does not want anyone to have free choice.  So he goes about confusing the world and getting the world to believe that it is all the Christians and Jews who are the problem.  It is the Christians and Jews who are intolerant, racist, and now extremists and even domestic terrorists, according to those who have chosen not to believe in a kind and loving God.  But why does the world fall for this?

When a person is confronted face to face with the holiness of the One True God, that person comes face to face with his/her own sin nature.  It is impossible not to.  Sin cannot stand in the presence of holiness.  This is not to say that Christians are pure and holy and without sin.  No.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, Christians need to purify themselves daily, to cleanse themselves from their daily sins.  Christians will not be fully purified and holy until they meet the Lord Jesus Christ face to face.  But when non-believers come in contact with believers, that representation of Jesus Christ in the believer's lives stands up like a mirror reflecting back on the non-believer.  The problem is that many Christians are out there passing judgement in the name of being fruit inspectors and instead of showing non-believers the love of God, they are coming off as the intolerant haters that the world sees.  They are playing right into the devil's hands.  When the love of God shines through instead of judgement, evil cannot stand.  We don't have to judge others.  That is not our job.  That is God's job.  And the only fruit we should really be inspecting is our own.  How do we measure up when it comes to the fruit of the Spirit in our own lives?  IF all true believers in Jesus Christ did that, we might begin to see revival in this country and in the world.  The truth is that in many other countries around the world, there is revival.  People are coming to Christ by the thousands.  It used to be that the United States was the major country sending missionaries to the world.  Now the world is sending missionaries to us.  What a sad commentary for American Christians today.

We have been tempted by technology.  We have succumbed to the gadgets and electronic toys, the cars, houses, and everything else that the world has to offer us today.  We have neglected our God-given duties to love each other and help each other in exchange for money and time spent on everything from the latest greatest cell phones to plasma screen televisions to the hottest car on the market.  When we see someone in need we judge them as being someone scamming us for our money when they don't really need it.  We look at the homeless in our country and we turn our backs on them.  We see people on welfare and we judge them harshly when we don't even have a clue what put them there or how difficult it is to get off welfare once they get on it.  We are a people, all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, who judge others so harshly that we would not be able to stand if we were to be judged that way in return.  We see a mother with small children using food stamps at the store but she also has a nice cell phone so we judge her and say she has no right to have food stamps if she can afford that phone.  Yet how do we know she paid for that phone or the contract to use it?  How do we know it wasn't a gift provided by a caring friend or family member trying to help her out?  The Bible tells Christians not to judge others so that we ourselves won't be judged.  The Bible tells us that we will receive back the same measure that we measure out to others.  That covers all things, not just money and goods.  That covers attitudes, behaviors, everything we do and say.  When we judge others, it comes back on us.  God is not mocked.  

What is happening in this country today could be something that maybe we deserve.  We have allowed things to get all screwed up.  Is there time to fix it?  Is there time for America to be restored to the nation under God that she once was?  I don't know.  What I do know is that, according to the Bible, the end is near.  The time is coming soon when Jesus will come for His true Bride, the true believers who have that personal relationship with Him.  The time is coming soon when the antichrist will cause a 7 year peace agreement to be signed between Israel and her enemies.  The time is coming when the world will be fully immersed in what the Bible calls the Great Tribulation, tribulation such as the world has never known before.  The time is coming when at the end of that tribulation Jesus Christ will once again return to this earth and rule over the whole world.  Satan will get one last attempt only to be permanently defeated forever.  What is our call during this time?  We are to do the same thing God has called us to do since the beginning.  We are to love Him, and love each other.  The devil is the one causing the trouble against Christianity today.  The devil is the one pushing for political correctness and calling Christians intolerant.  Yet it is also the devil who is the most intolerant of Christians and the government of this country that was established by God to provide freedom to its citizens.  There is spiritual warfare going on today such as has never happened before.  But in this war we are still called to love.  

Now it is in your hands what you will choose to do.