---
title: 'How to Season a Cast Iron Skillet'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=5bTDwi-ddjM'
video_id: '5bTDwi-ddjM'
date: 2026-07-10
channel: 'Smokin'' & Grillin with AB'
---

# How to Season a Cast Iron Skillet

> Source: [How to Season a Cast Iron Skillet](https://youtube.com/watch?v=5bTDwi-ddjM)

## Summary

This video provides a step-by-step guide on how to clean, strip, and reseason a cast iron skillet to restore its non-stick properties. The presenter demonstrates using a scouring pad and chain mail to remove old seasoning, then applies a thin layer of oil and bakes the skillet in the oven at 500°F for one hour, repeating the process four times. The video emphasizes avoiding soap after seasoning and using any available oil, debunking the myth that flaxseed oil is necessary.

### Key Points

- **Cleaning the Skillet** [00:50] — Use a wire scouring pad and a chain mail cast iron cleaner to scrub off old seasoning and sticky residue. Add a few drops of mild dish detergent and water to break down the grime.
- **No Soap After Seasoning** [02:03] — Once the skillet is seasoned, never use soap to clean it. Instead, use hot water and a cloth to wipe it clean, then dry thoroughly.
- **Drying and Preheating** [03:35] — Dry the skillet with a towel and then heat it on the stove on high to evaporate any remaining moisture. Preheat the oven to 500°F (or 450°F if 500 is not available).
- **Choosing the Oil** [04:42] — Any oil works for seasoning: extra virgin olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, or crisco. The presenter uses whatever is available, debunking the need for flaxseed oil.
- **Applying Oil** [06:11] — Apply a small amount of oil to the warm skillet and wipe it all over, then use a clean paper towel to remove as much oil as possible. The goal is a very thin layer.
- **Baking Process** [08:07] — Place the skillet upside down in the preheated oven. Bake at 500°F for one hour, then turn off the oven and let it cool inside for 30 minutes. Repeat this process four times.
- **Final Result** [11:38] — After four rounds of seasoning, the skillet develops a smooth, non-stick surface. The presenter shows the progression from the second to the fourth seasoning.

### Conclusion

Seasoning a cast iron skillet is a simple but time-consuming process that results in a durable, non-stick surface. With proper care—avoiding soap and drying thoroughly—the skillet can last for generations.

## Transcript

What's good everybody and welcome back to my channel smoking and grilling with me AB I'm smiling because listen I'm finally getting ready to answer all of the emails and all of the comments on how I keep up with my my cast
Our skin is right super easy. I want you guys to take a look at this right here look This is actually my favorite one. I just like let it be any old kind of way have cleaned it You can see right here. We got a little food on it. You know what I mean look you see the rest right here
I'm gonna show you guys just how to bring this back and then my small one right here You do it. These are just gonna be my examples, you know what I mean and then this one right here needs to be reseason You know over but I'm gonna show you guys how to just like break them down go ahead and you know
Bring them to the original and listen to this nobody thinks about this But the cast iron skillet is a original non-stick pan. Hey super easy. We not gonna overtalk it I'm finna get prepped and get everything going and we finna make this happen
Okay, so look we jumping right into it. I just want to show you this right here. Look I like a wire Skyrim pad right we got this and look I got this right here They call this a cast iron, you know skillet cleaner, but it's like a little chain mall, you know
But look I want you guys to take a look at this right here Look at this discoloration and all that and you don't know this but this right here It's kind of like sticky. That's from putting oil in here and then just putting it up But I'm gonna use this scouring pad and this chain mall right here and we gonna scrub this all you're gonna need is
Let me go ahead and get started. You're gonna need a little water And then we're gonna use some mild, you know dishwasher detergent, right? So look we gonna go like this I'm just gonna put a little water in here like this
Right, I want you guys to take pay attention. I just put a couple of drops in there and that's it now I'm gonna go ahead and get my scouring pad and we just gonna work this around like this
Look that you know the the dishwasher detergent is gonna break everything down You guys getting a message right now. You're getting the just of it. This is it We want to strip this all the way down because we're gonna start at zero and then I want to say this to
Never ever once we finish this process never ever. Hey, look at me when I tell you this Never ever and I mean ever once you have everything season season do not use soap on this when you finish cooking with it
Look get yourself some hot water and get yourself a cloth and just go ahead and wipe off everything on there And then you want to dry it. I got to say that and I'm probably gonna say it 10 more times in this video do not use soap on a cast iron skillet once this season
Okay, so look I've cleaned the other two. This is the third one. We have to end now, right? This right here, listen, this is gonna be gratifying to you guys look just lay it down and this is the one that had like a little food
That was down there that was burnt on the bottom look. I just lay it down flat Take my hand just like this and just work that area and then I work it all the way around and what I like about it Look you can get right here in the corner in the seam. You can go like this
And it just it is perfect make sure you get the sides all of that now I'm just gonna rinse this out and make sure it's completely you know clean a lot of the The soapy water anything that was left in there and then look at this right here
That's nice and clean now you want to go ahead and get yourself a you know a dry towel and you want to keep Running this across here because you want it to be free of all water, right? We don't want it to rust, but I got a little trick right here to the help you guys with just part right here also
Let's move over to the stove Okay, so as I'm ensuring that this is dry don't forget to dry the under under it carries to right We'll do like that
And just in case we have dry and sometimes when you wipe it you'll see a streak look no worries. We turn on the fire I turn it on high. I let it go ahead and like cook put some heat in there so the rest of it it just evaporates
Okay, so look now that I'm ready to take the you know the skillet off of here Now be a great time for us to preheat a oven So I'm gonna preheat my oven to 500 degrees everybody doesn't go to 500 It'll probably go to some people got those that go to 400. You can do excuse me 450 that are work too, but for me
I'm going to 500 and we gonna preheat. Okay, so this is done. There's a little warm right I got a pot holder holding the handle This right here. This is called a trivet you guys want to get one of these because listen
You don't want to put nothing high on your eye do all the time. You know Good practice is to have some of these you know one or two you could put it on your counter that way You're not putting this on your granite or corin or whatever you guys are using but for me
I'm gonna start with it right there. Okay, so look Everything is ready. This is steel kind of like coolant. So what I did was I did This is my barbecue set of right. I got some cut resisting gloves right here And I got you know my regular black gloves over the top. This allows me to be able to you know, touch
Just without burning myself. It's sitting be this hot and for you guys that don't have this kind of setup Just go ahead and let it cool least of cool enough so that you can do it now. Let's talk about the oils look This is extra virgin olive oil actually this is from branch and vine you know
I mean this is my scallion but listen you guys probably have this You can use good. This is crisco Everybody might have this and then for those of you guys around my age Let's talk about when we was growing up our grandparents had a can that was on the stove that stayed there permanently
Anyway, this is old school right here now the reason I'm showing you the oils right listen I didn't really tell you you know what to use because I'm gonna be honest with you listen I didn't see you in mind with whatever I had in my you know my cabinet right now everybody saying because I've looked up
Some videos to see you know what's hot anybody doing anything differently than what I was taught and I only think I can Tell you right now is everybody saying using that flaxee is probably the best you know what but I'm gonna be honest Which you listen I've used whatever I have whether it was vegetable or canola whatever I have available
That's what I use but right now you saw I got extra virgin olive oil You know I mean it just happened to be a flavored olive oil and then I got just a crisco right here Which that's what I'm gonna be using now you want to go ahead and get yourself a paper towel right because I'm
Beusing you do it however you want to do it. I'm not trying to over-complicate it I've seen some videos out there just talking about all kind of stuff right so we're gonna do it like this This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take it Get a little bit of this right
It doesn't take much and remember this is already warm right so we just gonna go ahead and just hit it like this Before I even do anything there, I'm gonna turn it over like this We're gonna do the same thing. I'm gonna go ahead and give me a fresh piece
Just something like this Some of you guys might think it's not necessary to do the back But I do it all for one. We don't want nothing to rush, right? You want to get yourself another paper towel, right and again look not trying to over-talk and tell you guys how to do it
You do what's best for you for me. I'll just fold it down like this Everything that I put on there. I got my in my mind my mind said is to get it all off We just want to take everything that we put on here off. We want to wipe it
Get it completely free of what we just put on there Right same thing in here just take it all off wipe it all
You don't want to see nothing pulled in the side nothing like that, right? You see all of that. That's okay That's what you want to see who want to get it all off. You think you're taking it off, but you're not This is so porous, right? It's got. Oh, I'm gonna give you an example like this
This is how I will look under a microscope. This is what we feel with our hand But listen, you got all of these little crevices inside of the cast iron what we doing is just imagine us pouring something here And it's starting to build up once we got it build up over the top
It's gonna be like glass, right? And that's why we gonna come up with a original non-stick pan Okay, check this out. I don't know if you guys can see that from back there, but look This is that 500 degrees everything is preheated and it's ready to go, right?
So you can see that I got all of these doing now. I'm doing three at a time. So this one to look a little different from that one And this is the one that I've done last remember we put the shorten on and what I did was I tried to wipe it all out
Everywhere we applied it and you just want to wipe it out. You think you wiping it out, but you're not now What we gonna do is we gonna put this in the oven now notice I just flipped this over I don't want to get ahead of myself turn this upside down like this put it in the oven
I'm like I say I'm doing three, but when we put it in the oven we gonna put it in there for one hour Then after one hour we gonna shut off the oven and we gonna let it just rest in there for about 30 minutes Hey super easy you guys and you know what I'm gonna say this part two if you clean this and got everything out of here
Putting it upside down ain't gonna do nothing because you're not gonna have nothing poo But the purpose of that is in case anything runs down or whatever You don't want it to be all getting lumpy and clumpy and liquidy all on the side But for the sake of argument we gonna put them in upside down remember one hour five hundred degrees
And for those that got for those you guys that your oven don't get to 500 for 50 works to Okay, so listen Already was in there for an hour all I did was turn off my oven, right? And we just let it naturally start cooling down, right?
So it's been 30 minutes now I'm gonna take them out and I bring it over here so you guys can see look at the color And you can see it's starting to get a little bit on the smooth side But look now we on our way to season it and then if you rub your hand right here
You could just feel it. It's got like a little layer on here Are we gonna leave it alone what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get my short and then we're gonna repeat that process We're gonna put as much on here as we can and then we're gonna take off as much as we can
So just get something like this Just like this just got a little heating it already so as you do it look how liquidy it is So I'm gonna go ahead and hold that even though I got a set of cut resisting gloves here
And I got these on top it's still a little warm, but we're just gonna take it like that. Hey, there's how you can see it's still hot Look at that right there You see it melting right in front of your eyes Just makes it easier when it's warm for you to just apply
So we gonna put it on just like this Once we got it done again, look I'm not gonna bore you guys and keep talking about it and telling you you you got to just of it We just want to get it coated. Then we want to take off as much as we can
Then we're gonna go back in for one hour Then we're gonna turn the oven off and we're gonna go ahead and let it just cool Nationally for 30 minutes and we're gonna repeat this process. I like to do it four times It's something I forgot to say look after you turn off your oven and you let it rest for that 30 minutes
Right when you take your skillet out turn your oven back on and we want to get back to 500 degrees, right? So I've done these already these are done. You can see Front and back what I'm gonna do now is we're gonna put it back in the oven upside down
And we gonna come back and I'm gonna show you what they look like after being done twice Now again, I'm not gonna bore you with the same old wipe on wipe off or some of us know There's my area west at that wax on wax off, right? I'm not gonna bore you
I'm gonna show you three and four what they look like and then we gonna wrap this video up super simple And this is a great project. I'm gonna probably tell you that again at the end Look, it's a great project for like the weekend. You know what I mean? When you're at home, you can just do this when you think about it by the end of the day
You'll have something that you can pass on like a family heirloom. So take a look at that right there You see this? This is what it looks like right after you know your second time. So this is number two
And this is number three And number four look look at that. It's a little bit of a process, but look at that right there. Oh Yeah, and this right here my friends
These are the original non-stick pants. Okay, so you can see that they all are doing it right here Right these right here already you can put the eggs on here You can put whatever and now let's go ahead and talk about like to clean up, right?
So when this when you're done with this, right? What you got to do is you just get yourself some water. Look. It's gonna already be hot and all of that You can get yourself one of these look. This is just a stainless steel Scotch bright, right? Or you can get one of these Chamos, you know, great for cleaning, you know, it's cast on skillets
Everything that you see in this video right here. I'll put down to the number one comment You guys can get them, you know, get them from Amazon. That way they come right to your door now even all the way down to these Trivits, you know what I mean? These are here great to put this on top, but all of this is already cool now
I'm gonna talk about the oils. Remember, I'm giving it to you 100% honest I use whatever I have in here to do it. You got to remember every oil that you use is gonna have some type of There's gonna have a number. I mean, you know for the smoke point. Some smoke it three sand if I some smoke it four or fifty
Stuff like that. So listen, it's gonna make your house a little bit on the smoky side, but I promise you You're gonna go ahead and make these and you can make up, you know eggs inside it won't stick none of that and listen There's a family heirloom, you know, you're gonna pass it down from generations to generations now
Listen if you like this content and you want to do something a little bit more than that Don't forget look underneath this video. You're gonna see a join button, right? All you gotta do is click that video is gonna play real short video It's gonna explain the membership. That's where you get a little bit more personal
You guys can vote talk to me and tell me what you want me to do and I can do it and we can talk real time now With that being said, listen if you're new to my channel I want to say thank you for watching this video. Don't forget to smash that like button hit that subscribe and ring that bell
Right that way you can be you know notify anytime I drop any these how-to or fire recipes And what that being said now you know how to season your cast on skillet and I'm out peace