To me, someone who celebrates a bit more of the spectrum than most: Metal hot. Make food hot.
Non-stick means easier cleanup, but my wife seems to think cast-iron is necessary for certain things (searing a prime rib roast, for example.).
After I figure those out, then I gotta figure out gas vs. electric vs. induction vs infrared…
Metal hot. Makes food hot. Yes.
But!!
Cold food makes hot pan cold.
Cast iron has a lot of thermal mass, so when you put a cold piece of meat on it it doesn’t immediately get cold and stop cooking for a bit. Thin pans without it don’t keep hot, hot so they don’t sear long enough and you don’t get the maillard reaction and the tasty brown crust.
This is exactly what I was going to say. More hot stuff means the temperature spikes get flattened.
Very useful for electric ranges.
This is a HUGE “Yes, but.”
Entering adulthood, I got cheap run of the mill non stick pans, they work until they dont.
Then we tried cast iron. Gotta oil it, cure it, and don’t use soap to wash it. Some extra work, but it worked great.
Now, I’m rocking stainless steel. Less work than the cast iron, but you need to preheat the pan before you put anything in it. If you do this, it’s just as nonstick as the others, and it’s a lot lighter and easier than the iron, and I think they are less expensive than cast iron, but I haven’t compared in a very long time.
FYI, you can wash cast iron with soap.
Not using soap is a hold over from when soaps were more caustic (e.g. lye soap).
FYI, you can wash cast iron with soap.
Only if you re-season it afterwards. Otherwise it starts to rust because the seasoning is what protects it from oxidation
Really not. See the lye comments.
I generally wash with dish soap and a chainmail scrubber, then dry with a paper towel. If I remember I might spread a tiny amount of oil.
Yeah I could do better but the point is I’ve done almost nothing to care for them in years.
Pure iron oxidizes without the high carbon content to make it stainless and will absolutely rust if you don’t at least oil it after washing with soap, but seasoning it properly definitely makes a difference in how it cooks.
I own 4 different size/shape cast iron and I speak from experience. Any decent dish soap will still strip the oils that are acting as a barrier to the open air and oxidation, doesn’t have to be lye-based
Cast iron is extremely forgiving of improper treatment. And even if it eventually rusts, you can fix it. I’ve been using cast iron as my primary skillets since pandemic. I know I don’t treat them like I should, but they’re not yet rusted, still have an easy to clean surface that food doesn’t stick to. I’ll probably have to reseason eventually but if that’s not until I’d normally have to replace non-stick, I’m way ahead without putting in any extra work
Edit: sure, standard three cast iron skillets, and cast iron Dutch oven. I also have a set of stainless pans, and some induction ready non-stick for company
It only oxidizes when water can reach the iron. If you have a good seasoning on it, mild dish soap can’t lift it off, and water can’t reach the iron.
Making sure it’s completely dry (I dry mine with heat on the stove) and adding a thin layer of oil is a good idea too. There are often parts of the pan that aren’t well seasoned. On mine, it’s the part that touches the stove that’s most likely to rust.
If your seasoning rinses off with mild soap and water, you might want to try some different seasoning methods. That might mean using a different oil, different temperature, longer heat time for the seasoning, etc. Or you might want to season it with thinner layers of oil multiple times in a row.
Thanks for the tip. I saw many people saying both sides, so I figured I’d just avoid soap and not find out for myself.
If you wash your cast iron with eg Dawn dish soap, you can definitely clean it down to bare metal and it will rust. I usually will clean the cast iron pan last and use the sponge that just has a small amount of soap left in it. Just watch it as you clean, if the shiny hard coating seems to be going away, rinse out the soap and make something greasy next time you use the pan to replenish it.
If you have a good seasoning, it won’t wash off. “Seasoning” is the process of polymerizing oil. That hardens the oil and binds it to the surface. You’re more likely to burn the seasoning off or to scratch the seasoning and have it flake off than take it off with dish soap.
Whether you use soap or not, dry it on the stove and give it a light coat of oil after you clean it.
Thank you for helping to dispel this myth. It is truly disgusting the state that some people leave their cast iron pans in, the fact that people eat the food from them after not having washed it for years is terrifying.
The pans regularly get above boiling temperatures. They’re sterile
Sterile and clean aren’t the same thing.
Then wipe it with a paper towel when it’s cool like a normal person
Cast iron is vastly superior to non stick. You can get it hotter, it stays hot when you put food in it, you can use metal utensils, no horrible chemicals like pfas.
they also last significantly longer. I’m using pans I got from my grandma. She got them from her mom. and If i had kids, they’d probably get them after I was done with them.
My favorite pan is from the 70s and I got it out of tge trash.
My family uses our cast iron skillets daily. We have one that is almost exclusively for eggs, and one for meat.
Cast iron wants to be used often and if you really like cooking, will eventually become your go-to. But not everyone gets there; for a lot of people it is counterintuitive to have a pan that you only scrub any bits off and rinse with plain water. Actually, our egg pan only gets wiped out with paper towels because its so slippery now. I don’t think I’ve scrubbed it in months.
If you really want to use your pans:
- Best: cast iron
- Better: stainless steel or enameled
- Good: high quality nonstick like HexClad
- Never: cheap non-stick
We use the absolute hell out of our cast iron and our stainless steel. They all get scrubbed with a metal Chore-Boy scrubbee. Only the stainless gets soap.
I mean honestly you should be using soap and water on it and not just wiping it out. It doesn’t hurt anything to you soap and water. I use cast iron daily I’ve got six odd pans or something like that that I use and not ever had one issue with utilizing the soap and water on it.
Cast iron has a crap ton of mass compared to other pans you mentioned, so if you’re searing a stake you’re going to have a more consistent temp as the temperatures of the pan and the steak equilize. Enough to make a difference? No idea but it could possibly have something to it there
For me, cast iron are by far my most used pans. You know how flannel starts out sort of awful but gets better and better as it gets older? That’s cast iron. Starts out sticky PITA but over time becomes satisfying satiny nonstick surface. I’ve always used them a lot so that’s how my cooking style evolved.
We also have one steel pan we call the Stick pan, sometimes you want food to stick so you can deglaze. My kids use it for potsticker dumplings, and they like it also because it’s lighter, cast iron is heavy. And of course a rice and pasta pot, those are steel.
I don’t buy “nonstick” pans, they don’t last and I’m not convinced they are safe.
Cast iron is fairly cheap and reliably buy it for life. Non stick pans are so delicate that you can’t even use metal tools with them and their handles are usually plastic so melt if you put them in the oven, and even then they won’t last more than a few years.
All of my pans are cast iron. For saucepans I have stainless steel. Never really had a problem with cleanup, what are you doing?
No. It’s more versatile than most pans, but that starts and ends with “you can put it in the oven”.
The cast iron cult is just as other weird subculture that developed from people who are online too much. They’re pans. They’re fine.
- You can use metal flippers.
- you can scour
- you can sandblast
- you can stack them inside each other without eating teflon flakes
And most importantly they can last a lifetime. I got frustrated replacing non-stick pans every decade or so, now I expect not ever to do that again
Cast iron is pretty good at almost everything, but isn’t the best at anything.
For searing meat at high temps, I’ve settled on stainless steel. It’s easy to clean and maintain, and the typical 3-ply or 5-ply cladding has much better heat transfer characteristics than cast iron (which is a mediocre heat conductor masked by the fact that it’s so heavy and thick that it takes on a lot of thermal mass to aid in searing). You don’t have to worry about metal utensils or harsh scrubbers scratching the surface. And you don’t have to worry about acidic ingredients messing with the surface, either.
For things that need nonstick characteristics, like eggs, I cycle through nonstick on a short replacement cycle (once every 2 or 3 years). I might get a carbon steel one day but I’m not in a hurry.
The 5 ply stuff is really good. The ones I have are just as heavy as the cast iron but they can go in the dishwasher so that makes them my favorite. They cost way more than cast iron though
Eggs tend to cook rather well on cast iron so long as you use butter/tallow/fat/etc. and aren’t scrambling them.
Unfortunately I scramble my eggs nowadays so I don’t have much reason to use my cast iron pan anymore :(
I scramble eggs in my cast iron all the time. No issues. What issues are you having with that?
Watch a video on how to cook properly on a stainless pan. Changed my outlook on from how I thought they were trash to they are my favorite to use in daily stove cooking.
Also I use steel wool to clean them when it’s needed.
Carbon steel is great as well and to be treated like cast iron on the seasoning side of things. The woks usually heat up really quickly and pretty non stick like iron and it’s totally ok to use metal cooking utensils.
I stay away from chemically non stick just from how toxic that stuff becomes after it ages past it’s prime.
Define “better”.
It’s heat- when preheated properly- is much more even and it holds it quite a bit better. This of course, requires preheating (and that takes a long moment.)
when properly seasoned and oiled, the pan is genuinely nonstick to the same degree as most PTFE pan out there (without all the nasty plastics flaking off, and able to be get up to a proper temperature for searing in the first place…) But of course, this means keeping your pan properly seasoned.
I’m not a fan of lodge cast iron, though, IMO its too much work to develop and maintain that level of seasoning (because of it’s surface. Victoria is a better inexpensive option if you’re looking to buy new.) But I also rock a lodge when camping (Because I don’t want to subject my really nice, inherited stuff to campfire cooking.) but cast iron can take the abuse of cooking right on coals and other campfire torture (like being cleaned with sand.)
Of course, you have to clean up/care for that camp pan after the fact.
The point being made is that everyone has a different understanding of what is “best”, cast iron does require a significant investment in maintenance and care. For me, the effort is worth it. for many it’s not.
for what cast iron does well, it’s amazing. And really, the biggest problem is that it’s not so good for acidic things (which eats away the seasoning, but that’s more like ‘don’t try and make a pasta sauce’ rather than “don’t splash in some citrus.”
I recently got an induction stove (not even one of the expensive ones) and am so blown away by how fast it can heat up cast iron pans. It’s seconds, not minutes.
I mean I’m sure it’s pretty much instant with pans of lower mass, but instant isn’t what I need.
Oh yeah. actually have to be careful to not heat it too quickly, though. I’m not sure what that threshold is, though. Inductive cooktops are lovely, though. Much better than electric cooktops, and lacking in all the unpleasant pollution of gas.
what about enamaled pans?
i don’t like the thought that i will be spending more time with my pans outside of cooking then cleaning the regular ones. and i don’t want to manage my pans intake like its a diabetic that can’t handle tomato based foods.
I use stainless for acidic foods. Most of the advantages of cast iron are irrelevant when you’re making a sauce anyway, since the water adds mass, distributes heat and deglazes the bottom.
Enameled cast iron is very good, but I find it’s not quite as nonstick as a properly seasoned not-enameled cast iron. Enameled pans are rockstars for acidic sauces, though, and that makes them amazing for braises.
Non-stick chemicals have been historically poisonous, don’t know about the modern stuff though.
Also, cooking with cast iron increases iron intake.
Teflon itself is harmless, it’s the by-products in its production (PFAS) that are dangerous. Here’s more in the topic: https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY
Cheap “modern” stuff? Still toxic. Though there are plenty of coatings that are less toxic and more robust. Not to say any, including a seasoned cast iron pan, are abuse-proof. Use metal utensils on anything, and you will damage any coating.
The pan coating itself is inert and isn’t harmful. It is the precursor chemicals which bioaccumulate and cause issues.
I use a metal spatula on my cast iron all the time.
There’s no [edit: manufactured, not easily replaced] coating on cast iron (unless enameled)
You seasoning is a coating
Yes there is, it is polymerized fats and oils that build up over time.
Technically the truth, but using a metal spatula will not have much impact.
Also It is technically plastic.
Unwise regardless of how it can be ‘replaced’ on cast iron.
Yeah, PFAS or forever chemicals like Teflon are not all equal. The bigger “fluffier” molecules can pass through the body way easier than the smaller ones.
If people are in the US they should check their drinking water first since that’s the majority of PFAS that stay in the body weirdly enough.
Cast iron can take a fair amount of abuse.
The method some people use to clean super stuck on bits it literally a square of chain mail. I just use salt, I don’t think the chain mail works that well.
Stiff handled brush cleans them right quick.
Yeah, grandma’s been sending me those ‘good luck’ chain mails since the nineties, and I’ve still not seen any luck at all.
i have a nonstick with a ceramic coating. has lasted a lot longer than teflons
Non-stick is teflon. Not harmful unless you burn it (at over 300°C).
Not sure why you are down voted, you are right. Teflon molecules are really long chains, your body doesn’t interact or store it, you just shit it out as it entered. The issue is the molecules used in it’s production, that are dumped in rivers and end up everywhere.
Yea, and if you burn them they break down into shorter molecules that accumulate in the liver or something.
Would be surprised how many people used scratched Teflon pans. I watched one friend of mine put the empty non-stick pan with no oil or anything on maximum heat to “pre heat the pan” before adding oil. Very sketchy.
cast iron increases iron intake
You need acidic ingredients for that. Cook your tomato sauce in a cast iron to get a healthy dose of iron for the whole family!
Induction gives you the speed and control of gas, without the exhaust gases. Induction is more efficient than infrared, because you’re heating the pan directly. The cooktop only gets hot from the pan resting on it.
Get induction, it’s by far the best!
i also want to add that you should avoid ones with capacitive buttons. they suck, and imagine cleaning them…
Also against the capacitive buttons my cat has accidentally turned on my stove so now I need to turn on the cleaning lock whenever I am done using it
same here, i just always make sure there’s nothing metallic on the stove. it will just turn off after a while if my cats turn it on. don’t understand why the controls can’t be similar to the oven: knobs in the front panel that can be pushed in
It’s also just better for the environment
Induction also requires specific pans, right? So a regular cast iron pot won’t work?
If it’s sticking to a magnet, it will work. Cast iron works. Induction is great, i’ll never go back to gas!
Thanks! Sorry for spreading the FUD
I have induction; anything magnetic will heat, pans sized to your elements work best. Pans with too much aluminum and not enough iron (or other ferro magnetic material) won’t work very well. Getting induction was a great excuse to dump the cheap pans I’d wanted to replace anyway. When shopping the discount racks like Home Goods, Marshalls, etc. I always grabbed some fridge magnets and tried them on the bottom of any prospective purchase; the stronger the pull, the better it will perform with induction. The only item I really missed was my moka pot (stovetop espresso, usually all aluminum casting), but I was able to find one with a stainless steel base that works great. Your pots and pans will also need a flat bottom to react to the induction elements, so woks and such built with a slope or curve to encourage flames to lick up the sides don’t work so well compared to gas. Finding a Teflon coated pan that works with induction was difficult (I don’t often use it anyway, but SO insisted we have one for their use). I’m looking into replacing the Teflon pans with nitrided carbon steel soon.
Cast Iron and induction are a match made in heaven though. The cast iron heats fast and evenly and the induction means you can be very precise about how much heat you apply and when. When you turn off the element, the only heat left in the whole system is what you’ve already put into the pan, which is a big deal in my tiny kitchen when I don’t always have room to move a pan off to the side to rest or cool. The cast iron and stainless pans I have heat fast enough that I can basically cook starting from a cold pan for most things. Heating an empty pan takes seconds. I can bring a pot of a water of a couple quarts/liters to a roaring boil in about 4 minutes, then back down to a gentle simmer in seconds.
If gas is cooking with fire, induction feels like cooking with science. As may be clear from the rant, I love my induction range.
Small note on induction.
Since power setting works by turning the element off and on quickly, having a really thin pan with little thermal mass will result in some really weird uneven heating (basically just a hot circle).
Two ignorant questions for you:
Do you see any benefits to teflon over carbon steel?
I’ve been using airbnb a bit and sometimes the tops are some form of electric (but I’m ignorant enough not to know what type of electric) and by far the most brittle part seems to be the touch buttons that many have. Do you have any pointers on shopping around for stovetops without issues with the buttons?
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Probably answered below:
All will work with induction, except for cheap aluminum nonstick pans
I thought it was more involved than that but after a quick search online I’m wrong
You do still need a fair amount of mass on the bottom for it to be efficient. Anything ferrous will work, though.
Pure copper pans will not work for the same reason as aluminum.
A very slight clarification here:
cheap to make alumin
spoiler
i
um nonstick pans. Mine doesn’t work AND it wasn’t cheap : (.
Duck non-stick.
Treated myself to Le Creuset and will probably never have to buy something again lol.
