A Quick Cast Iron Follow Up
This follow up to my previous post on seasoning your cast iron pan comes from my mom. Hi Mom!
Photo by Sarah Immel Photography
Did you know that after seasoning, you should never wash your cast iron with soap and water? Otherwise it will rust and you will have to keep re-seasoning it. Instead, follow these three simple steps to keep your cast iron beautiful:
1) After cooking, remove food from the pan and pour some very coarse salt (any variety of sea salt will work great) into your pan. Let this salt sit in the pan for awhile and “absorb” the food you just cooked.
2) Next, take a cloth dampened with oil (vegetable or olive works perfectly) and wipe out the salt. The grit in the bottom of the pan will come right out, and as we noted earlier, the oil helps the pan to achieve that lovely smooth patina over time.
3) Lastly, wipe a very thin layer of oil into the pan again to absorb. Your cast iron pan is now clean and ready for its next use (I promise, there will be no leftover food, germs or odors to worry about).
Properly caring for your cast iron pan can make it last forever…literally. Think of it like a family heirloom piece and treat it as such, because it will definitely last from this generation to the next.
Happy Cooking!
Thank you for your helpful directions and follow up. Don’t worry, I headed your advice – I always have a layer of foil on the bottom of my oven (made that mistake too many times) but i beefed it up this time around and it made a no-mess clean up. I would, however, remind people that even at 325 degrees, your oil can smoke – I had guests over and it was an odd explanation on my part.
I’d love it if you shared some of your favorite cast iron directions with us, I’m still new to cooking on one so I want to get the most out of it