I’m not sure you’ll ever get to cooking with no oil on cast iron. I have very well seasoned pans and I cook with oil, even then eggs will stick a little occasionally. My advice is to cook regularly and whenever you see the surface dry out a bit, apply oil (I find almost any oil or grease works) with some paper towel. I never clean it with soap, there is no need. When more involved cleaning is necessary, I’ll put water in it and let sit, and then wipe clean. If there’s lots of crap stuck to it, sometimes I’ll heat the water to a simmer, although this tends to ruin the seasoning somewhat.

Think of it kind of like a barbecue surface (more accurately like a griddle), which people generally don’t soak in soapy water. I never do the “oil and then bake it” stuff, I don’t think it’s necessary.

I’m torn right now because I also just replaced my nonstick pants with a high quality $70 new nonstick pan, and then came across all these articles about PFAS. I usually only use nonstick for eggs and other delicate items but I’m paranoid now. I’m curious if anyone knows what percentage of exposure is via cookware compared to other environmental sources?

I tried many different methods and nothing really worked, then I finally came across this:

- heat it up so it's warm in the oven

- coat it generously with vegetable oil (it's what I had, but basically any oil will do)

- wipe the excess with a paper towel so it's still shiny but not runny

- put it in the oven for an hour just above the smoke point of the oil

(I'm not really a fan of cast iron, as they are too heavy for my liking and have too much thermal mass to react quickly to temperature changes)

How do you get it to be just above the smoke point of the oil without a thermostat or a suitable thermometer? The knob on my oven just varies the amount of gas going to the burner.

Oven thermometers are cheap, but barring that, use inexpensive canola or vegetable oil sparingly; just enough to make it shiny, and turn the knob to 350F (or whatever setting you use by default when baking or cooking).

If the coating turns white, recoat with oil and try a lower temperature or less time. Cast iron is an extremely old technology, and was common back in the days of wood stoves. It doesn’t require precision instruments to maintain it.

If you somehow ruin the seasoning, you can always scrape it with steel wool and try again. I once forgot a mini skillet in a frequentLy used propane grill for ~ 3 years, then left it outdoors with a burnt off coating for winter or two. I spent 5 minutes scrubbing rust off it in the sink, then oiled and seasoned it. We use it for sunny side up eggs these days.

Thanks! I'll give it a try.

In my country everyone has an electric oven, so you can set an exact temperature.

Just use a little butter, olive oil, or lard (bacon is good) whenever you cook with them.

Interesting, I'd heard that those saturated fats basically can't be oxidatively cross-linked to form a seasoning?

Do people cook eggs without oil? Do you use butter or something?

You can definitely fry eggs on teflon without butter or oil or anything. I have this vague memory that I used to be able to do this on cast iron when I lived in the US, with maybe the occasional bit sticking.

You can do this to a brand new, high quality teflon pan, but it will gradually become less and less possible as you use it more.

But why.

Well, if one really wants to taste the subtle tastes of an egg, cooking sans oil does that.

By subtle, I mean similar to the difference between veggie oil and olive or canola oil. These all have a distinct taste to me, and I dislike canola enough to notice when it's been used.

The egg by itself has flavors that get dominated by the oil flavors.

To some people it matters. Simple as that.

Many people abhor chicken fried in canola oil.

Great! I can't blame them. It is terrible.