How to Clean A Cast Iron Skillet

I love cooking in my cast iron skillet, I have the Lodge 10.25 inch Cast Iron Skillet. It’s such an affordable pan, lasts a lifetime, and is so versatile for so many recipes. It’s especially great in the winter as I think it beats heading outside to grill, and works just as well for a lot of recipes.

I use it for searing chicken for taco night, searing ham steak with mustard and honey, cooking skillet cheeseburgers with caramelized onions, starting sausages to slice into pasta, steak french dip sandwiches, and potatoes for different creations of hash and eggs.

But, I used to struggle with cleaning the it, I knew you weren’t supposed to use soap, but getting all that seared on mess clean seemed like too much work, and I didn’t used it much as a result. Not anymore!, with this full proof cleaning method you can use your skillet for any job and clean up takes a couple easy minutes!

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How to Clean A Cast Iron Skillet

STEP 1 – Get it Hot – The skillet is sitting on your stovetop, you’ve eaten dinner, cleaned up everything else, cheese and chicken are crusted to the bottom of the skillet in a greasy mess. Put it on the burner and heat it back up, high heat for a minute or so until it is really hot.

STEP 2 – Deglaze the Pan – Turn the heat off and pour about a half cup of water into the pan. This is deglazing, it’s what you would do if you wanted to turn those pan drippings from your steak into a sauce, you’d deglaze with wine to scrape them up to get their flavor. Here you are deglazing to clean, as the water sizzles and pops and hisses, gently scrape the skillet with a rubber spatula, loosening the cooked on food.

STEP 3 – Rinse – With a hot pad, carry the skillet to the sink, dump the water off and spray it out with your faucet sprayer.

STEP 4 – Use Kosher Salt as an Abrasive – Set the skillet back on the stove, add a tablespoon or so of kosher salt (this is the salt I use for all my cooking) and rub the salt around the pan with a paper towel. The salt will turn grey as it acts as an abrasive scrubber, removing any remaining bits from the pan. With a hot pad, hold the skillet over a garbage and wipe all the salt into the trash with the paper towel. You’re done, put it away!