Lush Food & Drink

Explainer

What happens if you put a cast iron skillet in the dishwasher?

The seasoning comes off and the bare iron starts to rust within a single cycle, so the skillet comes out dull gray or blotched orange and needs a full re-season; it is not ruined, but two of the five makers in our guide say never.

By the Lush Editorial Team·Researched & Compared

What comes out of the dishwasher

Put a cast iron skillet through a dishwasher and it comes out with most of its seasoning stripped and rust already starting: the cooking surface turns dull gray or blotchy, an orange bloom spreads across the floor and up the walls, and there may be rust streaks on the rack and the dishes around it. The pan is not destroyed, because cast iron almost never is, but it will stick, taste of metal and keep rusting until you scrub it back and season it again from scratch.

That is the consequence in one paragraph. The rest of this page explains why a machine that cleans everything else so well does this to one material, what the makers of the five skillets in our cast iron skillet guide say about it, how to repair the pan, and which parts of a cast iron setup, from the silicone handle cover to the scraper, actually can go in the machine.

Why a single cycle does so much damage

Seasoning is cooking oil that has been heated until it bonds to the iron as a thin, hard film. A dishwasher attacks that film from three directions at once. Dishwasher detergent is formulated to dissolve baked-on grease, and baked-on grease is chemically close to what seasoning is, so the detergent softens and lifts it. The pan then sits wet in hot water and steam for the length of the cycle, which is measured in hours rather than the couple of minutes a hand wash takes, and bare iron begins to rust within minutes of being wet. Finally the drying stage is slow and humid, so the pan is still damp when the door opens, often with droplets pooled around the handle and the rim, and rust that started during the wash keeps going.

Compare that with what the makers ask for. Backcountry Iron: use warm water, wipe dry immediately, apply a new layer of oil. EDGING CASTING: dry thoroughly on the stove at medium heat. Every stage of a dishwasher cycle is the opposite of one of those instructions. It uses the harshest detergent in the house, keeps the iron wet the longest, and dries it the slowest. A soak in the sink does the same harm more slowly; the dishwasher does it all at once and adds heat.

What the skillet makers say

Two of the five picks in our guide name the dishwasher outright, and both say no. Backcountry Iron, on its 12 inch skillet: cast iron can rust, so keep it out of the dishwasher, do not soak overnight, or air dry. EDGING CASTING, on its 17 inch pan: do not put the cast iron pan in dishwasher and do not air dry. Lodge does not use the word but leaves no room for the machine either; its 10.25 inch skillet carries the instruction hand wash, dry, rub with cooking oil. Cuisinel says only that its 12 inch skillet is pre-seasoned for repeated use with standard care and cleaning, and standard care for bare cast iron is a hand wash. The Victoria 10 inch listing describes its flaxseed seasoning and says nothing about washing at all, so for that pan the other makers’ consensus is your guide.

Weight is a small practical point against the dishwasher as well. These skillets publish 4.8 pounds for the Victoria, 5.35 pounds for the Lodge, 7 pounds for the Backcountry Iron, 11.35 pounds for the Cuisinel and 14.75 pounds for the EDGING CASTING. A rack built for plates does not hold a pan of that weight steadily, and a wobbling 14.75 pound skillet is a danger to everything stacked around it, before the water even starts.

How to rescue a skillet that has been through the dishwasher

  1. Get the rust off while it is fresh. Rust that has just formed is a surface film. Scrub it with steel wool, a chainmail scrubber, or coarse salt and a little oil until the orange is gone and you see dull gray metal. Do this the same day; rust that sits for a week starts to pit the iron.
  2. Wash and dry on a burner. Warm water and a quick scrub to carry off the loosened rust, then straight onto a medium burner until every trace of moisture is gone, including under the handle.
  3. Oil it thin, inside and out. A few drops of cooking oil rubbed over every surface and then wiped back off until the pan looks dry. Lodge seasons with 100 percent vegetable oil, EDGING CASTING with vegetable oil and Victoria with flaxseed oil; any plain cooking oil is in the same family.
  4. Bake it. Upside down in a hot oven for about an hour, then let it cool in the oven. If the surface is still patchy gray, repeat the oil and the bake once or twice more.
  5. Cook fat in it. Bacon, sausages, fried potatoes, a burger. The first few greasy meals finish what the oven started, which is what Lodge means when it says the more you use your iron, the better the seasoning will get.

A pan that has been through many cycles or sat rusty for months takes more scrubbing and more coats, but the process is the same. Lodge calls its pans brutally tough for decades of cooking; the dishwasher cost you the seasoning, not the pan.

Enameled cast iron survives, but the makers still say hand wash

An enameled skillet has a fired glass coating over the iron, and glass does not care about detergent. So an enameled pan comes out of a dishwasher looking much as it went in, and that is why people assume it is dishwasher safe. The listings in our enameled cast iron skillet guide are more cautious than that. None of the five picks, Made In, Tramontina, Lodge, Crock-Pot or Hisencn, uses the word dishwasher at all. Lodge describes a smooth surface for quick, easy hand washing on its 3.6 quart braiser. Hisencn says to wash with warm water and a soft sponge. Made In and Tramontina say easy to clean and stop there. One skillet in the wider pool that guide drew from, the Maldira, does say enameled cast iron is dishwasher safe, and in the same sentence recommends hand washing with warm soapy water and a nylon brush instead.

The reason for the caution is the iron you cannot see. Any bare edge, chip or worn rim where the glass has gone is ordinary cast iron, and it rusts in a dishwasher exactly as a bare skillet does. Repeated cycles also dull the gloss of the enamel over time. If you own an enameled pan for the convenience, a hand wash with a soft sponge, which is all these makers ask for, is a small price.

The parts that can go in the dishwasher

The skillet stays out. Some of what comes with it or sits beside it can go in, and here the listings are specific.

Silicone handle covers. Three of the five picks in our cast iron handle cover guide say dishwasher safe in as many words: the Lodge Silicone Hot Handle Holder, rated to 500 F and made for skillets 9 inches and larger; the Cbiumpro 2 Pack, rated to 475 F; and the joyhalo 6 Pack. Cbiumpro adds the line that matters most for this page: take the cover off when cleaning the pan, and do not put it back until the pan is thoroughly dried, because a wet handle under a silicone sleeve is a rust spot you will not see for weeks. Two picks disagree with the machine. HARSKIYER, the only one of the five with a published weight at 0.33 pounds, says to wipe with a damp cloth or wash in cool soapy water and to avoid dishwashers to preserve its anti-slip texture. Leadiy, whose listing compares its thick material to silicone and gives laundry instructions, says machine wash cold on a gentle cycle and tumble dry low. The holders bundled with the Lodge 10.25 inch and Cuisinel 12 inch skillets get no washing note of their own on those listings; the standalone Lodge holder in the handle cover guide is dishwasher safe, and that is the closest published answer.

Scrapers. Our guide to cast iron pan scrapers with dishwasher-safe parts found that only one of its five picks names the machine: the G.CATACC 4-Pack, heat-resistant plastic at 3.5 by 2.6 inches, says it cleans up easily in the dishwasher. Matscover answers differently, publishing ABS plastic with heat resistance to 215 F that can sit in boiling water. The Lodge Cast Iron Pan Scrapers, polycarbonate at 0.09 pounds for the pair, carry no washing instruction at all. The EIKS stainless steel scraper has a wooden handle, nothing on its listing says the handle may be soaked, and wood and a dishwasher do not mix.

Glass lids. The Cuisinel skillet ships with a tempered glass lid, and its listing does not say whether the lid is dishwasher safe. Glass itself is fine in a dishwasher, but with no statement from the maker about the lid or its fittings, a hand wash is the safe answer.

Common questions

Will one dishwasher cycle ruin a cast iron skillet for good?

No. One cycle strips the seasoning and starts surface rust, both of which are repairable the same day with a scrub, a dry on the burner, a thin coat of oil and an hour in a hot oven. What a dishwasher cannot do is crack or warp the iron. Backcountry Iron and EDGING CASTING say to keep the pan out of the machine because of rust, not because the pan itself is fragile. Repeated cycles and weeks of neglect are what turn rust into pitting.

Why did my cast iron come out of the dishwasher with an orange film all over it?

That is flash rust, a thin layer that forms on bare iron within minutes of being wet once the seasoning has been lifted off. It looks dramatic because it covers everything at once, including the handle and the outside. It is only a film at this stage. Wipe the pan with a dry cloth, scrub what remains with steel wool or coarse salt, wash, dry on a burner and re-season. Left alone for days, that film turns into something harder to remove.

Can a cast iron skillet in the dishwasher leave rust on other dishes?

Yes. Rust that forms during the cycle washes off the pan and settles as orange streaks on the rack, on plates below it and in the filter. It is iron oxide, not harmful, but it stains light plastic and marks glassware. Run the empty machine with detergent to clear it, wipe the rack tines, and rinse the filter. If you see orange marks on dishes after a cycle, check whether a cast iron pan or a bare steel tool went in with them.

Is it safe to cook in the skillet right after it has been in the dishwasher?

Not until the rust is gone and the pan is dry and oiled. Cooking on a rusty surface is not dangerous in the way a chemical is, but the food will taste of metal, stick badly, and pick up orange flecks. Scrub the rust off, wash, dry the pan on a burner, rub in a thin coat of oil and heat it until the oil just starts to smoke. For a first meal, cook something fatty, which helps rebuild the surface rather than fighting it.

Does a rinse-only or cold cycle make the dishwasher safe for cast iron?

No. The hot detergent wash is the fastest way to strip seasoning, but the time the iron spends wet is what causes the rust, and a rinse cycle still leaves the pan sitting in water and steam far longer than a hand wash does. Backcountry Iron warns against soaking overnight for the same reason. There is no setting on a dishwasher that dries a bare iron pan immediately and oils it afterward, so there is no cycle that makes it safe.