Microblog Memes

If you use regular dish soap (i.e. dawn), you most certainly can (and should) wash it. However, the trick is that you absolutely must dry it, put a light coat of oil, and then bake it to keep it from rusting. I preheat the oven to 450°F and then turn off the oven, and let the pan sit until it’s cool enough to the touch to put away.

Just leave it on the stove on maximum heat for one hour after each use, then chip off the carbonized chunks of asphalt that you've just created. 100% sterilized, no washing required, and smells just like your big bad diesel pickup exhaust.

Afer work, I once made dinner for my housemates. After the meal, one of the housemates was like: "if you cooked, you gotta wash the dishes!" ok, so I washed the dishes. After the dishes, the housemate was like: "If you used the cast-iron pan, you have to 'season' it with oil!" and I was like: wtf I worked all day, I cooked, I did the dishes, now I have to cook again just to make the pan happy?!? So I never used a cast-iron pan again.

I had a roommate that did this. Except their reason for not cleaning it was that they thought all that stuff leftover was what is called seasoning. AND they wanted the cast iron seasoning to flavor their dishes.

I tried to gently explain the misconceptions, but they believed their grandma instead of me.

Yall need the The Food Lab better cooking with science book by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. He has a whole section on proper cleaning and seasoning of a cast iron skillet.

99% of all the old "don't wash cast iron!" shit you hear is antiquated information from back in the day when they used lye for soap.

There is absolutely no reason today to not wash your cast iron today. That doesnt mean you always have to, though. Often just wiping it out with a damp rag is more than enough, and if you have a lot of really stuck on shit.. You can scrub it with a slurry made up of salt, water, and soap (Make sure you use little water so the salt doesnt dissolve into the water and disappear). The salt will provide some abrasive scrubbing without damaging the cure.

outside of that, again, if you choose to, you can absolutely wash it. Warm water and soap, dry it off, put it on a hot burner for a bit to dry off any remaining water.. and if you are using it again tomorrow, you're done. If you're not gonna use it for a while, then a very very light coat of oil would be wise until you use it next time.

and just in case anyone wants a good way to cure.. I cover my cast iron in a thin layer of lard, and put it on a rocket hot grill, and leave it until it stops smoking. then i take it off, let it sit until i can handle it again.. put another coat of lard on, and repeat. a couple coats should give you a great starting base to build your cure up from.. and its not something you have to do often unless you really abuse your cast iron.

So if you just wiped it out with a paper towel, how many years do you think one could go before getting actually sick? I'll volunteer to be a test subject if I find a cheap cast iron. Apparently I'm supposed to get away from my non stick pans anyways