Cast Iron Skillet – The Only Skillet You’ll Ever Need

A cast iron skillet may not be the only pan you need in your kitchen, but I’ll make a case for a 12″ cast iron skillet being the most useful piece of cookware you can have.

Once you get past the common stereotype that a cast iron skillet is only for cooking over a campfire, you realize how incredibly versatile this tool is.

The obvious use of a cast pan is for frying things. A cast iron skillet does an excellent job of preparing steaks, pork chops, fried chicken, and anything else you’d use a stainless steel or aluminum skillet for. Seasoned well, a cast iron skillet can also cook eggs and other sticky dishes you might think you need a nonstick pan for.

This brings up the point that cooking with nonstick pans can have health risks, and your nonstick cookware will need to be replaced every few years. By comparison, a cast iron skillet doesn’t introduce toxic chemicals into your food and can last for many generations.

A cast iron skillet has many other uses besides frying if you exercise a bit of culinary creativity.

You can bake with it in the oven, or on a barbecue. (I made cake at a barbecue. It was fun and it turned out amazing.)

Here are the sizes of some common baking dishes:

* 9″ round cake plate – 63 square inches

* 8 x 8 cake pan – 64 sq. ft. inches

* 9 x 13 cake pan – 117 sq. ft. inches

Lodge 12″ Cast Iron Skillet – 113 sq. in.

As you can see, a 12″ pan can be substituted for one 9×13 pie pan, two 8×8 pie pans, or two 9″ round pie pans. This means that cakes, pies and baked casseroles can be made in your pan.

A cast iron skillet can also be used for most things that you would use a baking stone for. The main purpose of a baking stone is to even out hot spots and temperature fluctuations in your oven. A cast iron skillet has similar enough heat retention and thermal mass that you can substitute a baking stone for it in many recipes. In other words, pizza, cookies, and bread can all be cooked in a cast iron skillet.

Due to its excellent heat retention, a cast iron skillet is a good choice for frying. You can make fish and chips, latkes, donuts, corn dogs, and more in your skillet.

A large skillet is an excellent source for roasting. Chicken, ham and prime rib are great.

A cast iron skillet can also be used for soups and stews. A Lodge 12″ skillet has a 3.9-quart capacity, so you can make just about anything you’d use a 4-quart pot for. For example, my wife makes French onion soup in ours. She caramelizes the onions in the stove, adds the rest of the ingredients to make the soup and simmers it, then puts bread and cheese on top and pops it all in the oven to finish.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Baked mac and cheese, pancakes, omelettes, calamari, pannini, pies, cobblers, bread, pizza, steaks, cookies, cornbread, soups, casseroles, biscuits, roasts, stir-fries, burgers and more – all from the same pan! !

Some people may find a 12″ pan too big to be their main pot. Rarely is “too big” an issue. There are few situations where a small pot can perform a task better than a large one. However, a pot that is too small for the dish you are preparing is completely useless. There is very little you can do with an 8″ or 10″ pan that you can’t with a 12″ pan, but there are plenty of dishes you can prepare in a 12″ skillet that won’t fit in an 8″ or 10″ skillet.

I have nothing against smaller frying pans, but after much experimentation I have decided that if I could only have one, it would have to be a 12″.

Cast iron cookware is economical, eco-friendly, incredibly versatile, and lasts almost forever. Most importantly, it makes great food.

Whether you’re going out solo for the first time or you’re a seasoned cook looking to rediscover a better way to cook, get yourself a cast iron skillet and discover for yourself why it may be the only skillet you really need.