Our longtime favorite 10-inch cast iron skillet from Lodge remained our overall winner. It heated fast and seared deeply, and it only costs around $20. We also liked the lightweight Lancaster No. 8 skillet, which was easy on the wrists and cooked food beautifully.
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Cast iron skillets are a polarizing piece of kitchen gear: Chefs and foodies geek out over them, while some home cooks fear them. (&#;The maintenance!&#;) As a former restaurant cook and longtime home cook, I think both positions are a little extreme.
Cast iron skillets are some of the simplest pieces of kitchen equipment. They&#;re pans cast out of an alloy of iron, carbon, and silicon that are sanded and sometimes pre-seasoned. Sure, like most gear, the design and price tag vary depending on the manufacturer but, at their core, cast iron skillets are just a big honkin&#; piece of metal. No cladding, no nonstick coating&#;just a solid pan that retains heat really well. They&#;re also super versatile, equally excellent at searing (whether it&#;s a T-bone steak or a slab of cauliflower), baking up a mean cornbread with crunchy, caramelized edges, or shallow frying a batch of buttermilk-brined chicken. Because they&#;re tough as nails, you can even throw them on the grill or over a fire pit. I've used cast iron for years and have yet to find a crack or sign of wear&#;they're that solid.
Options abound: pricey and cheap, smooth-surfaced or pebbled, big and small. But much of what makes a great cast iron skillet boils down to a cook&#;s preferences. To find the best ones for cookware geeks and the cast iron-trepidatious alike, I tested 12 cast iron skillets for two weeks, and have been cooking with the winners ever since.
The Winners, at a Glance
You just can&#;t beat this cast iron skillet that&#;s been a longtime Serious Eats favorite. It sears superbly and has hovered around $25 to $30 for time immemorial. If you&#;re new to cast iron, this no-frills, durable skillet is a solid choice to start with. It's the one I recommend to anyone who asks.
The 10-inch Lancaster weighs a little over four pounds, so it was easy my wrists and heated up fast. It seared steak superbly, turned out evenly golden cornbread, and produced perfect pan-fried eggs that slid right off the surface. This is a gorgeous piece of metal that&#;ll impress seasoned (heh) cast iron skillet users and new-to-the-pan cooks alike.
An ode to simplicity, this dark gray skillet is elegant and lightweight but still sturdy. It doesn&#;t have pour spouts, but the flared sides helped funnel out liquids neatly.
Calling this budget doesn&#;t seem super fair, since it&#;s only a few bucks less than the Lodge, but hey, it is a steal. The curved handle made it easy to move and the surface heated up steadily and quickly.
If you want the benefits of cast iron without the maintenance, an enameled cast iron skillet is a good option. The enamel makes the skillet more nonstick than uncoated cast iron (and it doesn&#;t need to be seasoned), but it still has good heat retention. In our test of enameled cast iron skillets, this spacious offering from Le Creuset emerged as a winner for its excellent searing and maneuverability.
The Tests
I tested cast iron skillets by searing and baking in them, noting if anything stuck egregiously to the surface.
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
Throughout testing, I used our winning enameled cast iron skillet from Le Creuset as a control.
What We Learned
Which Size Cast Iron Skillet Was Best?
We recommend a 10.5 inch cast iron skillet for most people.
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
A 10- to 10.25-inch skillet will serve most people well&#;it&#;s the perfect size for frying up some eggs, flipping a few pancakes, or searing steaks. It&#;s what we reviewed in the past and what I stuck to in this update. That said, if you&#;re looking for a slightly larger skillet, all of our winners are available in bigger versions. A 12-inch skillet, for example, is large enough for a family of four or for more substantial servings.
The Yeti skillet got really hot and seared steaks golden brown.
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
For example, I like using my dual-handled Lodge cast iron skillet for cooking pancakes or shallow-frying; its spacious cooking surface lets me cook more in one go. The Yeti cast iron skillet I tested was the 12-inch model, so it was a little heavier and larger than most of the 10-inch ones, but I didn't count that against it.
What Can You Cook in a Cast Iron Skillet?
Cast iron is a versatile skillet that's great at searing.
Serious Eats
I often reach for my cast iron skillet when I'm shallow frying meatballs or chicken piccata, searing steak, or cooking up pancakes. Cast iron excels at these tasks partially because it has a high thermal mass&#;basically, it retains heat really, really well. This means you can add pancake batter, remove the cooked pancakes, and the pan will still be quite hot&#;immediately ready for the next batch. It also means that frying oil stays at a more consistent temperature, so it'll take less time to reheat again when you want to fry that next set of breaded chicken cutlets.
What you don't want to cook in an uncoated cast iron skillet is slow-cooked acidic dishes, like Sunday gravy. The acidity from the tomato sauce can actually eat away at your pan's beloved seasoning&#;not good! But, as Kenji explained in his myth-busting article, a wine pan sauce or quick-deglaze with vinegar won't harm your beloved skillet.
How to Season a Cast Iron Skillet
While it might seem intimidating, seasoning a cast iron skillet is quite easy. First, take your freshly unpackaged skillet and give it a good scrub just in case there are any errant metal bits from the manufacturing line. After thoroughly drying, set it over medium heat for a few minutes to ensure all the water is gone. Then, preheat your oven to 450°F. Rub the entire skillet with a neutral, high-smoke point oil (canola oil works) and place it in the oven for 30 minutes. Carefully remove the skillet (it&#;ll be hot), rub with more oil, and repeat another three to four times. Et voilà, it&#;ll be seasoned and ready to use.
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All of the cast iron skillets I tested have a pre-seasoned option. In this case, you don&#;t need to do any more seasoning off the bat&#;you can get cooking and let that seasoning grow over time.
Smooth vs. Pebbled Pan Surfaces
Both polished and pebbled surfaces alike released foods, like fried eggs, easily.
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One difference between old-school and new-school cast iron skillets is the color and texture of the pans. Newcomers like Lancaster and Smithey make brassy pans with smooth, shiny surfaces, while Lodge and Victoria sell black skillets with a grainy texture.
The pan&#;s color reflects its seasoning: The darker it is, the more seasoned it is. (Seasoning is a buildup of polymerized fat, which creates a nonstick surface.) The brass-colored pans I tested (from Lancaster, Stargazer, and Smithey) were pre-seasoned, just perhaps not quite as much as the pitch-black Lodge and Victoria. That said, the Lancaster and Stargazer were still quite nonstick&#;even fried eggs released easily.
&#;All new Lancaster Cast Iron pans come with two coats of seasoning and are ready to use right out of the box,&#; says Mark Longenecker, co-founder of Lancaster. &#;The seasoning on the pan is what gives the cast iron skillet the beautiful copper or bronze hue. Once you begin cooking on your skillet, you&#;ll notice the color begin to change as your seasoning builds. In time, the color will darken until you have a beautiful black patina.&#; As I've continued to use the Lancaster, I've noticed this exact phenomenon happening, with a dark patina forming in the center of the pan.
As you can see, cast iron skillets come in a myriad of sheens and colors, with some sporting a dark patina and others more of a coppery tone.
Pan texture is a matter of manufacturer preference. Lodge&#;s pans, for example, tend to be pebbly while newcomers like Lancaster and Field Company sell polished skillets inspired by cast iron pans of yore.
&#;When we think of modern-day cast iron, we often think of heavy or rough pans that are challenging to clean and are relatively slow to heat up and cool down. This has not always been the case,&#; says Longenecker. &#;High-quality antique cast iron was once made to be lightweight and smooth. Smooth and lightweight cast iron is not only easier to handle, especially when filled with food, but it is also easier to clean, responds more quickly to heat, and will still have all the amazing benefits of cast iron, such as durability and heat retention. To achieve a smoother and lightweight feel we have incorporated several extra steps including our tumbling process.&#;
Tumbling sounds just like its name: Skillets are placed in a rotating drum filled with pieces of metal and as the drum turns it smooths out lumps and bumps, resulting in a polished pan.
So, today, you have brands like Lancaster that sell slightly less seasoned, smooth skillets and others, like Lodge, that sell heavily seasoned, rougher skillets; both styles released foods well in my tests, so it&#;s more a matter of personal preference (and price, since smoother skillets tend to be more expensive).
A note: The more heavily seasoned pans from Lodge and Victoria were a whole lot smokier when I first used them; they released a potent smell (akin to a hot airport tarmac), but it dissipated after a few uses.
Cast Iron Was (and Is) Durable
Yes, it is safe to use metal utensils on cast iron!.
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
Cast iron skillets are sometimes misunderstood. I&#;ve known people who refuse to buy one because they think they&#;re too high-maintenance and yet others who have balked when they see me using a metal spatula to squish and scrape smashed burgers on my favorite dual-handled Lodge skillet.
To all of them, I say: It&#;s going to be okay.
Cast iron is an incredibly forgiving material; unlike PTFE-coated nonstick pans, you can safely use a hardy metal turner without ruining the surface. And while it&#;s true you need to thoroughly dry a cast iron pan after washing (yes, you can wash it with plain old dish soap and a sponge) and give it a swipe of oil, it&#;ll maybe add 30 seconds to your dish-cleaning routine. And if it does get a bit of rust, it&#;s not a big deal: Just grab some steel wool or a chainmail scrubber and give the rusted areas a hardy scouring with soap and warm water. Rinse, dry, and oil, and your skillet is good to go. This is exactly why I love cast iron, and why I push people to move beyond their (often unfounded) fears.
Heat Conduction Varied, But Didn&#;t Matter Much
While interesting, measuring heat conduction didn't really tell us much other than that the skillets all heated up quickly.
Serious Eats / Grace Kelly
While it&#;s true that cast iron isn&#;t a great conductor, I still wanted to get a feel for how quickly the skillets heated up. The answer: fast. Five saw an average temperature increase of 34% after one minute, while the Lodge Cast Iron Skillet -10.25 inch went up by a whopping 53.4%. The Smithey No.10 Skillet and the Smithey No.10 Chef Skillet were the slowest, increasing by 18% and 13.6%, respectively, in the first minute. That said, all of the pans did a good job searing steak and baking cornbread, so while interesting to observe, heat conduction wasn&#;t an indicator of performance.
Cast iron cookware is celebrated for its durability, versatility, and classic culinary performance. However, not all cast iron is created equal. Understanding what differentiates high-quality cast iron from the rest can enhance your cooking experience and ensure a wise investment. Here&#;s what to look for when identifying quality in cast iron cookware.
The first indicator of quality is the construction of the cast iron piece. High-quality cast iron cookware, like Skeppshult&#;s skillets, dutch ovens and griddles, exhibits a sturdy, heavy build. The weight should feel substantial but balanced, indicating both durability and thoughtful design. Additionally, the surface should be smooth to the touch, without any rough patches or imperfections, as these can affect cooking performance and the pan&#;s longevity.
Inspect the cookware for uniformity in casting. Quality cast iron should have an even surface without any pits, bumps, or irregularities. This uniformity ensures even cooking and heat distribution. High-end cast iron is often cast in sand molds, which contributes to the cookware&#;s even surface and heat distribution capabilities. In that front, Skeppshult sets the bar high with the use of unique sand molds in the casting process. With over a century&#;s wisdom, we&#;ve honed the sand&#;s composition to guarantee durability and ideal structure. This ensures durability and the perfect structure for each piece.
Quality cast iron boasts an optimal thickness that ensures even heat distribution and retention. For instance, Skeppshult cookware features a 5 mm thick bottom, which is ideal for uniform cooking and perfect searing. Skeppshult&#;s cast iron cookware also features a meticulously crafted concave base, a crucial element designed to ensure the skillet expands evenly when heated. This precision in design guarantees flawless heat distribution and optimal cooking performance, making it a key characteristic of our high-quality cast iron products.
High-quality cast iron comes pre-seasoned or develops a natural non-stick like surface over time. Brands like Skeppshult pre-season their cookware with organic canola oil, enhancing its functionality. A well-seasoned cast iron piece should have a smooth, semi-glossy finish, which not only contributes to its performance but also aids in rust prevention and easier cleaning.
The design of the handles is crucial for safety and usability. Quality cast iron cookware should have handles that are securely attached and designed for comfortable, easy handling. Ergonomically designed handles provide a firm grip that can significantly enhance your cooking experience.
A reputable brand often guarantees quality. Brands like Skeppshult, with a long history of craftsmanship and a solid 25 years warranty, stand behind their products, reflecting their commitment to quality. A warranty, especially one that extends over several years, is a sign of the manufacturer&#;s confidence in their product&#;s durability and performance.
For more information, please visit Enamel Cast Iron Cookware.