How Do I Clean Stainless Steel Pans

The photo above is capable of causing divorces, catastrophe friendships, and starting wars. Think I'm joking? So you've never talked to a no-soaper. All I'll say is this: Woe to you if y'all ever affect a no-soaper's cast fe pan with a sudsy sponge.

That's the nature of cast iron. Because it's one of the greatest pieces of cookware in the kitchen, and because it requires some special care, passions can run high. Just the truth is that maintaining cast iron cookware isn't much of a job at all, and many of the stricter rules that people insist on needn't be so strict.

Here's the skinny on taking intendance of your cast fe cookware so that it'southward always at its best, without any of the mumbo jumbo you're likely to encounter elsewhere.

Cleaning and Care Tips for Vintage, Rusty, or Damaged Cast Iron Cookware

If you buy a vintage cast atomic number 26 pan that's in demand of some rehab, or if your sometime cast iron pan has grown rusty or damaged through fail, all is not lost. Cast iron is very strong, and with a little attempt, y'all can go your pans into brand-new condition. To larn how, follow our cast atomic number 26 restoration instructions here.

Cleaning and Care Tips for New Cast Iron Cookware

If you've read our cast atomic number 26 skillet review, you already know how strongly we feel nearly finding the right pan. But even with the all-time new bandage atomic number 26, you lot may need to requite information technology an initial seasoning. It's an easy process, which you tin read about in greater depth here. The principal thing you need to know is that seasoning is a hard, protective blanket on the pan that'south created by rubbing the pan with oil and so heating information technology. When exposed to rut, each layer of oil transforms into an extremely thin, plastic-like blanket. As those layers build upward, the pan becomes increasingly protected against rusting (which, in its stripped-bare state, it will rapidly do just by sitting in the open air), while too developing the nonstick characteristics that make cast iron so useful.

Once you've established your initial layers of seasoning, the most important side by side stride is to use your pan every bit often as you lot can, especially for annihilation that involves cooking with fatty or oil: searing meats, frying bacon, sautéing vegetables, frying chicken, et cetera. With each use, yous'll set down successive layers of seasoning that will only brand your pan better and meliorate.

And that's where the issue of cleaning comes in.

How to Clean Cast Iron After Cooking

Let'southward start with a very basic premise that we tin all agree on: A dirty cast iron pan needs to be cleaned. The question, so, is how. One of the near widespread beliefs is that you lot tin can't use soap, and the reason yous'll usually be given for this is that soap is powerful enough to strip away the seasoning you've worked so hard to build up.

Soap is practiced at washing away grease and dirt, so perhaps information technology'due south understandable that people think information technology tin besides wash away seasoning, since the seasoning is essentially baked-on fatty. Only fifty-fifty though the seasoning started out as a fat, it'due south been so thoroughly transformed ("polymerized" is the technical word) that it'southward no longer at risk of beingness stripped away past a bit of soap, especially not the gentle modern soaps we work with today.

No, if you wanted to remove the seasoning, you'd need to either scour it with something very abrasive, similar steel wool; heat information technology at a very high temperature for an extended period of time without whatever fat in it; soak it in a potent lye solution; or strip it via electrolysis. Suffice it to say, information technology takes quite a flake of effort to actually have the seasoning off a cast iron pan.

Merely lather? Soap ain't gonna do jack to that seasoning. Nosotros know, because we regularly wash our pans with lather at Serious Eats, and they're as beautifully seasoned equally ever.

So grab your dish soap and a sponge* (preferably a non-scratch sponge), and permit'due south get cleaning.

*Some of you may be wondering about those chainmail cast iron scrubbers that have get popular in recent years. Do they work? We've tested them, and yep, they tin can help remove very stubborn, burnt-on grit. But the chainmail, with likewise much scrubbing, tin can as well begin to habiliment abroad the seasoning. We've e'er found a basic non-scratch scrubber sponge to more than do the trick.

Footstep 1: Launder the Cast Atomic number 26 Pan Well

Photographs and video: Vicky Wasik

Once you're done cooking in your pan, go alee and wash information technology with some warm soapy water, wiping it with a kitchen sponge. If there are a few stubborn burnt-on bits, you'll be fine using the synthetic scrubber on the back of many kitchen sponges, every bit it's non as harsh every bit steel wool.

If, for some reason, you've scorched some nasty stuff into the pan, you can pour common salt into information technology, set information technology over high heat, then rub the charred gunk out with some paper towels. The salt acts equally an abrasive that's safe for the seasoning, while the rut can assist carbonize any remaining $.25 of food, making them easier to scrub away. And so just rinse out the salt, wash the pan with warm soapy h2o, and continue to the next step.

Footstep 2: Dry the Bandage Fe Pan Thoroughly

H2o is the enemy of cast iron, so the last thing you lot want to do is leave information technology dripping wet post-launder. Sure, the seasoning will prevent any rust from forming right away, but if the pan is left to stand with water in information technology, even those tough layers of polymerized oil won't be enough to stop the relentless oxidative skirmish betwixt iron and H_twoO.

And then brand sure to dry out the pan thoroughly with towels right later on washing. Fifty-fifty improve, once you've manus-dried the pan as best you can, set it over a loftier flame. The heat volition speed evaporation, driving off any last flake of moisture and guaranteeing that the pan is totally dry.

Footstep 3: Oil Lightly and Estrus the Cast Iron Pan

The last footstep is to prime the pan for its next apply past laying down one bonus layer of protective seasoning before putting it away. To do that, but rub the pan very lightly all over with an unsaturated cooking fat, like canola, vegetable, or corn oil, making certain to buff abroad any visible greasiness so that the cast atomic number 26 almost doesn't look like you've oiled it at all.

Then put the pan back over a burner set to high heat, and go out information technology for a couple of minutes, until the pan is heated through all over and lightly smoking. You could do this in your oven for more fifty-fifty heating, à la the initial seasoning process, but I find that too cumbersome equally part of a daily ritual; for just one quick final seasoning footstep, the stovetop works fine. (Note that if y'all rub the pan with oil and put it abroad without heating information technology, the oil can become viscous and rancid before the pan'south adjacent use, which is a real bummer. If you've accidentally let this happen, just wash out the pan with soap and water to become rid of the gunk, then dry information technology and estrus it, and you should exist good to go.)

And that's information technology—easy enough that anyone can do it, without resorting to fisticuffs.