Unlike cast iron cookware, most Carbon steel pans comes unseasoned. This means, that the pan has no coating to prevent the foods you cook from sticking to the bottom, and your newly acquired pan is pretty useless out of the box. But once you give it a good seasoning it’ll be non-stick like a teflon pan, without breaking or bending after a few short years, and at the same time capable of very high temperatures and great heat retention, just like cast iron. In other words, your carbon steel pan will probably become your best friend and go to weapon for any task in the kitchen. Follow the guide below, and your carbon steel pan will be ready to cook!
Step 1: Clean your pan
Before you can start the seasoning of your new carbon steel pan, you’ll need to clean it first. Hot water and a soft sponge is all you need. If you pan comes with any protective oil or wax like the De Buyer Mineral B, make sure to be thorough with your scrubbing to get all of the coating off.
Step 2: Dry your pan
Use a cloth to wipe the pan dry. Unseasoned carbon steel will begin to corrode after a few minutes if you leave it with just a little bit of water on.
Step 3: Heat your pan
Right after wiping it dry, put your pan on medium heat on your stove for a couple of minutes. This step is important because it allows us to put a very thin layer of oil on the pan ensuring the best possible seasoning. It also helps prevent corrosion as any water still left on the pan will evaporate.
Carbon steel pans are very versatile and can be used with any heat source; electric stove top, induction, gas or over open fire. For seasoning, a gas cooktop has a slight advantage as it’s easier to coat the sides of the pan evenly like the bottom. But whatever is installed in your kitchen will work just fine.
Step 4: Open your windows!
You’ll thank us later.
Step 5: Oil your pan
Grab a paper towel and fold it a couple of times and apply a bit of oil on the towel (Enough to lightly coat the entire pan front and back). In this example we used rapeseed oil, but you can use any cooking oil. Remove your pan from the heat and make sure it’s hot, but not extremely hot. Then wipe the oil onto the pan making sure you cover everything front and back, except the handle. You should aim to make the layer of oil as thin as possible. If there is oil running in the pan, you’ve put too much. However, you can just wipe any excess oil off with a dry paper towel.
Step 6: Let the oil burn
Put your pan back on the cook top on medium-high heat and wait. Slowly you will see the oil starting to smoke and the pan will begin to darken in color. It will smoke a lot, but that’s all fine. The oil will create a completely natural non-stick surface on you pan that will get better the more you use it and lasts a lifetime if you maintain it. And if you don’t, you can always start over with a new seasoning.
Once the pan has stopped or almost stopped smoking, the seasoning is complete. It’s normal that the pan is not evenly colored from the first layer of seasoning. A good rule of thumb is: the darker the pan is the more non-stick it is.
Step 7: Repeat
The deep black color we all dream of will come over time as you use the pan, but we always recommend to season it at least a couple more times before you use your new pan for the first time. With each layer of seasoning the pan becomes more non-stick and the seasoning a lot less prone to flaking off.
IMPORTANT: Let your pan cool for at least a few minutes before applying new oil for the next layer of seasoning. The pan is extremely hot, and the cold oil might set on fire if you don’t let the pan cool.
So, let your pan cool for a while, then repeat steps 4,5 and 6 until your pan has the desired color. We did 3 layers of seasoning on our De Buyer Carbone Plus, and it now looks like this:
