How to Season a Cast Iron Skillet for the First Time: A Complete Guide for UK Cooks

So you’ve just bought your first cast iron skillet. Maybe it was a Lodge you spotted in Lakeland, a vintage piece you found at a car boot sale in Derbyshire, or perhaps a Le Creuset that finally came down to a sensible price in the John Lewis sale. Whatever brought you here, you’re holding something that, with a little care now, could genuinely outlast you.

Seasoning a cast iron skillet for the first time is the single most important thing you’ll do with it. Get this right and you’ll spend the next forty years frying eggs, baking cornbread, and searing lamb chops without a scrap of food ever sticking. Get it wrong and you’ll spend those forty years scraping rust off something that should have been magnificent.

The good news is that it’s not complicated. It just requires a bit of patience, the right oil, and an afternoon where you don’t mind your kitchen smelling slightly like a chip shop. Let’s walk through it properly.

What Does “Seasoning” Actually Mean?

There’s a lot of mysticism talked about cast iron seasoning, particularly on American cooking forums, and it can make the whole thing sound far more arcane than it is. Here’s the straightforward version: seasoning is simply the process of baking thin layers of oil onto the surface of your pan so that those layers polymerise — that is, they bond together at a molecular level and form a hard, slick, non-stick coating.

That dark, almost glassy surface you see on a well-loved cast iron pan isn’t paint, enamel, or coating sprayed on in a factory. It’s built-up layers of polymerised oil that have been deposited over time through use and intentional seasoning. Each time you cook with fat in the pan, you’re adding to that layer. Each time you season deliberately, you’re accelerating that process.

The coating is entirely food-safe. In fact, once fully established, it’s one of the most durable non-stick surfaces in existence — and unlike PTFE-coated pans, it won’t flake into your food or release fumes if the pan gets too hot.

Does Every Cast Iron Pan Need Seasoning Before First Use?

It depends on what you’ve bought. There are broadly three scenarios you might find yourself in:

Brand New, Pre-Seasoned Pans (Lodge, etc.)

Lodge, the American cast iron manufacturer widely available at Lakeland, Amazon UK, and various kitchen shops, sells its pans labelled as “pre-seasoned.” This is genuine — the factory applies a thin layer of vegetable oil and bakes it on before shipping. However, factory seasoning is usually just one thin layer, and it’s not particularly robust. Think of it as a primer coat rather than a finished surface. You can cook on it straight away, but it benefits enormously from one or two additional seasoning sessions before you start using it regularly.

Bare, Unseasoned Cast Iron

Some manufacturers, particularly those selling traditional British or European cast iron, supply pans with no seasoning at all. You’ll recognise these because the metal will have a grey, slightly rough appearance and may have a light coating of machine oil to prevent rust during shipping. This oil is not food-safe and must be washed off before you do anything else. These pans require a full seasoning process before first use.

Second-Hand or Vintage Pans

Britain has a wonderful tradition of cast iron appearing at car boot sales, antique markets, and charity shops. Griswold, Kenrick, and various British foundry pans from the mid-twentieth century still turn up regularly. These might be rusty, crusty with old residue, or still perfectly seasoned from their previous owner. We’ll touch briefly on restoration later, but for the purposes of this guide, assume that any second-hand pan needs to be stripped and re-seasoned from scratch unless its condition is clearly excellent.

What You’ll Need

The beauty of seasoning cast iron is that you don’t need much. Here’s your shopping list:

• Your cast iron skillet — clean and dry
• A suitable oil — more on this below
• Lint-free cloths or paper kitchen roll
• Your oven — capable of reaching at least 200°C, ideally 230–250°C
• Oven gloves — heavy ones, because cast iron holds heat ferociously
• Washing-up liquid — for the initial wash only
• A baking tray or sheet of foil — to catch any drips in the oven

Choosing the Right Oil: The UK Perspective

This is where a lot of guides go off the rails, partly because most of them are written for American readers. The oil advice matters, and it’s worth understanding why before you reach for whatever’s in your cupboard.

For polymerisation to occur properly, you want an oil with a high smoke point and a high concentration of polyunsaturating fatty acids. These polyunsaturated fats are what actually bond and harden during the baking process. Saturated fats and monounsaturated fats don’t polymerise nearly as effectively.

Flaxseed Oil

Many enthusiasts, particularly online, swear by flaxseed oil. It does produce a very hard, dark seasoning quickly. However, it’s also prone to flaking — the seasoning can look beautiful initially and then chip off in sheets after a few months of use. Available from health food shops and Holland & Barrett in the UK, but not our top recommendation for beginners.

Rapeseed Oil

This is our recommendation for UK cooks. Cold-pressed British rapeseed oil is widely available — brands like Farrington’s Mellow Yellow are sold in most large supermarkets — and it has an excellent fatty acid profile for seasoning. It’s affordable, it’s produced domestically (much of it in Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire), and it produces a reliable, durable seasoning. It’s genuinely the right choice for UK kitchens.

Sunflower Oil

An acceptable alternative. High in polyunsaturated fats, widely available, inexpensive. The seasoning won’t be quite as hard as rapeseed but it will do the job well. Use the refined version rather than cold-pressed, as it has a higher smoke point.

Vegetable Oil

Standard supermarket vegetable oil varies in composition — in the UK it’s often a blend of rapeseed and other oils. It works reasonably well and is what Lodge uses in its factory seasoning. Fine as a starting point.

Lard or Dripping

Traditional British cooks often seasoned cast iron with lard or beef dripping, and this absolutely works. The resulting seasoning has a slightly different character — it can go rancid more quickly in storage — but for a pan you use regularly, it’s perfectly good. You can still buy blocks of lard from most UK butchers and many supermarkets.

Oils to Avoid

Avoid olive oil, butter, and coconut oil for seasoning. Olive oil has a lower smoke point and doesn’t polymerise well at the temperatures you need. Butter contains milk solids that will burn and create an unpleasant residue rather than a proper seasoning layer. Coconut oil is mostly saturated fat and won’t polymerise effectively. Save these for cooking once your pan is properly seasoned.

Step-by-Step: Seasoning Your Cast Iron Skillet

Step 1: The Initial Wash

This is the one time you’ll use washing-up liquid on your cast iron. Don’t be anxious about it — the advice to “never use soap” applies to a well-seasoned pan, not to the very first wash. You’re trying to remove any manufacturing residues, machine oils, or protective coatings, and warm soapy water is the right tool for that job.

Wash the pan thoroughly with warm water and a small amount of washing-up liquid. Give it a good scrub all over, including the underside and handle. Rinse it well.

Step 2: Dry It Immediately and Thoroughly

Cast iron rusts quickly when wet. Don’t leave it in the drying rack. Dry it immediately with a clean cloth, then place it on your hob over a low heat for two to three minutes to drive off any remaining moisture. You’ll see steam rising — keep going until the steam stops. A completely dry pan is essential before you apply any oil.

Step 3: Preheat Your Oven

Set your oven to 230°C (fan 210°C, Gas Mark 8). If your oven runs cool, go slightly higher. You need to exceed the smoke point of your chosen oil, which triggers the polymerisation process. Place a baking tray or a sheet of foil on the shelf below where your pan will sit, to catch any drips.

Step 4: Apply a Thin, Thin Layer of Oil

This is the most common mistake people make, and it’s the root cause of sticky, patchy, or gummy seasoning. You need less oil than you think. Far less.

Put a small amount of your chosen oil — about half a teaspoon for a 25cm skillet — onto a clean cloth or folded piece of kitchen roll. Rub it all over the pan: inside, outside, the handle, the underside, everywhere. Now, critically, take a fresh dry cloth and wipe off as much of the oil as you possibly can. The pan should look almost dry — just barely shiny, with the faintest trace of oil. If you can see a thick, glistening coat of oil, you’ve used too much. Wipe more off.

Too thick a layer of oil will pool during baking and cure into a sticky, gummy surface that never quite dries properly. This is the most common complaint from people who say their cast iron seasoning “didn’t work.”

Step 5: Bake Upside Down

Place your pan upside down in the preheated oven, on the middle shelf. Baking it upside down prevents oil from pooling in the cooking surface and ensures an even coating. The baking tray below will catch any drips.

Leave it for one hour. Don’t open the oven repeatedly to check on it. Just leave it alone.

Moving Forward

Once you have the fundamentals in place, the possibilities open up considerably. The UK offers fantastic opportunities for anyone interested in this hobby, and with the right foundation you will be well placed to make the most of them.