Never realized how much seasoning a cheap cast iron pan saves

I was looking at my grocery receipts last month and saw I was buying a new bottle of cooking spray every 2 weeks. Switched to a $15 Lodge cast iron from the thrift store and now I just wipe it down with a paper towel - that single pan saved me about $40 a year on oil alone. Has anyone else noticed budget pans actually costing you more in the long run?

2 comments

2 Comments

irismartinez1mo ago

Wait, nobody's talking about the heat distribution angle here? Sure, a cheap nonstick pan might save you on oil short term, but I've seen thin ones warp on a gas stove in less than a year. That's a whole new pan plus more oil because the heat's spotty and you're burning stuff. Cast iron's thick enough that you can throw it on any burner without it turning into a wobble board, and that means less wasted food too. So if you're counting oil savings, you gotta factor in how often you'd replace a cheap pan and how much food you'd toss from uneven cooking. Might be the real money saver.

adamgreen1mo ago

That $15 Lodge pan is a solid find but just a heads up, cast iron isn't technically "non-stick" like a Teflon pan... you still need a thin layer of oil to season it properly, otherwise food will stick like crazy. The trick is building up that seasoning coat over time, which does use oil but way less than cooking spray every day. A bottle of vegetable oil lasts me like 6 months for reseasoning and cooking, so you're probably still saving money, just not quite $40 a year on spray alone.