 So today we're going to talk about how to clean and just generally take care of your cast iron pans. They are one of the best tools you can ever have in your kitchen. I think they're just fantastic. They are heavy, but they last a lifetime if you treat them well. Cast iron pans are really easy to take care of. Some people make it up to be such a big deal. It's really nice. It's really simple. One thing you want to remember is don't mix it with water. Water and iron just don't mix. If your pan sits in water for any length of time, it has a tendency to rust. We don't want rust, right? So don't leave it. You can get it wet, but don't leave it soaking in your dish water or put it in the dishwasher. You can't do those kinds of things, but you can get it wet for a few minutes as long as you dry it right away. You also want to avoid using soap. You just don't need it and you don't want to take away that finish that you've already developed on your pan. So don't use soap and you want to oil your pan or season it every time you use it, and it just takes a few minutes. So I'm cooking some bacon over there on the stove just to show you as an example. I'm going to dirty my pan. I didn't have a steak to cook, although that would have been nice, but I went with the bacon because I love to eat bacon. Now some people say, you know, once you're done cooking and your cast iron pan is all full of gunk and everything, that you should get on it right away. Like just immediately take care of it and wash it. Well, sometimes that's not always convenient. Let's say you got this beautiful meal cooked and you want to sit down and eat it and enjoy it. And I say, that's the priority, not the pan. So I let it cool off and if I need to heat it up again because the grease is coagulated, I can heat it up a little bit and get it uncoagulated. All right, I've finished my bacon and my pan has been sitting here for probably 15 minutes, maybe 20. It's still warm. I can touch it. I can see that it's warm, but if it gets too cool, coagulates, turn on your flame and, you know, get the grease to be a liquidy again. So what you want to do after you cook like this is you're going to want to take a paper towel and just wipe out the excess oil. And if you have a lot of oil, you can just pour it out. And there's still plenty of stuff on the bottom of this pan. Let me tell you, that's stuck to it. So you have some options here when you're cleaning out your pan. Now I do have a lot of residue stuck to the bottom of the pan. So one of the options is to use one of these male chain scrubbers that is made by Lodge. And it has sort of this chain link exterior that doesn't scratch the surface. It's not real abrasive, but it gets the gunk off. And then there's a little piece of like silicone in there to give it some body. So that's a good option. Another option is a lot of times I've used these pampered chef little nylon scrapers, which does a great job as well. You can use just a plain rag. You can also use one of these non-scrubbing or non-scratching pads. I don't usually use those though because I like my chain male scrubber there. And you're going to need some kosher salt. So I'm going to use some salt in this. We'll pour in a little dab. And I'm going to add just a touch of water. And then I'm going to use the chain male scrubber here. But I'm going to start off with my nylon scraper. And I tell you, this thing comes in handy. We use it all the time. I'm going to leave links for you down in the description to all these items if you're interested. So think of cleaning a cast iron pan like getting a facial with a salt scrub. So the salt is an abrasive and it will take off all the, you know, the dead skin of this junk you don't want. And that's what the salt's doing here. It's taking off the, you know, all the gunk. And then it's leaving behind the foundation intact. And then you're going to oil the pan every time you use it. So think of that as moisturizing your face. This is moisturizing the pan to keep it nice and it won't rust. Once you've got it all scrubbed, then you just have to give it a good rinse. So I'm going to clean this out really good. And then we're going to put it right on the stove. So I'm going to take a towel and I'm going to wipe it out. That's nice and dry. And then we're going to turn the heat on. I've got it on medium. And that's just going to dry the pan, get any moisture that's on it out of it so that it won't rust. So I'm going to add about a tablespoon of avocado oil to our pan. And I'm going to take that cloth that I have that's clean basically and spread the oil around inside, outside, all over. So I leave that on medium heat until it's nice and hot. You can almost see it smoking. And as far as oils go, you can use like I did avocado oil or you can use rapeseed oil and even canola oil. So that's a good choice as well. All right, time for a little chef joke. So what is a panda's favorite cooking implement? A panda. So it's really pretty easy to take care of a cast iron pan. Just think of it as your face, right? We talked about exfoliating it. Use some kosher salt for that. And then you're going to moisturize it, right? With some oil after every use, okay? It's pretty simple. Just don't put it in any water and let it sit and soak or don't let water sit on it either. That's why we put it on the stove. After we've washed it and wiped it out, we want to make sure all the moisture is gone by putting it on the stove for a few minutes until that pan's hot again and all the water has just dissipated. You don't want to use any soap in that. And yeah, you're good to go. I mean, that's pretty much it. And this pan will last you forever. And the beautiful thing about cast iron is you can put it in your oven. You can put it on your stove. You can even put it on your barbecue. Nothing's going to hurt it. So give this a try. If you have any more questions, let me know down in the comments. I would be happy to answer them. And if you've found this video useful at all, go ahead and hit that like button or smash it, whatever you want to do. Just push it for me and, you know, subscribe to my channel. Let me know what you think. All right. Take care, everybody. We'll see you next time.