I’m about to go up against all the advise and instructions you have ever heard about cleaning your Dutch ovens…….DO IT!!! Scrub it, soap it up, make it clean, and then rinse it good and oil it up and put it away.

We had a meal the other day that might have tasted good if there wasn’t so much ick in it from other meals. I know the general advise about Dutch ovens is to burn it out and scrap it out so you wont ruin the seasoning, but yuck! I do not enjoy crunching something unidentifiable from a meal I know I’m not currently having. I have a cast iron frying pan that my grandmother used her whole life, then my mother and now me. It has who knows how many years of life left in it and it has been washed after every use it’s entire existence. We hand wash it in hot soapy water, rinse it good and then heat it on the stove til its dry, and tada, it works perfectly! Very rarely does anything stick, it’s as good or better than any non-stick pan I’ve ever had, and over the years it has become a beautiful black seasoned pan, its definitely my favorite pan in the house.

So my biggest question has always been, why is it perfectly fine to scrub my cast iron frying pan but not ok to scrub my Dutch oven? They are made of the same materials. My mother in law has always scrubbed her Dutch ovens, mostly because of the ick factor, and they too are beautifully seasoned, not rusted, not nasty, not smelly, just good looking ovens that will be used for generations. I’m sure some well meaning person decided it was best not to scrub, maybe someone didn’t dry theirs correctly and freaked out at some rust and decided all scrubbing must be banned. More likely it was a man who was told, you cooked the dinner in those ovens, you clean them, and he did the guy thing and said, Oh heck, a little fire will work better than water, and tried to burn it out.

What ever the reason, I say we unite behind the soap and water and a little elbow grease! No germs, no ick, no tasty (?) leftovers in the pan from who knows when, no gruesome smell from last years chicken. So here is how you do it: scrap out whatever has been left in that pan from your dinner, wash thoroughly with hot soapy water scrubbing as needed, rinse well, pat dry then place back on the heat or in your kitchen oven to heat until completely dry, place a sparse amount of cooking oil on a paper towel and rub the Dutch oven down all over the inside, don't forget to oil the inside of the lid, store in a dry place. We often will place a paper towel between the rim of the oven and the lid while storing too. 

So scrub ‘em up!! You don’t let all the other pans in your house linger unwashed, stop spoiling the Dutch ovens.