How to Season Cast Iron Cookware

A cast iron Dutch oven.

Cast iron is much beloved by serious chefs, and lasts nearly forever if you take care of it. Seasoning cast iron cookware is necessary to ensure a non-stick surface and to prevent the pot or pan from rusting. If seasoned correctly your cookware can last a lifetime and more.

Steps

1. For crusty cast ironware that you inherited or picked up at a garage sale: Your cookware may have some combination of rust and thick crackly black crud. It can be restored fairly easily to good as new condition! First place the cookware in a self-cleaning oven and run one cycle OR place in a campfire or directly on a hot charcoal fire for 1/2 hour, until dull red. The crud will be flaking, falling and turning to white ash. Then follow the following steps.
2. Wash your cast iron cookware with warm water and soap using a scouring pad. If you have purchased your cast iron cookware as new then it will be coated in oil or a similar coating to prevent rust. This will need to be removed before seasoning so this step is essential.
3. Dry the cookware thoroughly.
4. Coat the pot or pan inside and out with lard, Crisco, bacon fat, or corn oil. Ensure that the lid is also coated.
5. Place both the lid and the pot or pan upside down in your oven at 300F for at least an hour to bake on a “seasoning” that protects the pan from rust and provides a stick-resistant surface.
6. For best results repeat steps three and four.
7. Ongoing care: Every time you wash your pan, you must season it. Place it on the stove and pour in about 3/4 tsp. corn oil or other cooking fat. Wad up a paper towel and spread the oil across the cooking surface, any bare iron surfaces, and the bottom of the pan. Turn on the burner and heat until smoke starts to appear. Cover pan and turn heat off.

Tips

• If food burns, just heat a little water in the pan, and scrape with a flat metal spatula. It may mean that re-seasoning is necessary.
• If you’re washing the cast iron too aggressively (for instance with a scouring pad), you will regularly scrub off the seasoning. Wash more gently or repeat oven-seasoning method regularly.
• If your pan develops a thick crust, you’re not washing it aggressively enough. Follow “crusty pan” instructions.

How to Care for Cast Iron

If left unclean, this pot can get very rusty

A cast iron pot gets extremely hot, foods tend to stick to it, and it gets very dirty. When it is left standing for a long period of time, rust accumulates, and it is difficult to clean.

Steps

1. Heat the oven to 250 ºF – 300 ºF (120 ºC – 150 ºC).
2. Coat the pan with lard or bacon grease. Don’t use a liquid vegetable oil because it will leave a sticky surface and the pan will not be properly seasoned.
3. Put the pan in the oven. In 15 minutes, remove the pan & pour out any excess grease.
4. Place the pan back in the oven and bake for 2 hours.
5. Repeating this process several times is recommended as it will help create a stronger “seasoning” bond. Also, when you put the pan into service, it is recommended that you use it initially for foods high in fat, such as bacon or foods cooked with fat, because the grease from these foods will help strengthen the seasoning.

Tips

• To reseason a pan: just clean, dry and follow the steps above again.
• To remove rust, use “Naval Jelly”, available at most hardware stores or home depot-type places. Follow the instructions on the bottle, they’re pretty straight forward.
• For vegetarians, a vegetarian margarine or hard fat can be used as a substitute for the lard or bacon grease. Alternatively, seasoning will occur with repeated use over time of olive or peanut oils and cleaning out after use with a brown paper towel or similar wiping cloth.