Are cast iron pans really better?

Cast Iron vs. Enameled Cast Iron Skillet: Which Is Better?

Straight to the Point

While we think both pans are worthwhile, if you don't own either, it's hard to beat the longevity and versatility of a traditional cast iron skillet like our favorite (after testing 22 pans!) from Lodge.

For more information, please visit our website.

When you read the words “cast iron pan,” what’s the first image that comes to mind? A heavy black metal skillet with years of patina—also known as seasoning—built up into a glossy top coat? Or do you picture that pan with a smooth, naturally (somewhat) nonstick surface made from enamel? Maybe you imagine a 5-quart Dutch oven with a colorful exterior or a wide and shallow braising pan. All of these are made from cast iron (the exact composition varies with each manufacturer), and they are all excellent pans for a variety of cooking tasks.

Compared with stainless steel or nonstick, cast iron pans are heavy, durable, and great at heat retention. To efficiently evaluate the pros and cons of bare versus enameled cast iron (and help you decide which one is right for you), we’ll look primarily at skillets. Although you can find uncoated Dutch ovens and braisers, these shapes are most often coated in enamel, meaning the qualities inherent in enameled cast iron skillets apply to them too (with exceptions relevant to size and shape).

The Best Cast Iron and Enameled Skillets

Heat Conduction and Retention

Heat conduction (how efficiently and quickly a pan transfers heat from the cooking unit) and heat retention (how consistently the pan holds its desired temperature throughout the cooking process) are different concepts. Because most cast iron pans are large and heavy, they are slower to heat and are inferior conductors of heat. However, they shine at heat retention, maintaining a consistent temperature even when food is added.

It's a myth that cast iron pans are superior at conducting heat. Instead, they're actually excellent at heat retention.

The presence or absence of an enamel coating won’t affect either of these qualities. What does determine a pan’s efficiency in both categories is the type of metal used, as well as its thickness. As we've found in our reviews and use of both of these pan types, thinner, lighter-weight pans are faster to heat and more prone to temperature fluctuations. Heavy pans with thick bottoms excel in heat retention.

Performance

When we talk about a cast iron pan’s performance, we’re discussing its ability to sear as well as its potential for sticking. A high-performing pan with good heat retention will excel at a hard sear, creating a strong Maillard reaction that produces a golden-brown crust. The pan should also easily release the food from its surface, which happens once the reaction has been completed. So, a pan with poor searing ability will cause food to stick or flake on its surface.

When we tested enameled cast iron skillets, we seared numerous pork chops. You can see how they browned differently per pan here.

Both enameled and bare pans are great at searing. The presence of an enamel coating may slightly hinder browning. As for sticking? When a bare cast iron pan is well-seasoned—meaning it’s coated in even, consistent layers of fat built up over time—it has natural nonstick capabilities. Note that we didn’t say it’s entirely nonstick. For delicate tasks, like cooking an omelet, we still recommend using nonstick pans instead of cast iron.

Versatility

Kitchen folklore warns that it’s bad to cook acidic ingredients like tomatoes in a bare cast iron pan because those foods may strip the iron from its surface, causing the pan to degrade. So, you may think enameled pans are a better choice due to their “all foods welcome” abilities. However, it’s debatable how much iron leaching happens with uncoated pans; a 2020 study showed the heat needs to be very high for this to occur. Stripping and corrosion also happen primarily when a pan is used without a layer of proper seasoning. And you wouldn’t use your bare cast iron pan without seasoning it, would you?

We think both traditional and enameled cast iron pans are exceptionally versatile.

Conclusion: with ample seasoning built up and an adequately hot temperature, uncoated pans are more versatile and nonstick than their enameled counterparts. It's worth noting, too, that while traditional cast iron can be used at any temperature (literally, throw it over a fire!), enameled cast iron is more sensitive. One of our favorite enameled cast iron skillets, from Le Creuset, has a max temperature of just 500°F, limiting some of its versatility.

Longevity

Here’s where bare cast iron excels: These pans are built to last for generations. They’re incredibly durable, practically impossible to crack or break, and can even be revived. It’s possible to restore a rusted cast iron pan at home, and if things get really bad, you can sand them back to a base layer, from where you’ll build up the seasoning over time.

Enameled cast iron pans are prone to chipping, cracking, and scratching over time or with misuse. Metal utensils cannot be used on the enamel surface, so you’ll need to invest in silicone-tipped tongs and food turners if you plan on cooking with enameled pans. That said, high-end enameled pans like Le Creuset and Staub have excellent quality control to ensure proper construction. You’ll take your chances with cheaper coated pans.

Care and Maintenance

There’s no denying bare cast iron requires more meticulous care and maintenance than enameled cast iron. We don’t believe in babying cast iron—we’re fine with a little sudsy water—but it should never be left to soak or drip dry. Water is the enemy of exposed iron, so to properly maintain a bare pan, it should be washed, rinsed, dried, then heated with a thin layer of neutral oil to seal and protect the seasoning.

If that sounds too fussy, you’ll be happy to know you can soak, wash, and dry an enameled pan with almost as much cavalier abandon as you do other cookware. Just remember that it should not be introduced to metal, so use a bristle brush rather than steel wool for stuck-on food. Although some enameled cast iron pan manufacturers give the green light for dishwasher use, we still recommend washing it by hand to preserve the coating.

Price

The Truth About Cast Iron Pans: 7 Myths That Need To Go ...

Straight to the Point

After testing, our favorite cast iron skillets are the Lodge 10.25-Inch Skillet and Lodge Blacklock 10.25-Inch Skillet. You can read about the best ways to maintain them below.

If you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of cast iron. When I packed up my apartment last spring and had to live for a full month with only two pans in my kitchen, you can bet your butt that the first one I grabbed was my trusty cast iron skillet.

I use it for the crispest potato hash and for giving my steaks a crazy-good sear. I use it for baking garlic knots or cornbread or the easiest, best pan pizza you'll ever bake (just kidding, this might be the easiest pizza). I use it for a complete chicken dinner with insanely crisp skin and for crispy, creamy pasta bakes.

The point is, it's a versatile workhorse and no other pan even comes close to its league.

But there's also a mysterious, myth-packed lore when it comes to cast iron pans. On the one hand, there are the folks who claim you've got to treat your cast iron cookware like a delicate little flower. On the other, there are the macho types who chime in with their my cast iron is hella nonstick or damn, does my pan heat evenly!

In the world of cast iron, there are unfounded, untested claims left, right, and center. It's time to put a few of those myths to rest. Then, check up on our cast iron skillet review to make sure you're cooking with the best pans (we tested 22 of 'em) possible.

6:22

How to Season Cast Iron and Carbon Steel Pans

Myth 1: Cast Iron Is Hard to Maintain

The Theory: Cast iron is a material that can rust, chip, or crack easily. Buying a cast iron skillet is like adopting a newborn baby and a puppy at the same time. You're going to have to pamper it through the early stages of its life, and be gentle when you store it—that seasoning can chip off!

The Reality: Cast iron is tough as nails! There's a reason why there are 75-year-old cast iron pans kicking around at yard sales and antique shops. The stuff is built to last and it's very difficult to completely ruin it. Most new pans even come pre-seasoned, which means that the hard part is already done for you and you're ready to start cooking right away.

And as for storing it? If your seasoning is built up in a nice thin, even layer like it should be, then don't worry. It ain't gonna chip off. I store my cast iron pans nested directly in each other. Guess how many times I've chipped their seasoning? Try doing that to your nonstick skillet without damaging the surface.

Myth 2: It Heats Evenly

The Theory: Searing steaks and frying potatoes require high, even heat. Cast iron is great at searing steaks, so it must be great at heating evenly, right?

Suggested reading:
How do I choose handmade custom enamel cookware?

Goto siao to know more.

The Reality: Actually, cast iron is terrible at heating evenly. The thermal conductivity—the measure of a material's ability to transfer heat from one part to another—is around a third to a quarter that of a material like aluminum. What does this mean? Throw a cast iron skillet on a burner and you end up forming very clear hot spots right on top of where the flames are, while the rest of the pan remains relatively cool.

The main advantage of cast iron is that it has a very high volumetric heat capacity, which means that once it's hot, it stays hot. This is vitally important when searing meat. To really heat cast iron evenly, place it over a burner and let it preheat for at least 10 minutes or so, rotating it every once in a while. Alternatively, heat it up in a hot oven for 20 to 30 minutes (but remember to use a potholder or dish towel!)

The other advantage is its high emissivity—that is, its tendency to expel a lot of heat energy from its surface in the form of radiation. Stainless steel has an emissivity of around 0.07. Even when it's extremely hot, you can put your hand close to it and not feel a thing. Only the food directly in contact with it is heating up in any way.

Cast iron, on the other hand, has a whopping 0.64 emissivity rating, which means that when you're cooking in it, you're not just cooking the surface in contact with the metal, but you're cooking a good deal of food above it as well. This makes it ideal for things like making hash or pan-roasting chicken and vegetables.

Myth 3: Cast Iron is Nonstick

The Theory: The better you season your cast iron, the more nonstick it becomes. Perfectly well-seasoned cast iron should be perfectly nonstick.

The Reality: Your cast iron pan (and mine) may be really, really really nonstick—nonstick enough that you can make an omelet in it or fry an egg with no problem—but let's get serious here. It's not anywhere near as nonstick as, say, Teflon, a material so nonstick that we had to develop new technologies just to get it to bond to the bottom of a pan. Can you dump a load of cold eggs into your cast iron pan, slowly heat it up with no oil, then slide those cooked eggs right back out without a spot left behind? Because you can do that in Teflon.

Yeah, didn't think so.

That said, macho posturing aside, so long as your cast iron pan is well seasoned and you make sure to pre-heat it well before adding any food, you should have no problems whatsoever with sticking.

Myth 4: Don't Scrub With Soap

The Theory: Seasoning is a thin layer of oil that coats the inside of your skillet. Soap is designed to remove oil, therefore soap will damage your seasoning.

The Reality: Seasoning is actually not a thin layer of oil, it's a thin layer of polymerized oil, a key distinction. In a properly seasoned cast iron pan, one that has been rubbed with oil and heated repeatedly, the oil has already broken down into a plastic-like substance that has bonded to the surface of the metal. This is what gives well-seasoned cast iron its nonstick properties, and as the material is no longer actually an oil, the surfactants in dish soap should not affect it. Go ahead and soap it up and scrub it out.

The one thing you shouldn't do? Let it soak in the sink. Try to minimize the time it takes from when you start cleaning to when you dry and re-season your pan. If that means letting it sit on the stovetop until dinner is done, so be it.

Myth 5: No Metal Utensils

The Theory: The seasoning in cast iron pans is delicate and can easily flake out or chip if you use metal. Stick to wood or nylon utensils.

The Reality: The seasoning in cast iron is actually remarkably resilient. It's not just stuck to the surface like tape, it's actually chemically bonded to the metal. Scrape away with a metal spatula and unless you're actually gouging out the surface of the metal, you should be able to continue cooking in it with no issue.

So you occasionally see flakes of black stuff chip out of the pan as you cook in it? It's possible that's seasoning, but unlikely. In order to get my cast iron pan's seasoning to flake off, I had to store it in the oven for a month's worth of heating and drying cycles without re-seasoning it before I started to see some scaling.

More likely, those flakes of black stuff are probably carbonized bits of food that were stuck to the surface of the pan because you refused to scrub them out with soap the last time you cooked.

Myth 6: Vintage is Better Than New

The Theory: Metal is metal, cast iron is cast iron, and the new stuff is no different than the old Wagner and Griswold pans from the early 20th century that people fetishize.

The Reality: The material may be the same, but the production methods have changed. In the old days, cast iron pans were produced by casting in sand-based molds, and then polishing the resulting pebbly surfaces until smooth. Vintage cast iron tends to have a satiny smooth finish. By the 1950s, as production scaled up and was streamlined, this final polishing step was dropped from the process. The result? Modern cast iron retains that bumpy, pebbly surface.

The difference is more minor than you may think. So long as you've seasoned your pan properly, both vintage and modern cast iron should take on a nice nonstick surface, but your modern cast iron will never be quite as nonstick as the vintage stuff.

Myth 7: No Acidic Foods

The Theory: Acidic food can react with the metal, causing it to leech into your food, giving you an off-flavor and potentially killing you slowly.

The Reality: In a well-seasoned cast iron pan, the food in the pan should only be coming in contact with the layer of polymerized oil in the pan, not the metal itself. So in a perfect world, this should not be a problem. But none of us are perfect and neither are our pans. No matter how well you season, there's still a good chance that there are spots of bare metal and these can indeed interact with acidic ingredients in your food.

For this reason, it's a good idea to avoid long-simmered acidic things, particularly tomato sauce. On the other hand, a little acid is not going to hurt it. I deglaze my pan with wine after pan-roasting chicken all the time.

How You SHOULD Use Your Cast Iron Skillet

These are the only rules you need to know to have a successful lifelong relationship with your cast iron.

• Season it when you get it. Even pre-seasoned cast iron can do with some extra protection. To season your pan, heat it up on the stovetop until it's smoking hot, then rub a little oil into it and let it cool. Repeat this process a few times and you're good to go.
• Clean it after each use. Clean your pan thoroughly after each use by washing it with soap and water and scrubbing out any gunk or debris from the bottom. I use the scrubby side of a sponge for this.
• Re-season it. Rinse out any excess soap with water, then place the skillet over a burner set to high heat. When most of the water inside the skillet has dried out, add a half teaspoon of neutral oil like vegetable, canola, flaxseed, or shortening. Rub it around with a paper towel. Continue heating the pan until it just starts to smoke then give it one more good rub. Let it cool and you're done