To me, someone who celebrates a bit more of the spectrum than most: Metal hot. Make food hot.
Non-stick means easier cleanup, but my wife seems to think cast-iron is necessary for certain things (searing a prime rib roast, for example.).
After I figure those out, then I gotta figure out gas vs. electric vs. induction vs infrared…
My family uses our cast iron skillets daily. We have one that is almost exclusively for eggs, and one for meat.
Cast iron wants to be used often and if you really like cooking, will eventually become your go-to. But not everyone gets there; for a lot of people it is counterintuitive to have a pan that you only scrub any bits off and rinse with plain water. Actually, our egg pan only gets wiped out with paper towels because its so slippery now. I don’t think I’ve scrubbed it in months.
If you really want to use your pans:
We use the absolute hell out of our cast iron and our stainless steel. They all get scrubbed with a metal Chore-Boy scrubbee. Only the stainless gets soap.
hexclad is not high quality. the metal on the pan creates hundreds or thousands of edges for the teflon to seperate from the pan into your food
I mean honestly you should be using soap and water on it and not just wiping it out. It doesn’t hurt anything to you soap and water. I use cast iron daily I’ve got six odd pans or something like that that I use and not ever had one issue with utilizing the soap and water on it.
Why? There’s nothing on my pans except seasoning when I use them. I scrub any food bits off after each use. Why would I need soap? What would I want the soap to do?
“seasoning”
Haha…OK
A seasoned cast iron pan refers to how experienced the pan is. The seasoning isn’t additional flavoring, it’s the result of years of real use.
When cleaning a cast iron pan you want to scrub off any “seasoning” (definition 1) without removing any “seasoning” (definition 3).
sea·soned
/ˈsēz(ə)nd/
adjective
(of food) having had salt, pepper, herbs, or spices added.
“seasoned flour”
(of wood) made suitable for use as timber by adjusting its moisture content.
“it was made from seasoned, untreated oak”
accustomed to particular conditions; experienced.
“she is a seasoned traveler”
If there’s anything in the pan that you couldn’t argue is physically part of the pan, you should clean it.
Doesn’t the soap weaken the seasoning, causing it to flak off faster?
No when everything used to be lye based and acidic, sure. Soap has changed, and we know better now. If you have seasoning flakes off, it’s not seasoning.
Good to know, thanks