The Best Cast-Iron Skillets

We love cooking in cast-iron skillets; they’re an essential part of our kitchen. Whether we're searing, frying, baking, braising, or roasting, these pans are incredibly sturdy; they're also naturally nonstick. As you use them, their seasonings keep improving because heated fat molecules link up to form a polymer (essentially a connected grid). This creates a hard, elastic film that bonds to the iron, protecting it from rust and forming a surface layer that easily releases food—and is endlessly renewable. You can hand down these pans for generations.

Cast-iron skillets were common in the United States in the 19th century and made by many American manufacturers. Sadly, almost none of those companies survived past the middle of the 20th century, as sales of cast-iron cookware fell behind newer stainless-steel and aluminum pans. Two of the most famous companies, Wagner and Griswold, folded in the 1950s, and their vintage pans are now highly sought after by collectors. Lodge Manufacturing, based in Tennessee, has been producing cast-iron cookware since 1896, making it the longest continuously operated American cast-iron cookware company (and the largest). Today, most cast-iron skillets—aside from Lodge—are imports from China, where cast-iron cookware was invented. But within the past decade, artisan cast-iron cookware makers have sprung up in the United States, many with a declared goal of re-creating labor-intensive features that have disappeared from most modern cast-iron cookware, including smooth, hand-polished interiors (unlike modern pans, which have a rougher, more “pebbly” surface that shows the texture of the sand they were cast in) and pans that are cast to be slightly thinner and more lightweight—prized features in vintage cookware.

We think that a 12-inch skillet is the best size for most cooks, providing plenty of room to cook for as many as six people.

A slightly smaller 10-inch skillet can also be a good choice if you have limited storage space or regularly cook for two to four people. 

An 8- to 9-inch skillet lets you cook for one to two people. It’s also useful for small tasks, such as toasting nuts or browning butter.

• A Smooth Surface—or Gently Pebbly Texture: While the artisan pans with glassy-smooth surfaces performed beautifully, releasing food almost perfectly from the start and staying slick throughout testing, a few pans—our Best Buy, from Lodge, in particular—had a gently nubbly texture that quickly acquired seasoning and became more nonstick during testing. The near-perfect release in its final egg test and easy cleaning matched those of the slick artisan skillets.

• A Broad Cooking Surface: We preferred pans that offered at least 10 inches of flat cooking surface; this allowed plenty of room for cooking and prevented crowding when shallow-frying potato wedges and searing steaks.
• Sides That Are at Least 2 Inches Tall: The sides of one pan measured just 1¾ inches tall (from the pan’s interior bottom); extra height is necessary for containing hot oil and food, such as when frying doughnuts and shallow-frying chicken.
• Heavy Weight: While lighter, thinner pans were much easier to lift, they simply did not do the thing we really want cast iron to do: retain and conduct plenty of heat for deep, even browning. A thick, heavy pan has the mass and density to hold more heat than a thinner pan does and, once preheated, will cook more evenly than a thinner, lighter pan.

Nice to Have

• Longer Handle: Many cast-iron pans (including our favorites) have stubby handles, but a few had larger, rounder handles that angled upward slightly and gave us great leverage for lifting.

• Big Helper Handles: It wasn’t a deal breaker, but we didn’t love petite loops like the one on the Camp Chef skillet. We preferred pans with wide, broad loops we could really hang on to, especially when wearing an oven mitt.

• Extra-Rough Surfaces: We were able to cook successfully in all the pans we tested, but the super-rough textures of a few were frustrating to clean. When we wiped oil on their hot surfaces, they ripped up paper towels and left lint behind; this kept us from achieving a really thin layer of seasoning, so pans stayed slightly oily and tacky. The effectiveness of their seasoning actually decreased during testing, with more eggs sticking at the end of testing than in the beginning. It will take longer for rough-surfaced pans to become as nonstick as smoother models.

• Lightweight Pans: As much as we loved maneuvering the lighter pans, they browned food evenly only if we preheated them in the oven. We don’t want to have to preheat a pan in the oven every time we want to use it. Heated only on the stovetop, lighter pans developed hot spots, so potato wedges came out half dark and half light, depending on how close the pieces were to the pan’s hotter zones. We had to spend time moving foods around (and risk overcooking them) to even out the browning. Scrambled eggs quickly overcooked in some pans.

• Pour Spouts: Some pans had big, deep pour spouts, while others had tiny ones; one pan had none at all. We poured ¼ cup of oil into a jar from the hot pans after frying the potatoes, and all worked fine, even the one without a spout.