How to Season a Cast Iron Pan and Not Feel Like a Crazy Person

People are cult-like about their cast iron pans. You’re lucky to have one, lucky to have found one, now you must take care of it, guard it, and evangelize! Ok, well, just slow your roll. Cast iron pans are great!!

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They’re durable, multi-purpose, and efficient and if you’re into that sort of thing, you can pass them down. The thing is, they have to be seasoned when you first get them. And at the risk of being inflammatory, it’s not that hard. All you need is some canola oil. Check this out. 

What’s seasoning?

Cast iron pans are exactly what they sound like: straight up iron cast into a pan. Nothing more. But untreated iron will rust and would be unpleasant to cook on because your food would stick. So you need to season it. And seasoning means building layers of fat that when heated bond to the metal and to itself and ultimately becomes a form of plastic. When you’ve applied multiple layers of seasoning, you get a hard skin on your pan that has those miraculous nonstick properties.