how do you reseason a pan properly?

I love my 10-inch cast iron skillet, which cost me only a few dollars at an estate sale. I use it for making fritattas (one of the few dishes I can sneak extra vegetables into that my son will eat) and slide it under the broiler to set the top of the eggs and melt some cheese on top. In addition to cornbread, I have used it to bake deep chicken pot-pies and apple pies.

To reseason a cast iron pan, wipe a thin layer of oil or grease over the pan. Then put it in the oven for an hour or so on fairly low heat, maybe 200 to 250.

Instead of formally reseasoning my pans when I scorch their coatings off (which happens more often than it should), I just keep cooking with them. I probably wouldn’t bake anything in a cast iron pan without seasoning, but it’ll work fine for sauteing or making a stew, etc. Just heat it up and add a little oil. After a couple more recipes, voila, a new seasoning is there. I use my cast iron pans almost every day, so it doesn’t take long for the new seasoning to build up.

Oh, and my favorite cast iron frying pan was my grandmother’s. I think of her whenever I pull it out.

Better way to reseason -- cook something very fatty. Fried chicken in 1 inch of oil. Breakfast sausage. Bacon, low and slow. Schnitzel. You are getting two-for-the-price-of-one. Yummy food, plus a long heat with ample fat to reseason the pan. This has worked consistently for me, and my pans now live on top of my stove. They make way only for kettles, or for one beloved stainless pan with a heavy bottom that reappears only to make scrambled eggs or if I need a lid for something.

The article states that once the pan is seasoned, you can use it for anything. This is true, but applies to the long-term seasoning that comes from months or years of use and good care. The initial seasoning isn’t enough (do spend the extra couple dollars to get the pans pre-seasoned, but know that it only replaces most of the initial seasoning and doesn’t give you a pan like grandma had).

You can cook in high fat applications right away, but it will take a few months before you can do low oil without anything sticking and longer before you can do cornbread. Eggs take quite a while. But the pans last longer than humans do and all of this is worth it.

I have stainless pots for soup and other liquids, my husband keeps one evil nonstick for eggs, and we have a carbon steel pan shaped like a wok (similar seasoning requirements). Other than that, we use cast iron (acquired at our wedding 3+ years ago) for everything. And, yes, I finally made cornbread in it.

I love my cast iron pan. It makes everything good. I especially love making home fried potatoes in the skillet on the weekends. I really can’t think of a better way to start the morning.

A 12” cast iron skillet is often my choice for raosting a chicken or a pork loin. It makes it easy to transfer the pan to the stovetop for deglazing and reducing those delicious juices and bits.

I have been ‘collecting’ cast iron skillets and dutch ovens for years. Nothing braises stew meat better!

I have an article with some history and more information about about cast iron. Read it here.

Yes, yes, yes! I love cast iron. I have a couple of hefty (and expensive) copper skillets, but what I find myself using 90 percent of the time are my cast-iron skillet (my mom’s, which was my grandmother’s), a Chinese hammered cast-iron wok, and my Staub Dutch ovens (which the company calls cocottes). The Staub pieces weren’t especially inexpensive (I guess for all that fancy glaze and the nubbed lids), but I use them every single day.
And I agree, estate sales and thrift shops are fantastic places to find perfectly good cast iron for next to nothing.
Best kind of cookware one can have in the kitchen, if you ask me.

After every use wipe/lightly scrub out food debris under warm running water. Put the pan back on the heat with a bit of any cooking oil. After it heats up turn off the heat. I use a piece of crumbled clean newspaper to wipe the entire inside of the pan with the warm oil. Compost the newspaper and let the pan just cool down with the new layer of oil. It works like a dream every time!

I have an 8” skillet that was my great-grandfather’s, a deep 12” that was my grandmother’s, a large 18” with a glass cover that my dad found, and my most recent addition is a griddle that I bought at a flea market. It fits quite nicely over my electric stove burners, and I cook pancakes and french toast on it (often with bacon grease). I also figured out that one of the BEST ways to clean these up is with the nylon scrapers that I got with my Pampered Chef stoneware - it’s amazing!

I was looking at the mothering.com discussion boards the other day, and someone posted a dilemma which amused me: she’d recently found a cast iron skillet along the side of the road and was trying to decide whether it was safe to use it. Consensus was yes--she had her husband grind it way down until it was no longer seasoned, then seasoned it herself and put it to good use. People there had all sorts of good stories about cast iron...

I use my cast iron skillets every day for cooking. Initially I bought a set which were for “campfire” cooking. :) I remember my grandmother always used hers (gas stove) and when it got built up with stuff she would take it to a guy who would use his welding torch and cut the gunk off and it would be good as new. I couldn’t live without mine, and it makes the best cornbread!