My husband and I have unresolvable differences

[sholio]

If only I had known before I married him. :(

Poll #25352

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 65

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What is the proper way to care for cast iron cookware?

View Answers

Wash, wipe dry, oil
26 (40.0%)

Wash and allow to air dry at its leisure like a BARBARIAN
7 (10.8%)

You are both wrong and I'm going to tell you about it.
13 (20.0%)

Well, your first mistake was cooking in cast iron in the first place.
19 (29.2%)

He insists that it's bad for the iron to oil it before it's completely dry because otherwise it traps water underneath the oil layer, but I can't see how that could possibly be worse than letting it RUST. My lot in life is to find rusting cast iron cookware lying about the kitchen on a semi-daily basis and oil it back to health, like the Sisyphus of skillets.

ETA: Tone is always hard on the internet, but I hope it comes through that this poll is flippant and I don't actually think it matters all that much. The thing I love best about cast iron is that it is literally INDESTRUCTIBLE and couldn't care less if you let it sit around and rust or oil it immediately, whether you use soap on it (his way) or no soap (my way, although I have slowly come around to the Way of Soap). QED: the fact that we've been doing this for 20 years and the cast iron is still exactly the same regardless of which of us is in charge of it. The point of the poll is that there is no point. All of that being said, oiling it is obviously the right way and I am glad so many of you agree that he is WRONG.

Comments

[yhlee]

This is one reason why I refuse to buy cast-iron cookware. XD

[sholio]

I would say that I can't believe I'm a person who has strong feelings on the right and wrong way to care for cast-iron cookware but actually it's completely unsurprising.

[ambyr]

I am not a cast iron person, but K is, and his strategy is to wash, then put back on the burner on low while keeping a close eye until heat evaporation has rendered it bone dry again.

[sholio]

Hmm, I wonder if that would work to satisfy Orion's need for ABSOLUTE PERFECT DRYNESS without the rust.

[ivyfic]

My girlfriend uses cast iron cookware. Since we moved in together, she's been telling me I should feel free to use it, and I'm like....nah. I'm good.

[sheron]

Brief google reveals your way is the right way: https://www.southernliving.com/kitchen-assistant/cast-iron-skillet-care

Actually it suggests to: "dry it thoroughly with a towel and return it to a warm oven for 10 minutes" which sounds ideal and won't take forever.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

^^^ this is much what I was going to say. We wash ours, usually without soap but with chain mail for cast iron (Google it; it's a good thing!), and then we put it on a burner on low for 15–20 minutes. Every once in a while, we put a little oil in before we put it on a burner. You don't need to oil it every time, but doing so won't hurt it. Oiling it before it's fully dry won't really hurt it.

It's really hard to hurt cast iron!

[yalumesse]

I'm sorry it has come to this. Divorce has happened for less, but never for anything less vital to life.

If I cook it's usually in the microwave or a teflon pan.

[princessofgeeks]

I wash with the MEREST DRIP of soap. Scrub it with a metal scrubber.

Then after rinsing, I put the lid and the pan on the gas range and dry them quickly with the heat.

Then I scrub them both with paper towels until they don't come away black.

Then I oil them.

[xparrot]

I used to use only a teeny drip of soap, but then I realized I had another pot (not cast iron) with polymerized oil burned on the bottom, and a little soap didn't do jack to get it off...or a lot of soap, or any amount of scrubbing; I had to use a metal paint scraper to remove it. So since then I use soap without reservation on my cast iron and it's perfectly happy!

[lunabee34]

I'm firmly on your side.

[xparrot]

I usually wipe dry, then let sit for a few minutes to completely dry, then oil it. So maybe a compromise?

[sholio]

That one might actually work for us - in fact it's probably an improvement over my quick-and-dirty method (which admittedly is mostly because it's just easier for me to do it all at once than remember to do something else later). Hmmmm.

[affreca]

Better than my husbands method, which seems to be to wait until you want to use it again to wash it.

[sholio]

Noooooooo. ;__;

[leesa_perrie]

I have no idea! But I do feel your pain.

Sometimes I wish I knew that hubby has a thing about Not Closing Cupboard Doors and Drawers properly after use! It can drive me a bit batty sometimes, though he's probably totally unaware of that, lol!

EDIT: I, also, was not being serious about the cupboard issue. It doesn't really drive me all that batty. I realise now it probably didn't come across how I meant it to, nor the 'feel your pain' comment. Should have put a smiley face after that!

[resonant]

If you scrape it and wipe/wash it when it's fresh off the heat, it dried right away and the only downside is that your forearms are constantly speckled with burns.

(Having said that, I've now had a small cast iron roaster for a year and you will pry that thing from my cold dead blistered fingers because it is the greatest.)

[recessional]

my actual answer is “if it’s properly seasoned this matters way less than one might apparently think and if it’s rusting then there’s probably something to fix about the seasoning” but also I hate cast iron frying pans for anything other than weaponry and this kind of thing is totally why

[rachelmanija]

Wipe clean, wash, leave a little water and put back on the burner.

[philomytha]

Oh dear, I abuse my cast iron pan all the time, I leave it standing wet, I leave it standing wet with other stuff piled on top of it, my husband leaves it soaking full of soap for hours, I haven’t seasoned it since I first got it five years ago. It never seems to rust. My only theory as to why is that I cook in it every day, sometimes multiple times, so it’s always being heated up with oil in it. But for me the whole point of a cast iron pan is that I can abuse it. It’s the enamelled stuff that ruins easily, plain cast iron is tough.

[sholio]

Yeah, to be honest, as flippant as I am with the above, ours gets soaked all the time (and rusted all the time) and it's perfectly fine, which is what I love about the stuff. It's indestructible! I got a set of steel cookware for a wedding present that came a whole list of things you weren't allowed to cook in it without ruining it, including EGGS, and ... nope. I grew up with cast iron, and I will be forever loyal.

[sophia_sol]

I use your method, BUT when I wash it, it's under hot enough water for long enough that the pan gets a bit warm, so after I dry it off the remaining traces of water evaporate in moments. So that it is perfectly bone dry before oiling but doesn't require me to be a person who has any patience!

[madripoor_rose]

This is why my mother threw all her cast iron out into the garage in 1982.

[magistrate]

I scrub with water and a stiff brush and no soap – occasionally salt, if I feel like I really need the extra abrasiveness, which I basically never do – then put the pan on a low burner until it's dry, and then wipe down with flax oil while still warm, and then aggressively wipe dry the flax oil until it's shiny but won't leave a residue to the touch. Because approximation of science, I guess? I've never gone into the whole stripping-and-oven-seasoning thing, but my cast-iron is still pleasantly nonstick.

[sovay]

What is the proper way to care for cast iron cookware?

It would never have occurred to me to oil our indispensable cast-iron skillet after washing and drying it and before putting it away, but that's because it's at least fifty years old—it belonged to my grandparents—and has over time been seasoned to the point where it naturally repels water and all we have to do is not wreck it. I'm in favor of your cookware not rusting, though.

[muccamukk]

I put it on low heat on the element to dry it, then oil it.

[starwatcher]

.
If I was mean, I'd check "Well, your first mistake was cooking in cast iron in the first place." I watched my mom fuss with cast iron (but the wrong kind of fussing) and decided it wasn't for me. But you like it, so my opinion doesn't matter.

(I'm also impressed with your strength. I need both hands to lift a 9-inch cast-iron skillet and, since I'm short, lifting it high enough to set on the stovetop is problematic. I keep a 4-inch high stepstool in the kitchen {made it myself} for easier stove/counter reach, but there's not a lot of space for extending a foot if I need to brace.)

Everything I've read says, "Wash, wipe dry, oil" is the correct way to go -- though I'd wait for 30 minutes or so for evaporation before oiling, to take care of the faintest residue of moisture left even after wiping. Or, as others have suggested, put in warm oven or on warm stovetop to encourage the evaporation before oiling.

Although -- depending on what you're cooking, you may not need to wash each time you use it. My dad said that his mother didn't wash if the cooking used or produced lots of oil, like cooking bacon or deep-frying chicken or fish. She'd just pour off the oil or bacon grease, wipe up the food residue and excess oil/grease, then put the lid on to keep out dust. Since she used it daily, the oil/grease didn't have time to get rancid, and the pan was already seasoned for the next cooking session.
.

[lilacsigil]

Yes, it's heavy! I can lift a 9-inch pan with one hand only when it's not arthritis season.

[silverflight8]

I do not know the Right Way and that's partly why I have never bought cast iron.

Also it's really heavy. LOL

[melannen]

Wash?

You just keep adding more oil or bacon grease whenever you get low. Otherwise you don't get the proper sort of good black crunchy bits in the bottom. :P

(Actual answer: like sovay all of my cast iron is third-, possibly fourth- generation, so the question of seasoning from scratch has not really come up, and most of the time "wipe it clear with a towel, rinse, dry" is all I need to do. But my understanding is also that seasoning aside, there's manufacturing differences in modern cast iron that mean it doesn't work the same way. Also I use the Pyrex for the day-to-day.)

(But I have used the heirloom cast iron for a two-week camping trip where it stayed on the camp stove full of grease - covered, but in the weather - the whole two weeks and was still trucking along. We cooked in it two meals a day though.)

[rose_griffes]

Wash (no soap, of course), dry for 4 minutes over medium-low heat on an electrical burner. (Time difference probably needed if using a gas stove.)

No oil. *shrug*

[lyr]

If it's enameled, fine, wash it. But my cast iron skillet is only scoured with olive oil, then wrapped in cloth. No soap or water ever.

[cathexys]

That!!!

(Though I have to admit now that I have an enameled one, I so very much love using it and washing it (sometimes even with soap :) and still drying it right away!

[(Anonymous)]

Wash, preferably while the pan is still hot, I find that grease and stuck on bits come off easiest that way. Let it sit upside down for a minute for the water to mostly drain or evaporate off. Then stick it on a burner to dry out the remaining water. Oil if it looks dry.

-T