YouTube and Outdoor Channel star Kent Rollins is on a mission to demystify the cast-iron skillet. He tells us how to season them, and what you should never cook in them.
If you ask Kent Rollins, the cast-iron skillet is having a major moment right now.
Granted, with four decades of feeding hungry cowboys under his belt and the nickname of “Cast Iron Cowboy,” Kent may be a little bit biased. But a half-hour chat with the chuck wagon cook converted this writer from a cast-iron skeptic to a new evangelist.
“Every time you cook out of it, you’re creating a memory, and you’re cooking with something that has been tested, tried and true for generations,” Kent tells me. “It’s one of those things that, if people take care of it, it’ll outlast us all.”
Still, the cast-iron skillet can be intimidating to some home cooks—myself included. I’m never totally sure how to clean a cast-iron skillet or season it properly, and I live in fear of somehow ruining it for good. But Kent insists, “It’s not rocket science work, or I never would have figured it out.”
The key to successful cast-iron cooking, he shares, is simply regular maintenance. Immediately after each use, Kent says to wash the skillet with hot water (and just a little soap if you like), place it back on your heat source to dry it out. Then, season it with a bit of oil. Kent prefers grapeseed oil thanks to its high smoke point, and because it bonds well with the cast iron.
When it comes to seasoning new skillets—even ones that come preseasoned—Kent says that you should preheat your oven to 400°F, grease your skillet with oil, wipe out any excess and place it upside down on the oven’s top rack (place a cookie sheet on the bottom rack to catch any drips). Let the skillet bake for an hour, then allow it to return to room temperature. Repeat the process at least two more times. At this point, it’s time to get cooking.
“Every time you use it, it’s just going to get better,” he adds, noting that some of the cast-iron skillets in his kitchen are over a century old. “It’s the best cooking skillet I have.”
What are some unexpected dishes to make in a cast-iron skillet?
As Kent’s fans already know from the range of dishes he’s prepared on his YouTube channel and his cooking show, the cast-iron skillet is a surprisingly versatile kitchen tool. His more than 3 million YouTube subscribers have watched him use a cast-iron pan to prepare everything from sweet potato pie and huevos rancheros to upside-down pizza (a fan-favorite). To borrow a phrase from Lindsay Lohan’s Cady Heron in Mean Girls, the limit of cast-iron cooking doesn’t exist.
“If I’m baking biscuits or bread in the house, it goes in a cast-iron skillet,” Kent says. “Anything that you can cook in a conventional oven can be cooked in cast iron.”
What are some things you should never cook in a cast-iron skillet?
A caveat to the above advice, Kent says, is to avoid cooking any acid-based foods—like tomato sauce or barbecue sauce—in a new cast-iron skillet that hasn’t had the time to build up proper seasoning. Still, he’s even made the one ingredient he said he’d never cook in cast iron work out just fine—in front of television cameras during a cooking competition, no less.
“Tofu,” says Kent, laughing. “I was doing Chopped: Grill Masters, and ended up frying it just long enough to get it some flavor.”
The Cast Iron Cowboy has also been cooking up more seafood in cast iron lately, with one of his recent experiments leading to a game day-approved seafood dip.
“We do a lot of baked fish, but I love to mix shrimp and scallops together with a little chicken broth and butter in a skillet,” he says. “Finish that off with some ground-up Ritz crackers and top it with a little cheese and it makes a great little dipping dish.”
What is the Cast Iron Cowboy’s favorite fast food?
Of course, Kent can’t always have a cast-iron skillet handy when he’s traveling. And being a famous cook means showing up for a lot of events. (“I’m still the same guy I was a long time ago,” he insists, thinking back to a time before YouTube was even invented.)
When on the road, Kent loves a truck-stop hot dog—and he’s also a fan of Costco’s classic $1.50 dog. When he’s driving through Texas or New Mexico, he can’t resist the burritos and chimichangas from Allsup’s, a regional chain of convenience stores. Despite his culinary prowess, his decades of experience and his millions of followers, Kent is easy to please when he’s on the move. Underneath it all, that’s just the type of straightforward guy he is.
“When you’re out of diesel, that’s when it’s time to eat,” he says. “Whether it’s a frozen burrito from the cold case or a piece of pizza that’s been there for two weeks, you just go for it.”
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