Why is it considered okay to eat off cast iron that has never been cleaned, aka seasoned? I think people would get sick if I didn’t wash my regular pans, yet cast iron is fine.
In: Chemistry
You do clean cast iron… you just don’t try and scrub it till it’s shiny since it’s possible to scrub off the seasoning. Regular dish soap and light scrubbing is totally fine, just don’t bust out the ultra heavy duty soap and steel wool.
Being seasoned doesn’t mean you don’t have to clean it. You still have to scrape off all the food on there, rinse it off, put a layer of oil on it and heat it up to get it to start smoking.
Secondly, modern dish detergent isn’t going to harm a properly seasoned pan. The old wives tale of never washing it with soap was from the time when actual soap contained lye which would strip the seasoning off.
They don’t get sick so you just need to adjust your understanding about how dangerous things that get flaming hot are in regards of harboring germs.
In short, flaming hot kills germs and your idea of clean and sick can use a little readjusting.
This is one of those things that’s also changed over time. Today’s soaps are less caustic than soaps from the past. Those caustic soaps would more easily strip the seasoning away.
I don’t worry about using soap and a scrub pad on my cast iron. I just hit it with some spray oil and heat it until it smokes.
You’re heating it up to temperature that will kill any pathogens. But you should still clean it. Fats will turn rancid so you don’t want that ruining the flavor of the next meal.
You can do a little dish soap and a light scrubbing to remove the grease and food particles.
Depending upon what I’m cooking, I may just heat the pan up some and pour water on it to remove the fresh food particles. I then wipe it with a paper towel, rinse and dry. Maybe apply a light coat of vegetable oil. Good to go for next use.
When you “season” a pan, what you’re really doing is covering the pan in oil, and then deliberately burning that oil until it turns into a kind of plastic. That’s what makes it non-stick.
You do still want to clean it after cooking food to remove as much food residue as possible. You can even use dish soap. But you don’t want to scrub too hard or use very strong soap to strip the special coating away.
Seasoning a cast iron pan isn’t about flavors. It’s a type of treatment. What you are doing is adding a protective nonstick coating to the pan. Typically vegetable oil, being carbonized into the surface of the pan. This is a thing you do before you use the pan.
You need to clean seasoned cast iron pans just as often as you clean regular pans. It’s just easier. You usually don’t need to use soap, you can literally scrape off the gunk and rinse it out, it will come clean 99% of the time. Sometimes you’ll need to scrub with something pretty abrasive, but that’s indicating that you should reseason your pan.
The word “season” has a lot of meanings in English you are just thinking about the wrong one.
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In honor of this question and them just winning a Grammy for the song.
“Cast Iron Skillet” by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. https://youtu.be/jU1jyMlv0g0?feature=shared
It isn’t okay to not clean cast iron, you need to wash and dry your cookware.
It’s not okay the same way it’s not okay to not clean your nonstick, aluminum or stainless steel pans. Eventually you will get sick if you neglect sanitation in your kitchen.
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