Best way to season cast iron?
My personal favorite way of seasoning new or neglected cast iron is to cook bacon in it a few times. I’ve also heard of lathering it with oil and sticking it in the oven for a few hours, or seasoning with fat over a campfire.
What’s your technique?
December 6th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Cooking with LOTS of grease definitely adds to the ’seasoning’ of cast iron!! Once it’s seasoned it will never let you down!! Do NOT dishwasher it…do NOT wash it!!….take a warm rag and just towel it out…if you can’t do that ….it’s NOT seasoned yet!!
LU!
ps-if its really NEW cast iron you have to douse it in vegetable oil and put in a slow (250) oven for at least 3 hours…1/2 way through, I would carefully apply oil again!!….its well worth the inital work!!
December 14th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Heat the pan on the stove until it is too hot to touch. Pour a thin coat of oil into the pan, then rub it in with a wad of paper towels (enough to protect your hand from the hot pan). Let the pan cool, then repeat several times.
Our cast iron pans are black and shiny, definitely well-seasoned, but like my parents, we use detergent when we wash them–once they’re well-seasoned, it doesn’t hurt them. Then we dry them on the stove, and re-oil them as above if we have time. We store them on the stove, because we use them regularly.