Lodge 17 Inch Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Skillet - Dual Assist Handles - Use in the Oven, on the Stove, on the Grill, or Over a Campfire - Black

I love this thing! So far everything I've cooked in it has turned out perfectly and cleaning it is a breeze, and after seasoning it nothing sticks in it or burns to the surface. Even with the messiest I've gotten in I've gotten it cleaned up in minutes after a quick wipe with paper towels and a light scrub with some course salt. Also, this is a BIG skillet, big enough that I'm able to cook entire meals in the thing with room to spare. The only downsides someone might have with it is that it might be heavier and larger than they're expecting, so make sure you have some place nice and dry to keep it stored properly when not in use and try not to drop it on your foot or something.

Not too long ago, my wife and I had been discussing replacing our most used aluminum, Teflon coated skillet. The Teflon was chipping off, and my wife and I didn't think that was very healthy. We have a Lodge 12" cast iron skillet, but we needed something bigger since we were used to the size of our old 14" skillet. We decided to take a chance on the Lodge 17" skillet, and we're very happy with our decision. The pan came to us double boxed, and packed very well for a 15 Lbs. package. Even though the pan is pre-seasoned, I recommend seasoning it yourself. This is very easy, and it takes only an hour. Slather the inside of the pan with the oil of your choice, I use canola, but any will do. Turn your oven on to 350 degrees, then put your pan upside down onto the top rack, and cook your pan for an hour. If you go hotter, the oil in the pan will start smoking really badly. Also, put a piece of tin foil on the rack under the pan to catch the drippings. This pan is huge, very heavy and stable. Having such a large cooking surface is a joy. If you use this pan on your stove you can put this pan across two burners, although on mine it makes it across 1 1/2 burners. Make sure that you allow longer for cast iron to heat up, but once it's hot, it will retain the heat very nicely. Everyone says not to go over medium heat, but I find that you need to stay well below medium or else you start to burn off your oil or butter. The first night that I had it, I cooked chicken fajitas, and they turned out great. I noticed that the main cooking zones were right over the two burners, even though the whole pan got hot. As I was cooking the chicken, I moved the more cooked pieces to the sides of the pan, and rotated the uncooked pieces into the hot zones. I did the same thing when I was cooking the onions and peppers. If you use this pan on a barbecue you could get a much more even heat. Cast iron skillets are made for cooking breakfast. One morning I cooked eggs, and my home made bacon at the same time, there was plenty of room. Pancakes turned out perfect, lots of room for flipping. One morning I needed to cook bacon for four people, so I just lined the whole pan with a layer of bacon and put it in the oven at 300 degrees for 20 minutes. Not only did it come out perfect, but the clean up is much easier using that method. Several reviews I read said that the reviewer was returning the pan because everything stuck to the pan. For pancakes and eggs, you have to coat the cooking area liberally with butter. Every time that you cook another round, you need to put more butter or oil on the cooking surface. General cast iron cleaning and care is pretty easy. After I finish cooking, I pour off the oil, I scrape out any dried material, then I rinse the pan out with hot water and a scrub brush. You can use some dish soap during the light scrub, it won't hurt the season. Towel dry the pan, and put a light coat of oil inside the pan. Then, put the pan back on the stove and warm the pan back up to evaporate any water left on it. Any water left on the pan will cause rust. If you ever get any rust, just scrub down with a green pad and re-season. If you get this pan and take the time to learn how to cook with cast iron, you will never want to cook on anything else. The size and quality of this pan is phenomenal.

I have been making my own pizza for about 5 years now, ever since I received a bread machine to make me pizza dough. Well I had tried countless aluminum and steel pizza pans, with and without holes. I had even tried the pizza stone in the oven, but I could never slide a raw, uncooked pizza from the prep area to the stone without causing a huge mess (I even had the big wooden shovel thing and used gratuitous cornmeal!). Well my pizza was always flawed in one way or another, though the most common flaw was uneven cooking. Burnt crust, soggy interior, sauce and cheese dripping off the sides onto the oven bottom, burning and stinking up my house. Well the solution to all my problems was this pan. After a round of seasoning followed by cooking a pound of bacon in it (tis how I prepare all my cast iron) I placed my pizza dough into the pan and prepared it as usual, tossed it into my preheated oven (which it barely fits in by the way, it actually keeps the oven door about 1/4 inch open, so measure your oven before buying this thing!) and after 25 minutes out came the greatest pizza that I have ever created! My crust was not burnt, but perfectly crisped; the entire bottom of the pizza was evenly cooked, nice and crisp, but not burnt; the cheese was evenly browned across the entire top, perfect! I could even slice the pizza while still in the pan (no concerns of scratching the surface here) and when leaving the remainder of the pizza in the pan, it remains warm for the next 20-30 minutes. I used to have to reheat slices 2 and 3, but the cast iron retains its heat so well that every piece tasted as warm and fresh as the piece before it. After all was said and done I then tried to make some deep dish pizza and oh dear Jebus, I may never buy pizza again. This is the next best thing to get aside from installing a brick pizza oven in your kitchen. Highly recommended for oven use, not so much for stovetop use. It takes so long to heat up evenly on the stove top that its not worth it. For stove top jobs like eggs and pancakes I use my collection of skillets. Update May 2013: I took this thing out for camping and cooked chicken, eggs, bacon, potatoes, hot dogs, and hamburgers over a roaring open flame. It worked great. Took it home, scrubbed it clean and its still like new. I use this pan in place of aluminum foil covered baking sheets for the most part too, though you must add a couple minutes to cook time for the pan to heat up. I want to buy another one of these but I have no reason to since my current one does everything its supposed to, and more.

This skillet is ginormous! I bought this as part of a christmas gift set for my wife. we have a large family and we cook for everyone. this pan is now our go to for family meals. i like to brown meat for sauces and then deglaze the pan with the sauce. the seasoning/coating is the basic lodge seasoning. it work but could be better. a few coats of your favor seasoning method will help with the non stick capabilities. it doesn't come with a lid, though i don't feel i need one for this pan. in typical cast iron fashion it cooks evenly. if you have a larger/wider range this pan is great, i can spatchcock a chicken and cook the whole thing in the pan at one time. great pan at a great price.

Arrived on time really nice size

Upon receiving, I sanded the inside surface smooth with fine sanding cloth and reseasoned. Something I recommend to anyone new to cast iron. The benefit of this pan is that it is large enough to use like a round griddle on the stovetop, but with walls. There will be a hot spot over the burner in the center and a warming perimeter. This allows you to cook something like mushrooms, then onions and peppers, then pushing them to the perimeter, cook a protein to make fajitas or similar fashion for fried rice, lo mein, hash ect. It is large enough to make a great roasting/baking pan for large family meals and I use it for making tortillas, naan or pita bread on the stove top using the center hot spot. The disadvantages are the weight, which is substantial, need for a little upkeep and if you aren't used to cast iron, a bit of a learning curve. I do not have a cover for it but I suppose one could be found or improvised. It will certainly last longer than myself as I have skillets that belonged to my grandparents and are probably more than 80 years old. Even it cast iron starts to rust and looks like it's ruined, a bit of sandpaper and elbow grease will usually bring it right back and lodge is a bit thicker than older pans and can use a bit of thinning down and smoothing. I store mine in the oven where it helps maintain even heat while baking.

I have several pans from Lodge, and it has always delivered. As long as you care for them and keep them seasoned, they will perform flawlessly and for many years. The pan I am reviewing is the 17 inches skillet, which I wanted to use as a pizza pan, more exactly, as a pizza steel, to load and unload pizzas directly on it with a pizza peel while hot in the oven at max temp. It was excellent at it, as pizzas turned out lightly charred at the under crust and the rim, while fully cooked at the upside, in just about 8 minutes. I also have been using it like a dutch oven to make pizza outside, using three scrap 2" square tubbing pieces as legs and putting charcoal under and over it, using a Mexican 50cm steel plate comal as a lid, and once I got the hang of the temperature control, the pizzas turned out perfect, either sitting directly on the skillet or using an aluminum pizza pan for ease of handling and uniformity. When using a 15 inch. pizza pan, since the bottom of the skillet is just 14 inches in diameter, I used a Weber 14 inch. grill grate, true diameter 13.5 inches, to add a little height so the pan would rest level and wouldn't tilt. This also required more charcoal than when I didn't use the grate, and had to be corrected later as it was too hot and the first pizza burned underside. Once a few pieces of charcoal were retired, the rest of pizzas turned excellent and I produced 8 pizzas in about an hour. I still would prefer this skillet to the 16 inch. dutch oven for pizzas, as the 16 inch should be of less diameter at the bottom. The only little detail I didn't like about it is that It had a little bump in the inner surface that I had to grind. The last years Lodge pans have sometimes little defects like little bumps or pinholes, that may be of no importance to the performance, but I personally don't like, specially pinholes since you cannot fix them yourself. They could put a little more effort on quality control. Or maybe I am just too obsesive.

Bigger than I expected, I make deep dish pizza in the oven with it.