Eat This: 5 Authentic Cowboy Recipes to Make in a Cast Iron Skillet (2024)

FAQs

What is the best food to cook in a cast iron skillet? ›

Cowboy dinner is a hearty casserole of flavorful beef, corn and beans topped with soft, fluffy cornbread and a layer of cheese. So delicious! This easy, comfort food casserole has been a family favorite for over 20 years! After that long, you know the recipe has to be a keeper!

Start with Vegetables

Any seared, sautéed, or pan-roasted vegetable recipe is a great place to start breaking in your skillet. Vegetables won't stick to your cooking surface like fatty proteins, and are easy to spread out over the entire cooking surface, helping to build even seasoning.

Acidic foods like tomatoes can damage the seasoning, or the nonstick coating, of your skillet. What's worse, the end result will taste metallic, especially if it's something—like a slow-simmered pasta sauce—that requires a long cooking time. Skip the cast iron for your bolognese and use stainless steel instead.

Once your pan is pre-heated, add a little oil or fat. Then simply add your food! (Note: if you want to use butter, start with oil, and then add butter right before you add your food.)

Eggs fall into the category of sticky foods that are not ideal for cast iron skillets that haven't built up their seasoning yet. While cast iron can become non-stick with sufficient use over time, a newer skillet will almost certainly cause your eggs to stick to its porous surface.

Anyone who's ever eaten a tomato or cooked with tomatoes can verify that this fruit is quite acidic. As it happens, the tomato's acidity is precisely why doesn't work well with cast-iron cookware, especially for long cooking stretches. "Cast-iron skillets can handle a small amount of acidic fruit at a time.

All cooking oils and fats can be used for seasoning cast iron, but based on availability, affordability, effectiveness, and having a high smoke point, Lodge recommends vegetable oil, melted shortening, or canola oil, like our Seasoning Spray.

Dried apples, raisins and apricots were common, but berries and prunes also were available. In addition to eating it plain, dried fruit reconstituted in water with crumbled biscuits formed the basis of simple steamed cobblers and puddings.

What did cowboys actually eat? ›

Granville Stuart, the well known Montana rancher and politician, recorded that cowboys on the trail ate corn meal, sorghum molasses, beans, salt, and bacon. Game, including deer or, while they lasted, buffalo, might add meat to the regimen.

Meals often consisted of hot coffee, a large pot of beans, and biscuits that were baked in a cast iron pot and slathered with lard and gravy. Today the term “Cowboy Breakfast” has evolved to include eggs and skillet potatoes, bacon or sausage, and perhaps biscuits and gravy to round out the plate.

When it comes to new and used skillets — a little soap and water is a good thing. This first wash removes factory residue or rust bits. Make sure you rinse and dry the pan well after this first washing. You'll likely only need to wash your skillet with soap once or twice a year if you take good care of it.

Cast Iron Goes Both Ways

The method to cooking with cast iron on the stovetop is HEAT, do not add the cooking oil until the pan feels hot, because the oil will be the benchmark of the pan's readiness. If the butter sizzles, pan's ready. Oil slides across the pan with easy, pan's ready.

All in all, you'll want to do this oiling-and-heating process three to four times, to set down a good initial layer of your own seasoning. Once you're done, just let the pan cool down. It's now ready for cooking.

Never cook acidic foods in a cast iron skillet.

Acidic ingredients like tomatoes, lemons, and wine can be cooked in a well-seasoned cast iron pan for short amounts of time. You can sauté cherry tomatoes in cast iron, but don't try making a long-simmering tomato sauce.

Cast iron releases a few milligrams of iron per cup of food. Acidic foods release about double that amount. To reach the upper limit of about 40-45 mg, you would need to cook a lot with your cast iron skillet. If you have hemochromatosis, cooking too often with cast iron can be dangerous to your health.

Cast iron reigns supreme for achieving a perfect sear on quick-cooking scallops or creating a golden-brown crust on a juicy steak. It's a fit for all kinds of cooking methods—you can take it from the stovetop to the oven and then finish it under the broiler before setting it on the table for family-style sharing.

Your cast iron skillet needs to be well-seasoned in order to prevent sticking with scrambled eggs. You can tell if your pan is well-seasoned if other food you've been cooking has been lifting away nicely, and also by looking at it.