Best Cast-Iron Skillets of 2020 (Buying Guide)

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T-fal Nonstick Skillet

• Brings several attachments.
• Commercial grade suction power.
• Purifies air at the same time.

The T-fal Pre-seasoned Nonstick Cast Iron is a 12-inch cast iron that comes with an extra-long handle along with a dumb rest which allows individual to hold it easily. The helper handle is very helpful and makes it easy to move, even when the pan is full of stuff. Emptying the pan becomes easy due to pouring spouts, so no mess while doing that.

As the name suggests, It’s a pre-seasoned pan which allows you to start cooling right away and can be used with additional seasoning and use. For beginners, there’s a step-by-step seasoning instructions guide to help you how to use cast iron pans.

The best part about this pan is that it can withstand a temperature of up to 600 degrees and you can also use it on any cooktop, including induction. Similarly, it can be used for outdoors like grilling or campfire.

Overall, T-fal is an amazing cast-iron skillet that is completely safe and budget-friendly. If you’re looking for a pan that allows you to cook anything, this is the one you should get.

Lodge Seasoned Skillet

• Brings several attachments.
• Commercial grade suction power.
• Purifies air at the same time.

The Lodge 10.25-inch Cast Iron Skillet is manufactured in the USA which earns this iron-skillet enough reputation which makes it popular. Except that, this 10 1/4 inch skillet is inexpensive like the pans manufactured overseas and it’s pre-seasoned, allowing you to use this pan instantly, but additional seasoning makes this skillet more nonstick. More Lodge Pre-Seasoned

You can hang the skillet in your kitchen using a hole in the long handle, make sure the hook is strong enough to hold the weight. A helper handle allows you to move quickly and easily, carry, or pour from the skillet, or simply hang it. This skillet lacks pouring spouts on the sides.

Overall, Lodge 10.25-inch skillet is an affordable iron-skillet which can be used easily allowing you to prepare your desired food in no time.

VonShef Nonstick Pan

• Brings several attachments.
• Commercial grade suction power.
• Purifies air at the same time.

Honestly, cast iron cookware is pretty affordable, but this set of three pans each of sizes – 6-inch, 8-inch, and 10-inch are way cheaper than you might think.

These pre-seasoned pans allow you to start cooking right out of the box, but additional seasoning makes them much better.

The best part? They can be used with any type of cooktop. The long handles have a hole which makes it easy to hang them on your kitchen walls. Unlike other skillets we just reviewed above, these skillets do not come with a helper handle but do have pouring spouts on either side of the pan.

Overall, these three set of iron skillet are good for your kitchen and can be used right out of the box.

Le Creuset Signature

• Popular brand manufacturer
• Loop helper handle
• Comes with Pouring spouts

This skillet is manufactured by a popular brand Le Creuset which is popular for it’s high-end enameled cast iron Dutch ovens. The Signature Iron Handle Skillet is built using the same quality and attention to detail.

The Le Creuset Signature resists staining and dulling, thanks to the black enameled interior and the exterior looks pretty much same like other Le Creuset cookware, so you can buy a pan which look similar or complement your existing cookware.

The black interior feels almost like uncoated cast iron, but no need of seasoning with this pan which allows you to cook any food in it, even highly acidic foods. It comes with a nicely designed big loop helper handle which allows you to move the pan like breeze, even you’re wearing bulky oven mitts.

You can also hang the pan on your kitchen wall with a hook as the handle contains a hole which gets the job done. Furthermore, there are pouring spouts on both sides of the pan so you can deal with everything without creating a mess. It’s dishwasher safe and available in a range of colors.

Lodge Miniature Cast Iron Skillet

• Popular brand manufacturer
• Loop helper handle
• Comes with Pouring Spouts

The Lodge Miniature Cast Iron Skillet is a little smaller in size compared to other cast iron skillets I have reviewed so far. Instead of cooking a chicken in this 3 1/2 inch skillet, it’s ideal if you want to cook and serve an egg dish for one person. You can also use this skillet for baking cookies or brownies.

Similarly, the Lodge Miniature Cast Iron Skillet can be used for heating up dips, melting butter, heating a small quantity of sauce, or for making a small number of snacks.

As it’s designed as a larger pan, you can use it for pre-seasoned cooking to get better use of it. The long handle contains a hole which allows you to hang the skillet on your kitchen walls, and the two spouts on both sides of this skillet make easy pouring.

Although it lacks helper handle, this small size of this pan doesn’t require one.

Tramontana Gourmet Grill Pan

• Popular brand manufacturer
• Loop helper handle
• Comes with Pouring Spoutsuts

Like a flat pan, a grill pan is capable to do almost everything, but it adds a little style because it leaves attractive grill marks like a traditional grill on your steaks, chops, burgers, fish or even on the grilled fruit.

Similarly, the fat and juices inside the pan are drained into the walls, which never let your food steam o simmer, like in a flat pan.

Tramontana Gourmet Enameled Cast Iron Pan offers nice heat distribution, the drill press that comes along guarantees that the whole surface of your food makes contact with the pan for even cooking and pretty marks.

The pan’s interior has a porcelain enameled finish which never let the food stuck inside, as well as makes it easy to clean the pan, while the handles make the pan helpful to move while cooking.

While you are not going to use Tramontana Gourmet Enameled Cast Iron Pan to scramble your eggs, your frying pan won’t be used that often once you start using this grill pan.

Lodge Cast Iron 3.2 Quart Covered Deep Skillet

• • Popular brand manufacturer
  • Loop helper handle

• • Comes with Pouring Spoutsuts

The Lodge Cast Iron 3.2 Quart Covered Deep Skillet is a bigger is size skillet which chicken lovers will find it great because it allows them to cook chicken easily without consuming much oil compared to a typical deep fryer.

The larger side of this pan is useful for simmering soups, reducing sauces, or cooking casseroles while sitting on the stove or in the oven.

You can also use this skillet like you use a standard skillet, to sear meats, fry burgers, or cook bacon, even containing all of the spatter, thanks to the tall sides. Lodge Mini Skillet Review

As mentioned earlier, it can be used on a stove or in the oven. For the oven, you can use it to bake buns, bread, biscuits, cornbread, and anything you which is prepared in an oven. If you want to make poultry or small roasts it can be used for that as well.

The tall sidewalls are very helpful to keep the skillet hot form inside which is good while making browning and the finished food you get is warm.

It also brings a cover with it which makes it suitable for all your favorite recipes. It’s a pre-seasoned, so you can start making dishes right out of the box, but the nonstick properties improve with additional seasoning and the usage. You can use it on any cooktop.

Cast Iron Skillet Buying Guide

If you are buying a cast iron skillet for the first time or want some more details about how to buy the best one or which factors to look for while purchasing a best-cast iron skillet, this buying guide is for you.

Cast-Iron: It’s a 1.7 percent iron mixed in the pure icon which gives a classic heavy, brittle nature.

Seasoning: It’s a polymerized and carbonized fats layer that comes between the cooking stuff and raw iron.

Pour Sprouts: Small areas on both sides to save sauces or excess grease.

Wall Slope: The gradient at which the walls of a cast iron pan makes contact with the cooking surface, the more the slope is steeper, the less tossing there will be.

Front Grip: The extended area opposite the handle which allows you to grab hold of the pan and it’s useful for making heavier dishes.

As-Cast: The cooking surface is polished while you use it. Before the polishing and milling, it’s brought and sandpapery and that’s known as as-cast.

Rust: Rust or ferric oxide is the form of the pan once the bare cast-iron is oxidized but the seasoning layer stays protected. Rust can be fixed easily.

Smoke Point: A temperature where fats in the meat begin to break down and smoke, it’s also a point where pan reaches to the seasonal pan.

How to Use a Cast-Iron Skillet

How to Heat Your Skillet

The Iron-Skillet takes about ten to fifteen minutes to get heated and make sure not to put oil or cooking stuff before it heats up. Iron is a type of conductor that takes more time to heat up, but it’s rescued by tremendous heat insulation. As it takes times to get hot, it also takes time to cool down. Unlike other cookware by removing the heat you cannot cool down this terrible conductor, that’s why heavy smoking often occurs.

Cast-iron can be used to cook any dish, but it shines brightest producing by giving a wicket crust for dishes like fried chicken, cornbread, pies, steaks, and some other popular dishes.

How to Clean Your Skillet

Cleaning your cast-iron skillet is much easier than you’d think. First, wait for the pan to cool down, then take a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape the pan. You can clean the bits and pieces of food left in the pan by using a dry sponge or a handful or kosher salt with light rubbing with paper towels. For hardly stuck bits, use some with and soap to dispatch that without worrying about the seasoning.

How to Season Your Skillet

Crank your oven way up, and put some fat on the cooking surface. Spread the fat over all the cooking surface of the pan, then use a towel to wipe the surface one more time. Too much oil and leave the pan sticky and not fully polymerized, similarly not non-stick. Keep the pan in your oven for more than an hour until the temperature rises to a level when applied fat starts giving smoke, which is what causes it to attach firmly to the pan. The pan looks shiny after this process and now it’s seasoned.

You can check out our more in-depth article on how to season a cast iron skillet here.

How to Remove Rust from Your Skillet

Rust is just a layer on the skillet which can be cleaned off easily enough. Rust never means that the skillet is of no use. If it’s the flash rust, that forms after a few minutes of iron exposure to air – simple wipe it off and make the pan seasoned. For thick rust layers, you can use soak in a vinegar solution, wipe off the rust and applying the seasoning. If rust is still on the pan you can use electrolysis.

How to Store Your Skillet

The first thing for storing a cast-iron skillet is that never store your skillet in humid or damp areas. Also, avoid stacking cast-iron pans in each other to avoid scratching the hard-earned layer of seasoning. Almost every iron-skillet pan comes with a handle and a hole in it, if you have enough room then an ideal option is to hang each skillet separately.

How to Pick the Right Size

First, decide what you want to cook in your skillet, how often you want to cook and for how many persons. Also, keep in mind that the surface of the iron skillet is smaller in size than the size it’s typically labeled as then make an idea of the space you will need by deciding your cooking style and the number of people.

Mostly, 10-inch skillets give you a cooking area of 9-inches and that’s enough for you to cook one large ribeye but not a full pork loin.

If you have a requirement to make multiple steaks or full breakfasts, or you live in a house with a large family, a 9.5-inch cooking surface is an ideal option for you. As you get the bigger size of the skillet, the weight of the skillet will be increased. But due to heavyweight don’t shrink your family out of quality food.

Why Cook With Cast Iron?

The short and simple answer to this obvious question is durability. While shopping for a best cast-iron skillet, either it’s cheaper, expensive or un-enameled, they are going to last for a longer period of time, even for a lifetime.

This explains that cast iron skillets are unbreakable and incredibly durable pans which are not easy or sometimes possible to break and comes with no handles to come loose. Durability, on the other hand, makes these pan heavier, which might be a consideration if you have compromised upper limb strength.

Do you consider oiling rules for every time you use the cast iron pan, and certainly for the first time? Is it complicated really?

First Time or Seasoned Pro?

While using your new cast iron skillet for the very first time, either pre-seasoned or not, it’s worth doing it. The key to getting a cooking-friendly surface is making the skillet seasoned.

Incidentally, the seasoned surface won’t be harmed if you are using any cooking tool over it which makes you comfortable while cooking. The oil bonds with the metal itself over time and if the seasoning is done correctly, it can’t be scraped off at all.

Make sure you are not trying to convert a cast iron pan into a non-stick one.

The reason cast iron skillets are better for cooking food? Let’s discuss that in details.

Why is a Cast Iron Skillet Better?

Those who cooked with cast iron never thought of shifting back because cast iron skillet allows you to cook at higher temperatures compared to regular pans. Even it allows you to make better pizza than a pizza stone, and any dish that involves switching between the hob and the oven will be much easier for you.

For instance, if you are trying to prepare authentic Italian ragu, so you saute a sofrito or onions, garlic, celery and carrot; make the meat brown and chicken livers, continue to add herbs, and crushed tomatoes paste, and don’t forget to pour a cup of wine to reduce down before putting tomato paste. Now put all of this in the oven for about 6 hours.

Or my personal favorite is bacon, or my home made sausages that I make using the first meat grinder on this list, and eggs. Cast iron is amazing for cooking breakfasts foods.

After that, make sure to switch it back onto the hob to put some sauce to thicken up.

This is where ceramic dishes or regular pan will be failed to absorb that much heat, which makes the cast iron pan an invaluable asset of your kitchen.

Cast iron pan can be used for steaks, burgers and any other kind of dishes. The process called the Maillard Reaction, which is a commonly used term by a chef for the chemical change that occurs in the meat when it turns to brown and caramelized on a high-temperature surface, is a revelation in a cast iron skillet, with a really deep, savory flavor.

So, now you know the versatility of the cast iron skillet which makes the switching process more easier, despite all that, non-stick is much easier still.

The whole point of using these pans is making the cooking more relaxed and enjoyable, but non-stick doesn’t have it’s own sticking points.

Cast Iron Skillet or Non-Stick?

Regardless of the well-publicized benefits of the cast iron, some people still prefer to get the modern, lightweight, inexpensive, non-stick surface.

That’s perfectly fine, as long as you’re making an informed choice. There has been some fight going on about the ingestion of some of the chemicals which are intentionally used for non-stick pans manufacturing.

The most common and widely used non-stick pan is Teflon. But, Teflon is a brand, not a substance, which is classified as a man-made chemical.

Teflon is the result of another substance created by a man known as Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Some people have low levels of PFOA in their bloodstream, at that level, it’s not harmful to you.

There have been reports about the people experiencing elevated levels of PFOA, which might have been formed by containment water or industrial exposure. The bad thing about these chemicals is that they stay for longer periods of time in human body, therefore, the long-term effects are never known, there has been a reasonable concern by the WHO, via the IARC or International Agency for Reseach or Cancer, which proved that PFOA is “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”

So, keep in mind that every little bit of PFOA in Teflon is removed by burning off while manufacturing these pans, and it exists no more in finished products.

Despite that, some consumers remain concerned over pans with non-stick surfaces, due to the fear of harmful elements available in Teflon surface which can be harmful to them.

The Teflon pan releases pan if overheated, and you may experience flu-like symptoms. This is a transient effect and can be harmful in the long run, but something that the majority of consumers would like to avoid.

All this makes the cast iron guilt-free here. Trace minerals can be easily transferred from the pan to the food cooked. Is that dangerous? It isn’t but it does require your attention.

Cast Iron in Food

That said, the seasoned cast iron is not harmful to the human body in term of chemical toxicity. Except, it helps your body by trace amounts of iron being transferred into your body by the food which is cooked.

Is that safe for your body? By and large, yes it definitely is.

The human body needs iron which is important for essential minerals. Children of the age of three years or below are prone to iron toxicity, so it’s suggested that you better not prepare food for kids under three in cast iron pans.

The age of the pan, cooking food and the time for which food remains in the pan are all relevant to how much iron is absorbed, and for healthy people, it’s a good thing.

Steak Your Claim. Cooking With a Cast Iron Skillet

As already mentioned, cast iron skillets are used most of the time in the kitchen by chefs, and they are in love cooking with them compared to anything else. As cast the iron is an invention of our ancestors, they did use it heavily.

The cast iron skillet is mostly used to prepare different types of meats like steaks or pork chops. Add a meat slicer and make your own bacon and other meats to cook with it for a seriously retro meal just like your grandparents cooked.

First, bring the steak to the normal temperature of your room, put some oil and make it season from both sides. Put the pan on the stove and let it absorb some heat until it starts releasing smoke, then cook the steak and make sure not to press or move until it’s cooked as you wanted it.

For the cooking time, there are several variables like the thickness of the steak, how rare you like your meat, but the best part is let that wonderful caramelizing temperature make your steak as perfect as you want. And you can easily cut your steak with our article on the best steak knives here.

You might be able to slip a pile of scrambled eggs using one hand on the Teflon pan while holding a cup of coffee in your other hand, but in reality, Teflon is not even capable to hold a candle to a cast iron skillet for flavor race.

Final Words

So, now that you have all the information about buying the best-cast iron skillets and all the best-rated skillets reviewed above. It’s time to make a decision and get yourself a best-cast iron skillet in affordable price for your kitchen.