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Seasoning is what makes your Field Skillet the best tool for everyday cooking. The best way to build up — and maintain — seasoning on any cast iron skillet is to cook with your pan, regularly. Field Skillets arrive with two coats of grapeseed oil seasoning, but some folks like to start by seasoning new cast iron to help break in the pan.

It’s also good to have a go-to cast iron seasoning method ready for care and maintenance purposes. If you ever need to patch up your seasoning after, say, cooking with too much acid or finding a spot of surface rust, these instructions will get your pan back in top shape.

How to Season a Cast Iron Skillet

What you'll need:

Field Cast Iron Seasoning Oil
Absorbent, non-shedding paper towels (blue shop towels are perfect for the job)
Conventional oven

It's important to make sure no excess oil remains on the pan during seasoning. Absorbent, non-shedding paper towels will do the trick

Field Company Cast Iron Seasoning Instructions

1.

Preheat oven to 200°F. Give the oven 10 minutes at 200°F to evaporate any moisture inside the oven.

2.

Clean pan thoroughly — as you would after any meal. Your goal here is to remove any loose debris or residue you wouldn’t want to bake into your seasoning.

3.

Wipe out excess water with a towel, attempting to remove all beads of water.

4.

Evaporate remaining moisture by heating pan on a stovetop burner.

5.

Place pan in 200°F oven for 10 minutes. This completes the drying steps and helps prepare the pan for oil application.

6.

Remove pan from oven.

7.

Increase oven temp to 300°F.

8.

Add a dab of Seasoning Oil to your Field Skillet. You’ll only need about ⅛ teaspoon of oil to season your cooking surface, but you want to start with more, to make sure you have even coverage before wiping away any excess.

Use a clean paper towel to rub the oil in concentric circles, then take a fresh paper towel and wipe up all the residue. When you’re done wiping up excess oil, the pan should look dry, with a dull matte finish. Though it might not look it, plenty of oil will still be on the pan, just in a super-thin layer, which is exactly what you want. Remember, your goal is to bake a layer of seasoning into the pan, not on top of it.

9.

Repeat on the bottom and handle with another ¼ teaspoon dab of oil. That’s it—no more oil than that.

10.

Place pan in 300°F oven for 10 minutes.

11.

Remove pan from oven.

12.

Increase temp to 400°F.

13.

If necessary, wipe out any pooled oil with a fresh paper towel or rag. If excess oil remains, you’ll end up with spotting or “spiderweb” marks on the finished product. (Mistakes happen! — Don’t worry, cook on. Ugly pans still cook delicious meals.)

14.

Place pan upside down in 400°F oven for 1 hour.

15.

Turn off oven, but leave pan inside, allowing seasoning to cure. 30-60 minutes is recommended.

16.

Repeat 2-3 times as needed.

It’s especially important to thoroughly wipe away excess oil where specified. You’ll end up with much less than 1 teaspoon on the pan surface when you’re done wiping down. If excess oil remains in the pan, you’ll see pooling or “spiderweb” marks on the finished product.

Seasoning with too much oil can produce ugly residue that's difficult to remove.

Seasoning by cooking

The best way to achieve reliably non-stick seasoning is also the simplest: cook with your skillet as often as you can. Every time you heat oil or fat, you begin to add a thin, durable patch of seasoning to your pan. These thin layers expand and interlock, building on each other like coats of paint, and with time create a resilient, ultra-slick cooking surface.

We designed Field Seasoning Oil to keep this process on track: apply a dab after you clean your skillet, and next time you heat it up, the Seasoning Oil will go to work. Every time you cook, you’ll be adding to your skillet’s seasoning and improving its performance.

Now that your Field Skillet is ready for action, where to start? We recommend breaking in your skillet with a few seasoning-friendly meals. Start here, with 5 easy recipes to break in your cast iron cookware.

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