The use of cast iron cookware goes back a long way and almost everyone recognizes what a cast iron skillet looks like. Its that really heavy frying pan that a lot of people had and you’d always see cowboys using on the trail in old western movies. I’ve been using cast iron cookware for many years and prefer it to traditional pans due to their evenness in heating and durability. Just like with anything else, if you take care of them, they will last a long time.
Beyond durability, cast iron cookware is incredibly flexible. Consider a cast iron skillet for a moment. A comparable coated skillet likely will have a rubber or plastic handle and is only to be used on the stove top. However, you can put a cast iron skillet in an oven or on the grill and it wont hurt the pan at all. You can cook traditional foods like eggs, bacon, steaks, etc or you could use it to make desserts, casseroles, or other types of foods where you might consider another piece of cookware.
Cast iron cookware is fairly easy to keep clean and maintain, but there are some considerations when doing so. Soap, water, and a sponge of some type (along with a little elbow grease for those stubborn areas) is generally good enough for most traditional cookware. However, the general rule with cast iron is to not use dish soap to clean them, as it would affect the “seasoning” of the skillet. Seasoning a cast iron skillet keeps it from rusting and also increases its non-stick ability. A cast iron skillet will never be as non-stick as something coated in Teflon, but a well maintained skillet will come pretty close.
A lot of cast iron comes pre-seasoned. There are all kinds of resources online for how to season a cast iron skillet. If your skillet becomes compromised (due to rust or lack of maintenance), this is where you would clean the skillet with soap and water (and probably something to get rid of the rust). The soap will remove any oils that were part of the pan. You would then re-coat the interior of the pan with some sort of oil and bake the pan for a period of time. Alternately, you could heat it on the stove for a period of time as well. Both work, but baking I think is just more convenient because you don’t have to babysit it as much.
I recently purchased a new grill/smoker that came with a cast iron griddle to use with it. The recommendation for seasoning was to cook bacon on it. I 100% approve of this method (as anyone who knows me will attest of my love of bacon) and can really be used on any cast iron. While I approve of this method, its important to also note that you want to make sure you thoroughly wipe down any excess when cleaning the grill so that there is only a thin layer.
The winter was not kind to this cast iron griddle though. I went out a couple of weeks ago to fire up the grill and cook some smash burgers on it and the griddle was a disaster. I clearly did not preserve it well enough to hold up to the winter months of storage in my garage. The mistake I made was leaving it unwrapped in the elements and didn’t verify that it was well coated before doing so. For convenience, I bought a cast iron griddle cleaning kit, which contained a griddle scraper, a pumice stone for stubborn stains, and a scratch pad (I believe this one is nylon, but steel wool or copper works well too). I followed the above general procedure to get all the rust and crap off of the griddle. I then sat it on top of my stove and turned both burners on, sprayed avocado oil on it and let it heat up. I repeated the oil process a couple times to give it a good coating. Whats interesting is that my regular sear/smoking grates were not affected by this issue. To be fair, they did get more use than the griddle did last year, so perhaps I just didn’t season the griddle well enough. We’ll fix that and be smarter for next season.
Cleaning up the cast iron after each use is relatively easy. Depending on the cookware, its really just a matter of running some hot water (let it get as hot as you can) in the pan and let it soak while it cools. Alternatively, you can wait for the pan to cool down and then soak it for a short time. You can use a scouring pad of some kind (Dollar Tree sells stainless and copper for $1.25) to get the bits of stuff off the pain. Do this when running the hot water in the pan to discard the mess into the sink. Wipe out all the water from the pan. While the pan is still warm, rub a little oil on the inside of the pan to preserve the seasoning.
My plan for regular cleaning of the cast iron griddle is similar. I’ll put hot water in a spray bottle and spray the surface of the griddle. Ill then use the griddle scraper to get all the large bits and the scouring pad to wipe down the rest. Once done, I’ll wipe the water away and then re-oil the surface. By the way, cooking spray works really well for this. I keep it around primarily for this purpose. You dont have to use a high quality oil. In fact, the Lodge Seasoning Spray is just canola oil spray – which you can buy inexpensive versions of at most grocery stores. You dont need a name brand spray.
While a scouring pad is great, they do get grungy and gross after awhile. For the price, its not a big deal to replace them when this happens. I’ve been using a chain-mail cleaning pad I found on Amazon awhile back and its great! Its basically a piece of rubber with chain-mail (yes, the same stuff that was used for armor) wrapped around it. It works very well for scrubbing stuff off of a pan and doesnt get as grungy and gross as a scouring pad might.
Lately, Id been curious about what was available for cast iron pots. Ive had a 5qt non enamel dutch oven for years, but I felt like I could use a couple of smaller pans. I did find a smaller 2 qt dutch oven and a 1qt sauce pan that will both be useful in the future.
In my own cooking, I find that I rarely use anything other than cast iron. I have a large stock pot that I use on occasion for boiling cauliflower. Otherwise, I’m strictly a cast iron guy (unless I’m using my Instant Pot – which also gets a lot of use).