Product Description
Hailed as an essential kitchen tool by the country’s leading chefs and publications, the Lodge 10.25 Inch Cast Iron Skillet is crafted to cook memorable meals for generations. It offers an abundance of possibilities. Use to sear, sauté, bake, broil, braise, fry, or grill. This skillet is safe to use in the oven, on the stove or grill, and over a campfire. The Lodge Cast Iron Skillet is made for decades of cooking and comes pre-seasoned for an easy-release finish that improves with use. Includes one Lodge 10.25 Inch Cast Iron Skillet. Made in America. Care instructions for cast iron: 1. Wash with warm water. Add a mild soap, if desired. 2. Dry thoroughly with a lint-free cloth or paper towel. 3. Oil the surface of the pan with a very light layer of cooking oil while warm. Hang or store the cookware in a dry place.
Amazon.com
The American-based company Lodge has been fine-tuning its construction of rugged, cast-iron cookware for more than a century. No other metal is as long-lasting and works as well for spreading and retaining heat evenly during cooking. Lodge’s Logic line of cookware comes factory pre-seasoned with the company’s vegetable oil formula, and is ready to use right out of the box. After cooking, simply scrub the cast iron with a stiff brush and hot water, no soap, and dry immediately.
Breakfast in particular somehow tastes extra hearty when cooked in a heavy cast-iron skillet. Cast iron loves a campfire, a stovetop, or an oven, and can slow-cook foods without scorching and sear meat at higher temperatures. A good all-purpose size at 10-1/4 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep, this skillet can fry up eggs, pancakes, steaks, chicken, hamburgers, and can bake desserts and casseroles as well. A helper handle aids in lifting, and the looped primary handle allows hanging. Two side spouts pour off grease or juice. Even though the pan comes pre-seasoned, applying a little vegetable oil before use helps prevent food from sticking. Whether used in a kitchen or camp, this virtually indestructible pan should last for generations and is covered by a lifetime warranty. –Ann Bieri
Brand Story
By Lodge
Joe Bob –
Sorry for the long review – for the short review, count the stars!I’m a bit of a purist. I always season my cast iron – new, or used (hey, I don’t know WHAT someone else used that old piece of cast iron for – maybe cleaning auto parts). I sand it down to bare metal, starting with about an 80 grit and finishing with 200.Then I season. The end result is a glossy black mirror that puts Teflon to shame. There are two mistakes people make when seasoning – not hot enough, not long enough. These mistakes give the same result – a sticky brown coating that is definitely not non-stick, and the first time they bring any real heat to the pan, clouds of smoke that they neither expected or wanted. I see several complaints here that are completely due to not knowing this.But there were a few pieces I needed (yes, needed, cast iron isn’t about want, it’s a need), and this was one of them, so I thought I’d give the Lodge pre-seasoning a try. Ordered last Friday, received this Friday – free shipping, yay!The first thing I noticed was the bumpy coating. The inside is actually rougher than the outside, and my hand was itching for the sandpaper, but that would have defeated the experiment. This time, I was going to give the Lodge pre-seasoning a chance before I broke out the sandpaper. So I scrubbed the pan out with a plastic brush and a little soapy water, rinsed well, put it on a medium burner, and waited. Cast iron tip number one – give it a little time. Then give it a little more time. Cast iron conducts heat much more slowly than aluminum, so you have to have a little patience.Then I threw in a pat of butter, and brought out the natural enemy of badly seasoned cast iron – the egg. And, sure enough, it stuck – but not badly, just in the middle. A bit of spatula work and I actually got a passable over-medium egg. Hmmm. But still not good enough. So I cleaned up the pan, and broke out the lard.I have only one justification for using lard. I don’t remember Grandma using refined hand-pressed organic flax oil, or purified extra-virgin olive oil made by real virgins. Nope, it was pretty much animal fat in her iron. A scoop of bacon grease from the mason jar beside the stove and she was ready to cook anything. Grandaddy wouldn’t eat a piece of meat that had less than a half-inch of fat around it. “Tastes like a dry old shoe.”, he’d declare if it was too lean. In the end, I’m sure their diet killed them, but they ate well in the meantime. Grandaddy was cut down at the tender age of 96, and Grandma lasted till 98. Eat what you want folks – in the end, it’s pretty much up to your genetics.So I warmed up my new pieces, and smeared a very thin layer of lard all over them – use your fingers. Towels, especially paper towels, will shed lint, and lint in your seasoning coat doesn’t help things at all. Besides, it’s kinda fun.Here’s cast iron tip number two – season at the highest temp you think you’ll ever cook at – or higher. If you don’t, you won’t get the full non-stick thing, and the first time you bring it up to that temp you’ll get clouds of smoke from the unfinished seasoning. I put my pieces in a cold oven, and set the temp for an hour at 500 degrees (F, not C). Yeah, I know, Lodge says 350. Lodge doesn’t want panicked support calls from people whose house is full of smoke. Crank the heat up.You have two choices here. You can put a fan in the kitchen window and blow smoke out of your house like the battleship Bismarck under attack by the Royal Navy, or invest in an oxygen mask. You will get smoke. You will get lots of smoke, especially if you’re doing several pieces at once, like I just did. This is a good thing – that’s smoke that won’t be jumping out to surprise you the first time you try to cook with any real heat. The goal is to heat until you don’t get smoke, and in my experience, 500 degrees for an hour does that pretty well.Let the pieces cool in the closed oven. Then re-grease and repeat. And repeat again. And don’t glop the fat on. Just enough to coat. More thin layers are better than fewer gloppy layers. I managed four layers last night without my neighbors calling the fire department.Seems like a lot of work? Look at it this way. It’s a lifetime commitment. Treat your iron well, and it will love you right back like you’ve never been loved before. And this is pretty much a one-time deal, unless you do something silly.The end result of my all-night smoking up the kitchen exercise? Dry, absolutely no stickiness, black as a coal mine at midnight and shiny – but still bumpy – could it possibly work with that rough surface?I put the skillet back on a medium burner, put a pat of butter on and tossed in a couple of eggs. After the whites had set a little, I nudged them with a spatula, and they scooted across the pan. I’ll be… it works. My wife came back from the store and wanted scrambled eggs. If there’s anything that cast iron likes less than fried eggs, it’s scrambled. But it was the same thing all over again. No stick. No cleanup. Just a quick hot water rinse with a brush in case something got left on the pan (I couldn’t see anything, but hey), then I put it on a med-hi burner till dry, put a thin coat of lard on the pan and waited until I saw smoke for a minute. Let cool and hang up. Done.So. do I like the bumpy texture of the Lodge pre-season? Nope. Does it work? Yes, and contrary to my misgivings, it works very well. My wife pointed out that even some Teflon cookware has textured patterns in it. The Lodge pre-season isn’t a perfect surface out of the box – but it does give you a big head-start. After a night’s work, my iron is ready to face anything, and you just can’t beat that.Lodge makes a great product. For the quality, durability, and versatility, you can’t beat Lodge cast iron. Plus, it’s made in America. I like that. If you’ve never experienced cast iron cooking, you’ve just been cheating yourself. Plus, the price, for a piece of lifetime cookware, is insanely cheap.And my sandpaper is still on the tool shelf.
Teacher_Mommy_on_Wheels –
VERY heavy. Lots of TLC required. Versatile. Multi-generational. Reasonably priced. Lodge seasoned CI-made in USA.First of all, for those of you who care about country of origin, rest assured that Lodge seasoned cast iron is made in the USA (the enameled Lodge cast iron however, is made in China).Before I delve into the review of this LCI, let me just warn my readers that CI is rather heavy! If you have arthritis or a weak arm and had, you may want to consider a lighter-weight cookware.Now on to the “meat” (pun intended) portions of this review…Cast iron is a forgiving but high maintenance mistress! She will forgive almost anything (even allowing her to rust!!!), but she does require a little TLC before, during, and after each use. The TLC she needs is:1. Before using: season CI1) Cast iron must be seasoned before any use; luckily, Lodge double seasons its cast iron so that customers may use the product right out of the box, but if you need to re-season the cast iron product, follow these steps:i) Scrub CI well in hot soapy water.ii) Dry thoroughly.iii) Spread a thin layer of oil (I like avocado oil, but vegetable or canola will suffice) over the CI (interior, exterior, handle, all parts).iv) Place CI upside down on a middle oven rack and turn on the oven and allow to heat to 550°. (PLEASE refrain from placing the CI into an already heated oven; the CI heat gradually in the oven as the oven works its way up to 550 degrees F)(1) ***NOTE: temperature depends on the oil being used to season (AO has a high smoking point, but VO and CO have lower smoking points; this means that if you are using VO or CO, you need to set the oven to 400 degrees instead of 550).v) Place foil on a lower rack to catch drips.vi) Once the oven temperature reaches 550 degrees, “bake” the CI for 50-90 minutes.vii) Turn off the oven and allow the CI to cool inside the oven.***Reminder: temperature depends on the oil being used to season (AO has a high smoking point, but VO and CO have lower smoking points; this means that if you are using VO or CO, you need to set the oven to 400 degrees instead of 550).2. During usage: use a “fatty food” the first time you use the CI implement.a. Personally, I love any excuse to fry bacon, so I always “break-in” my CI with bacon slices; however, there are many amongst you who are unable to partake in bacon for religious, moral and ethical, or environmental reasons. For those amongst you who cannot use bacon, cook a food that requires deep frying.b. Pre-heat the CI before using (every single time) or your food will stick and crumblei. NOTE: Although I ALWAYS pre-heat my CI for cooking, I rarely do so for cake-baking; for cake-baking I used a very liberal amount of my home-made pan release “goo” to fully coat the pan, and I pour the cake batter right into the pan; works every time!3. After using: wash and re-season (NO, not the detailed steps mentioned above)a. After using the CI, and while it is still hot, wash using scorching (wear heat resistant gloves as to not burn your hands) water and salt (refrain from using chemical cleaners)i. NEVER wash in a dishwasher (OMG)b. Dry completely and thoroughlyc. Spread a thin layer of oil over the CI (interior, exterior, handle, all parts) and place the CI on the stove top to heat for about 10 minutesd. Store CI in a moisture free environmenti. NEVER store food in CIii. NEVER store CI in fridge or freezerSo that is the TLC required for a CI pan or pot, but there are still several things to keep in mind:A. NOT everything should be cooked in cast iron!(1) Avoid cooking acidic foods in CI (yes, it is okay to finish the dish with a small squeeze of lemon (not when skillet is hot) or a few drops of vinegar, it is okay to add tomatoes and tomato paste to the dish you are cooking, but it is NEVER okay to stew tomato prolonged periods, deglaze with vinegar, or lemon juice to foods while they were still hot on the skillet)(2) Avoid (at least in the beginning when your cast iron is still getting TLC) sticky foods (fried eggs, omelets, pancakes, scrambled eggs, fried rice, crepes, etc.) as they will definitely stick to your CI; this is not to say that you will not eventually be able to fry eggs or make crepes on your CI, I do all the time, but you will need to have reused and reasoned you CI many times before it becomes fully non-stick.(3) Avoid cooking delicate fish (flounder, tilapia, etc.) In CI because the delicate fish will not tolerate the heat retained by the CI (an asset when searing steak) and will fall apart when flipped.(4) Avoid (particularly before your CI becomes super well-seasoned) using the same pan for savory and sweet as the CI does retain flavors; in other words, using the CI to bake a vanilla cake immediately the day after using it to make garlic chicken may make your vanilla a tad too garlicky!(5) Avoid using CI to cook foods that require lengthy periods of simmering, boiling, or steaming as the lengthy simmering, boiling, or steaming will strip your CI of its hard-earned seasoning.Are you still reading? If after reading the previous portions of this review, you are concerned about the TLC necessary to maintain CI, then I really recommend you consider other cookware options. (Caphlan non-stick is a viable alternative); if on the other hand, you are still reading, then you are not dissuaded from investing in CI cookware, and I am glad of that!There are numerous benefits to cooking and baking in CI:1) Cast iron is extremely sturdy and is very difficult to ruin. (If you do ruin a CI pan, you can restore and reclaim it!).2) Cast iron heats up evenly and retains heat incredibly well, which makes CI excellent for searing meat, baking corn bread, making pies, baking crusty bread, etc., and for keeping food warm as you serve it!3) Cast iron is healthy; yes, that is true! During the cooking process a trace amount of iron is absorbed into the foods, and when the foods are consumed by you, you are getting some iron into your system (a healthy by-product of CI cooking).4) Cast iron is quite versatile. You may use CI for almost everything (you make slow cook a lamb leg to perfect or make a three-layer birthday cake for your daughter in CI). Additionally, CI goes from cupboard, to stove-top, to oven, to camp-fire, and to dinner table! Talk about versatility!5) Cast iron is of heirloom status; it lasts for generations! I personally have a huge collection, and I plan to bequest my CI to my daughter (it shall be written in my will-not kidding).So, to re-cap:CI is a rather heavy type of cookware that offers great versatility, heats evenly, retains heat well, requires pre-seasoning and re-seasoning, and is multi-generational. And, of course, Lodge is an excellent CI brand. Lodge was founded in 1896 and is one of the very few remaining companies that still produce seasoned CI in the US (in the Lodge foundries in Tennessee). Lodge products are sturdy, versatile, heirloom-quality, and of course reasonably priced (as compared to the more expensive companies).I have been using CI (especially Lodge) for two and one-half decades (yes, ¼ of a century) now, and I will NEVER use anything else! A purchase of Lodge CI cookware and bakeware is a very sound investment indeed!**If you found this review of use, please “like” using the thumbs-up button below. Thank you.**If you would like to read more of my reviews (when I post reviews), please select “follow” button below. Thank you.
Kyle –
I accidentally put my GF’s cast iron pan in a donation pile and bought this as a replacement. Not regretting my error — this pan is an upgrade as well as being a great deal.The cast iron is nice and thick which helps it distribute and hold heat well. The 12″ pan I got is heavy enough that I’m glad I didn’t get the 15″, but it’s reasonable enough and I’m liking it better than I thought I would. The preseasoning is decent. One of the first things I cooked on it was eggs over easy, no problems with sticking. I suspect the people having trouble with things adhering are using the same amount of oil they’d use in a teflon pan — you need to use more, but no need to go nuts.We have an excellent set of Calphalon pans, but I’m liking this one better and have switched every time I need a frying pan. I prefer cooking with metal utensils so it’s nice to work with something that’s basically indestructible. The surface is not as slick as teflon but plenty so for all purposes I’ve needed, and it’s easy to clean.
La Laura –
Lodge is still making them solid. For its first use, the pan was seasoned it with avocado oil over a grill (the process took 3 layers of oil to make the inside of the pan non-stick) we were able to sizzle several steaks to perfection. All this was done at a camp site with a light rain. We were unable to use our gas stoves and were grateful for having a pan that could be over hot coals. In our haste to get warm after eating our dinner in the off and on cold rain, we left the pan outside. The next morning I packed up a now rusty pan. Back home, I was able to scrape off the rust and get it to make scrambled eggs for breakfast.
William Barnes –
My cast iron pan cracked so I ordered what I thought would be one size larger, my old pan fits in this one with room to spare. That being said I love it! I have cooked everything in my old pan and it never left the stovetop I can now make enough fried potatoes eggs and bacon for breakfast in the same pan at the same time. Fried chicken ✅ searing meats ✅ even making a single egg is not a issue it heats up quickly and stays hot so just turn the heat off sooner than you would think and the food keeps cooking. As for the factory seasoning, if you know anything about cast iron skillets seasoning is a life long endeavor, I wiped it down with a wet cloth and put it on the stove and oiled up the whole thing and let it smoke a little now it’s 100% non stick. When cooking eggs get the pan hot enough and with a thin cote of oil and that egg will slide around your pan. I would recommend starting with the 10 inch lodge skillet but if you find yourself cooking in batches like I did, Go Big!
Nyquil Junkie –
The pre seasoning is absolute (bleep). I don’t know why they do that.But, polish it off with some sand paper and a emery cloth, and get to seasoning it right. Then you have a great fryin pan. If you do it right. And that is the trick of cast iron, doing the seasoning right.OIl it with corn oil, pt it on med heat, keep the surface at @ 350-375F for an hour. Shut it off, let it cool and do it again. at least a dozen times. Then use it to cook with…. on med heat with the surface at 350-400.Do it right and these are the best skillets in the world. Do it wrong and you’ll be very very sad.
isphil –
I own three Lodge Cast Iron Skillets, this 8″ a 10″ and a 12′ but this 8″ gets used the most. It’s perfect for frying or scrambling eggs, making grilled cheese sandwiches & quesadillas. It’s just the right size for small cooking jobs and its size makes it easy to just leave it on the stovetop at all times. Lodge gets criticized a lot for non smooth pre-seasoned finish but I haven’t found it to be an issue with any of my Lodge skillets. Although you can fry an egg successfully in a brand new Lodge skillet without sticking (I’ve done it) I still would recommend seasoning with grapeseed or avocado oil to get a good non stick surface. Of course the best seasoning is constant use.After using this skillet for over 6 months cleanup is a breeze. Most of the time it’s as easy as wiping it out with a paper towel. If there’s any food residue I rinse with hot water and give it a few wipes with a scrubbie then put it back on the stove on low heat to remove any moisture. After it’s dry give it a very light coat of oil and it will be ready for your next cook. With proper care these skillets can last for generations and the fact that they are made here in the US by American workers is a bonus.
Jda –
I have been wanting another cast iron skillet for quite a while. A recipe I was going to make required a 10.25″ cast iron skillet. I found this one and it had great reviews so I purchased it. When I made the cake it just slid out of the skillet onto a plate. It is extremely easy to clean. You have to remember to oil it after each use to maintain the great qualities it has.
hyojun –
Cooking with this pan is a wonderful thing to do. Like any other 8 inch pan, it has limitations on the amount of food that can be prepared at one time. Where it excels is in cooking one or two eggs. All small jobs are done without any drama. Just use lower heat setting and all will turn out great.
Alejandro M. –
I love this pan so much! I can’t believe I spent so many years of my life without a cast iron pan. Fact is, I just never understood how easy these are to cook with and maintain. Yes, you have to season it. Yes, that takes a little getting used to at first. No, it’s not hard and really doesn’t take much time to maintain. It’s much easier than I thought it would be, and I love the way my food comes out!Once properly seasoned, this pan is as non-stick as any other pan I’ve ever used. I did the initial seasoning in my gas grill. That way you don’t fill your kitchen with smoke. You can certainly use a regular oven if you don’t have a grill. Give it a good 2-3 seasonings before using it to cook. There are plenty of articles and videos online explaining how to season a cast iron pan.As for the cooking, if you haven’t used cast iron, you don’t know what you’re missing. The heat distribution and retention are amazing. For best results, make sure to pre-heat to your desired temp for several minutes before adding oil or food. Cooking with oil also helps maintain the non-stick surface, so the surface improves the more you use the pan. I’ve used this for steaks, fried/scrambled eggs, bacon, arepas, and shepherd’s pie. I find myself looking for more recipes I can use it for. I haven’t tried using it on my gas grill yet, but I’m eager to try. This thing makes me want to cook more!I like the 12-in size, though many people may prefer the 10.25-in version. I can prepare a NY Strip and a Fillet in this pan at the same time, with room to spare for a butter baste. It’s a bit large for a 3-egg scramble, but still works well.The one down-side is the weight. You’re not likely to flip an omelet with this puppy, unless you have very strong wrists. Of course, that’s not specific to this brand – it’s a cast iron thing. Maybe the 10.25-in version would be easier to handle for some purposes. That said, this pan feels like it’s going to last for generations to come.Oh, and if it seems like I’m being sponsored by Lodge, please know that I’m not. I’m just a regular guy sharing his thoughts about a product I truly enjoy using. Happy cooking!