Just realized most people don't know how to season cast iron right

I was at a friend's BBQ last weekend and watched him scrub his cast iron pan with soap and a steel wool pad. He said it was 'clean' and I just stared at him. That pan had years of seasoning gone in 5 minutes. People think you treat cast iron like stainless steel and that drives me nuts. If you use dish soap on seasoned iron you're stripping everything good off it. How many of you actually know the difference between seasoning and just dirty oil?

3 comments

3 Comments

sarah_hart1mo ago

Your friend scrubbing that pan with steel wool just made me wince, that poor thing.

ivan_mason1mo ago

@sarah_hart, you are absolutely right. Steel wool on a non-stick pan is a one-way ticket to scratched up, flaking surfaces. That coating is delicate and once it's damaged it starts peeling into your food. A soft sponge is all those pans need, or at worst a plastic scrubber. Hard to watch someone ruin good cookware like that.

harper6931mo ago

Steel wool on nonstick should be a crime honestly. That coating is so fragile and once it scratches you're basically eating little bits of teflon forever. I've seen people do this and it makes me want to grab the pan out of their hands. Just use a soft sponge people, it's not hard.