Do You Use a Cast Iron Skillet?

Yep! I use the one that came with my husband when we married. It had been his mom's before she died. It is an honored member of the family, and my preferred pan since I learned how to use it well. In the past 30 years, we have had few meals that didn't get cooked in that pan – it's great for browning, sauteing, stir-frying, and stewing.

We also hand-wash the pan with detergent and hot water every night. It is very well seasoned, so I just rub a light coating of olive oil into it after drying.

Yes, some digestible iron leaches into the foods you cook, especially those with a touch of acidity.

I mostly use mine for cornbread, but my husband like to cook fajitas or fish. We use it every couple of months. On a cooking show I saw, I think they recommended cleaning it by scrubbing with coarse salt, and I think re-oiling it after washing.

Yep! I use mine for just about everything....if I am cooking something is in my cast iron skillet. I use mine for cornbread and pineapple upside down cake too. :)

We have a set of cast iron skillets that get used several times a week. we also have a cast iron griddle that gets used once or twice a month on a saturday or sunday for eggs pancakes, sausage, and hash browns
I love them because:
they are better at browning things
they hold heat longer so I can turn the heat off and let something finish cooking without monitoring it too much
you can put them in the oven.

We use them for lots of things; Eggs, French toast, grilled cheese, corn bread, egg/cheese strada, meats, veggies, stir fries, you name it

Only annoyance with them is that it seems very few people know how to clean them properly. I frequently have to re-season them after we have company or a babysitter in the house!

Yep. We recently decided that we would put the effort into getting our cast iron seasoned and start using it again because the non-stick pans scratch up so easily and goodness knows we don't want that in our bodies. So, after a bit of work and trial and error on re-seasoning our pan, I use it several times per week. Last Sunday I fried four eggs at one time in it and not a single bit of egg stuck to the pan. So delightful to use, easy to clean. For cooking eggs or hashbrowns, I suggest you try melting ghee in the pan before cooking, and your hasbrowns will be perfect and eggs will slide right out.

And yes, you to get trace amounts of iron into your body when using cast iron on a consistent basis.

Yes! I love cast iron. (Except for this nasty burn scar I have on my wrist from bumping the handle. Ouch!!) I have ready many places that it leaches small amounts of iron into food.

Hi jess-

I have MANY cast iron skillets...

I (like your gram) use it for corn bread...

I cook veggies...mushrooms...or even meat/chicken/fish if I want a 'quicker' 'brown'...

I LOVE love my cast iron...

**I often get confused though...and call it my 'wrought' iron pan...lol

michele/cat

My mom uses hers for everything. She has several sizes and that is her main cookware. They are old and well seasoned. I only have one and I don't know how to season it like hers so I never use it! I need to work on that. Some things just taste so much better cooked in cast iron!

All I cook with is cast iron. I have 2 large skillet, a small round griddle and a small skillet. It does give you extra iron in your system by using them. I'm usually a little anemic but when I started using my cast iron all the time, that improved enough for me to donate blood. Also, you don't want to use soap on them from what I've been told. I never do. I just wash it out, sometimes I just wipe them out if it's not something that has stuck on or leaves behind a strong odor.

I try not to scrub them with steel pads because I try & keep the seasoning on them as much as possible. I always dry them on the stove, usually on low as I have a tendency to forget I've done it and set off alarms before. Then I wipe them really well with oil. I LOVE my little one for cornbread, makes delicious cornbread and I use the griddle just about every day. Great for pancakes, french toast, grilled cheese and eggs.

I have one that belonged to my husband's grandfather that could use some further seasoning. What is everyone's trick to having your pans reseasoned? I've heard it joked about on Frasier but I would like to get a good season on mine.

Ok..now I'm hungry.

Yes, I did use it a lot. My wrists are getting kind of worn out so I tend to just use the cast iron griddle when we do grill cheese and other foods. I found online great ways to take care of mine. I clean it with oil and salt. It is abrasive enough to take off the gunk but it cleans it so well I just rinse it with hot hot hot water and dry it on a burner on medium heat.

I googled how to clean cast iron.

I use my Grandmothers iron skillets EVERYDAY! Yes, you get iron into your body by eating food cooked in iron. I also have a large, 2 burner griddle/grill that I use often.

To wash, NEVER use soap or scrub really hard. It takes the seasoning off. To season, massage with shortening or bacon grease and place in a 350 oven for an hour. Let cool and wipe out fat. Also, it should be dried on the stove over a burner instead of in the dish drainer.

Do this, and your grandkids will be cooking in your iron skillets!

I make everything in them!

I don't know about the iron but if it is true I am doomed and my husband should be dead.

Anyway I don't know a lot of people who use them but we do. I have several different pieces including a griddle that fits over one side of my stove top. I have a gas JennAir so it has the grill feature. After it cools down we run it under water, use one of the pampered chef cooking stone scrapers to get the bits off, dry it and then rub it with shortening so it doesn't rust.

We also have a huge griddle for the Weber gas grill, that one he scrapes with a plastic putty knife. I say he cause he won't let anyone touch his baby. :p

I used to have some and just never got good at washing drying and oiling it and it was always rusty. I just didnt catch on to the lower heat and how to do it right. They deserved to live with somene who would treat them right so I gave them away.

I have a cheaper iron skillet, and while I used to use it some, I stopped. The surface is not very smooth, so even after seasoning, I have problems with food getting stuck. Plus the thing weighs a ton (no surprise there) and for a while, I was having wrist problems and lifting it was painful.

I'm still on the hunt for a smooth cast iron skillet, though. And I found Gamma G's tipping for cleainging (salt and oil) were the best methods, generally.

I have a couple of cast iron pieces, but use them only once in a while (like really a only a few times a year). I definitely use the one I got from my mom for cornbread though!!

ETA--I just remembered the cast iron dutch oven my mom got my husband for Christmas!! It makes the best chili I've ever had in my entire life & that one we use pretty regularly, and yes, we have a glass flat-topped stove. I'm just careful putting it down.

I would LOVE to use mine but I have a glass top stove and I'm not sure if its safe to use on it...before when I had a gas stove I used mine at least once or twice a week...

Yes - I love using mine for making pan fried potatoes, omelets and frittatas, pancakes, and anything that I need a really high temperature to cook. Love how I can pop it straight into the oven if I want to do something like broil the top of the frittatta after cooking it on the stove top. One of my 9YO DD's loves making 'grilled toast' on it. I love that I can crank the heat up high and not worry about damaging a 'non stick' coating, and that I can use a metal spatula without worrying about scratching the pan and coating.

IMO the old cast iron pieces are great - mine is one that DH got from his aunt (it was one of her wedding presents so it's over 50 years old - she wasn't using it and he needed a few pots and pans when he went away to grad school) and it's well seasoned and nothing sticks to it (I'll dry it by leaving it upside down in the oven if the oven is still a bit warm, or by turning stove on just long enough so that the water starts to evaporate.

love my cast iron! alton brown on food network had a great show about it.
YES, you get iron into your food; it's one of the ways they recommend getting more iron into child's diet is to cook this way. NEVER SOAP cast iron. as others have posted, re-season w/ fat, put in warm oven, cool and wipe. if it's gross i will wash w/ water and non-scratch sponge, then season and proceed.
i don't recommend cast iron for tomato-based foods; the iron oxidizes the tomato and can make it taste metallic (like a tinny, can taste). I do love it for searing meat, then place entire skillet in oven to finish, then make sauce in same pan w/ drippings while meat rests. i use mine for hashbrowns- sooo good made w/ bacon drippings. just let them cook till they release from the pan. you have to be patient, or they'll stick. eggs are a teflon food for me too. CLASSIC use is for pineapple upside-down cake, b/c the pan can caramellize the fruit and sugar. enjoy your pans, they are great!

can't use mine on my solid surface cooktop. We use it only for camping.

We use our well seasoned pans everyday. It is true you do get some iron. It is not a bad thing. People with anemia have even been told to use them. If you have to high an iron level don't use them. However you never wash cast iron. You wipe them out or maybe rinse but never wash. You can make wonderful eggs with cast iron, if your pans are well seasoned.

I have not heard about the iron intake.

I love my skillets, too! I have two regular (regular?), one deep, and one tiny one (probably 5-6 inches in diameter). I don't like to use the microwave for food, so I use my skillets in the oven to warm food. I fry chicken and fish in the deep one. They're pretty much my go-to pans--eggs, sometimes cornbread...in the oven and stovetop.

If I think that I need a little soap to clean it, I use very little. It should never be submerged in water, though my husband sometimes scrubs it in dishwater for less than a minute. Then, I wipe the excess water and put it on the fire to dry, rubbing it with oil.

I don't know about the iron thing but you just aren't a proper texan without a cast iron skillet :) I use mine mostly for cornbread and frying but I love it and it was actually my great, great grandmas. After I had used it for years I found out that none of the wonderful ladies that used it before me ever washed it with actual soap. Ewwww! They say it ruins it!

My mother in law uses a cast iron skillet. You never should wash it. She rinses hers with hot water and then rubs it with cooking oil.

Personally I think they are kind of gross, but that is just me. I have cephalon cookware and I love it!

One additional note, teflon is really not good for you, eventually it flakes off and can be really toxic. You have to throw those out ones they start to flake or if they get scratched. But Cephalon pans are not coated, the pans themselves are non stick. We got all of ours at Marshalls for great prices!

Yes, I use mine a few days a week. Lately I have been frying my plain bagel in butter and then frying a couple of eggs in it and serve the eggs on top of the bagel. SOOO yummy. (I know... not the healthiest..lol) Not sure about the consumtion of iron through using the skillet. interesting!

I LOVE my cast iron skillets! I use one at least once or twice a week.

I have a special pan for cornbread only. I have a couple of my grandmother's cast iron pots on display. I have her cornbread pan too!!

I've heard the same thing about iron but I don't know facts on that.

It's my main pan - except for eggs. It's an old pan that I got from my Granny, it had some pits in it so my Grampa grinded it out for me and then I reseasoned it. Works great for pineapple upside down cake!!!!