There are few things that compare with cast iron on the coolness meter.

It’s heavy, practically indestructible, and lasts forever. You can get so many uses out of just one pan; it can go from a skillet on your stovetop to a dutch oven to a pizza stone when flipped upside down. You can fry with it or bake pie with it.

Basically, cast iron is the Swiss Army knife of cookware.

{Can I get a Home Improvement Tim Allen grunt here?}

It’s just awesome. And today I’m going to share with you how you can get that perfect, non-stick seasoning on your favorite cast iron pan that will put Teflon to shame {and into the garbage where it belongs}.

(This post contains affiliate links)

If you are familiar with cast iron and the seasoning process, you’ve probably been told that you can use any oil to season it: vegetable oil, Crisco, butter, bacon grease, etc. And yes, you can use them. But the truth is, there is one- and only one- oil that beats them all.

Flaxseed oil. After much research on the topic of seasoning cast iron, I came across this very in-depth, scientific approach to the entire process. It was there that I discovered that flaxseed oil is a “drying oil” and the only edible oil of its kind. It will give you the hardest seasoning on your cast iron. Just be sure to get the good stuff– the 100% pure, cold pressed, organic stuff. You can find it in the refrigerator section of your whole foods store. If it’s not in the refrigerator, there’s something else in it- and it’s not what you want.

Other than your oil, what you will obviously need is a cast iron pan. The beautiful thing about cast iron is it’s almost impossible to ruin. I’ve seen resurrections of some of the ugliest, rustiest, corroded-est {not a word, I know} pans. So get yourself a pan. If it’s bad, follow this how-to on how to remedy your situation. For the rest of you, even those of you with a brand new “pre-seasoned” pan, you will want to strip it down and start from scratch.

Use some #0000 steel wool along with a bit of soap and elbow grease until your pan has a dull, gray-ish look to it.

After the seasoning has been removed, put the pan in your oven set at 200 degrees to make sure it is completely dry and to open up its pores. The pan will be hot, so be careful- I like to remove it once it’s at the point where I can just barely stand to handle it.

Then, shake up your bottle of flaxseed oil and squirt a small amount into your hand. Rub your hands together and then rub the oil all over your pan. The whole thing- handle, outside, inside, edges- everything.

And then you want to take a soft cloth and rub {what seems like} all of the oil off. What you are actually left with is a very, very thin layer of oil- even though it feels like you rubbed that pan dry.

Now, turn your pan upside down and put it in the oven. Set your oven to 500 degrees F. Once this temperature has been met, set your timer for 1 hour, at which point you will shut the oven off and allow your pan to cool completely inside of the oven. Do this again 5 more times, for a total of 6 applications. Yes, that sounds like a lot. But trust me, it will be worth it. I would try to do it once in the morning and again before bedtime, when my oven use is at its minimum.

With every layer, your pan will continue to develop its beautiful, black sheen. This is what you want. Do not be tempted to do the following:

• Apply thicker coats
• Bake at a lower temperature
• Shorten baking time
• Forget to flip your pan upside down
• Skip the preheat process

All of these could result in a sticky seasoning and you would have to start over. Don’t waste your own time. Follow these directions and you will have a perfect, hard seasoning that will continue to get better with time. After using your pan, wash with water (no soap), set it on the stovetop, and heat for a couple of minutes to make sure the pan is completely dry. Then add a small amount of flaxseed oil and wipe off, just as you did in the seasoning process. It’s now ready to use for the next time.

Simple. And awesome.

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Our Simple Homestead Hop

The Art of Homemaking Mondays #72

This post contains affiliate links. What this means is I link to a product on Amazon (that I love& use and/or recommend), and if you decide it’s something you want, I will receive a small monetary compensation with no cost to you- just because you used my link to find it! This helps support my blogging activities and I thank you. Homestead on, my friends.