Naturally Seasoning Your Cast Iron Pan
There are very few more satisfying feelings than agitating your eggs on a cast iron skillet and seeing a clean pan underneath. This clean pan is a beacon of accomplishment, it means you did it right, your cast iron has successfully been seasoned. And yes, that does mean you’re better than everyone else. Especially the non-stick users, their chemical filled pans don’t impress me. But I do hope you stick around and learn why the natural way of seasoning your very own cast iron skillet is better for your cooking and your health.
There is more than one way to skin a cat and there is more than one way to season a cast iron. You can go the traditional and most googled route and use some kind of mystery mineral oil. I cannot recommend using an oil that has a prerequisite of just being clear and odorless. If you remember in my last essay I said, and I quote “With those being the only rules, you could be cooking in my snot, because that is also clear and odorless.” On the other hand, we could just use a vegetable or seed oil but, that is arguably worse than the mineral oil. When a vegetable or seed oil is cooked over a certain temperature it begins to lose its nutritional value and flavor. It also produces toxic fumes and hazardous substances called free radicals. In simple terms free radicals are unstable atoms that can damage cells and cause illness. I don’t know about you but if there is literally any other option in the world than using mineral oil, vegetable oil, or seed oil I’m going to use it. Luckily for you there is an answer and people have been cooking with it since two cavemen hit some rocks together and created magic hot light… I’m talking about fire, guys.
Animal fats once again are here to save the day. Are you starting to sense a theme?? They are stable to cook with, they taste amazing, they have excellent nutritional value and your body literally needs animal fats to thrive. There are tons of options to use. You have butter, ghee (clarified butter), tallow (beef fat), bacon grease, and lard (pork fat). Here’s a quick and easy tip to jump start seasoning your cast iron: Cook up a whole pack of bacon and after removing the bacon let that glorious fat solidify in the pan. Then, when you’re ready to cook again, heat up that fat, dump the excess into a mason jar for later use and you’re good to go with your next batch of whatever it is you wanna cook. I’d recommend a nice steak. And animal fat doesn’t stop there! They also provide building blocks for our cell membranes, help our hormones regulate, act as vehicles to take important vitamins such as A, D, E and K throughout our bodies, and make it so that our bodies can absorb the nutrients we eat. Animal fats do beautiful things for our bodies so wouldn’t it make sense that we try to include them in our diet as much as possible?
Okay, now we know oils are bad and fats are good, let’s work on applying that knowledge and focus on these pans! What I do personally is a little unorthodox, but if you’re taking the time to read this, I’m guessing you’re probably a little unorthodox too. In order to get your pans as seasoned as mine you can never wash them and I’m not just talking about with soap, Imagine that your cast iron is a cat and will attack you If you touch it with water. I recommend just wiping/scraping out your cast iron and adding in more fat each time you cook. I promise if you adopt this style of cooking with your cast iron will not only taste better and better but will also be an overall more enjoyable experience.
I should also mention that I have cast irons for specific things I cook. I have an egg cast iron that I season with ghee and butter. I have a whole meat cast iron that I cook things like shanks and steaks in. I just leave the fat left over from the meat to season what I put in next. And finally, I have a ground meat cast iron, that follows the same principles as the whole meat pan. By naturally seasoning your cast irons you will be able to keep your pans like this indefinitely and the cast iron you create will be able to be shared within your family for generations. Beautiful to think about, huh?
I hope this essay has convinced you to ditch your non-stick aluminum pans and become one of those people who exclusively cooks in a cast iron skillet. You will go to a restaurant wondering what they are cooking your food in. Are they using animal fats or toxic oils? Are they using a nice seasoned cast iron skillet or are they cooking your food on glorified plastic? The world outside of your home is a scary place with a lot of unknowns, but you just have to do your best and make sure you at least ask if your food can be prepared the way you desire. Will it always work out? No. But those times when it does you will be better for it, not only physically but mentally as well. Now go and enjoy your next meal, brought to you by your beautiful, naturally seasoned, cast iron skillet