Best Oil for Seasoning a Cast Iron Skillet (Tested)

Most “best oil for seasoning a cast iron skillet” articles online either tell you to use whatever oil you have (Lodge), recommend olive oil despite its smoke-point problem (Kent Rollins), or skip the smoke-point comparison entirely (almost everyone). The right oil is the one with a high smoke point, low saturated fat, and a price that doesn’t punish you for using it. Spoiler in the lede: grapeseed oil wins on every axis. Here’s the smoke-point comparison table, the runners-up, and the specific oils to skip.

TL;DR: the recommended picks

• Best overall: grapeseed oil. Smoke point 420°F, high polyunsaturated fat (polymerizes well), about $8 for 16 oz. Wins on every axis.
• Runner-up: canola or vegetable oil. Smoke point 400°F. About $4 for 48 oz. Marginally less effective than grapeseed, but you probably already own it.
• High-heat alternative: refined avocado oil. Smoke point 520°F (the highest of common oils). About $14 for 16 oz. Use this if your oven runs hot or if you want zero smoke.
• Restoration only: flaxseed oil. Builds a hard, glossy seasoning layer fast, but is famously prone to flaking after several months of use. About $15 for 8 oz. Save it for one-time restoration jobs.
• The classic: Crisco shortening. Works fine. About $5 for 48 oz. Slightly softer finish than grapeseed but durable and forgiving.
• What to skip: olive oil, coconut oil, bacon grease, pure lard, Lodge Seasoning Spray. Reasons in the “what to skip” section below.

If you only have one minute and one pan, get grapeseed oil. If you want to know why, keep reading.

Why oil choice actually matters (the chemistry in 90 seconds)

Seasoning is polymerization, a chemical reaction where fatty-acid chains in oil break apart at high temperatures and reassemble into a hard, cross-linked polymer film bonded to the iron. Two properties of the oil determine how well this reaction works:

1. Smoke point. The temperature at which the oil starts to break down and smoke. Polymerization only begins above the smoke point. If you season at 450°F with an oil whose smoke point is 375°F (olive oil), the oil is past its breaking point for too long; if you season at 450°F with an oil whose smoke point is 520°F (avocado), the oil hasn’t quite reached its sweet spot. The right window is an oil with a smoke point between roughly 400°F and 470°F, which makes 450°F the standard seasoning temperature in our full seasoning method.

2. Saturated vs unsaturated fat. Saturated fats (coconut oil, lard, bacon grease, palm) are chemically stable and polymerize slowly and softly. Polyunsaturated fats (grapeseed, flaxseed, canola, vegetable) are more reactive, polymerize faster, and produce a harder finish. Food scientist Harold McGee covers this in detail in On Food and Cooking; the short version is that “healthy oils” (low saturated fat) make better seasoning oils, somewhat counter-intuitively.

A third factor people argue about: drying classification. Oils are classed as drying (flaxseed, walnut), semi-drying (grapeseed, soybean, sunflower), or non-drying (olive, peanut, coconut) based on how readily they oxidize and harden. Drying oils cure into the hardest film, fastest, which is why flaxseed had a moment as the “best” seasoning oil around 2015. The catch is that flaxseed cures so hard it has no flexibility, and after a few months of thermal expansion and contraction it cracks and flakes off in sheets. Semi-drying oils like grapeseed and canola produce a slightly softer film that lasts much longer. Serious Eats covers the drying-oil debate in more detail if you want the longer treatment.

Smoke point comparison

*Flaxseed’s listed smoke point of 225°F refers to the cold-pressed culinary product. In a 450°F oven, the oil is well past this point, which is why it polymerizes so aggressively (and so brittlely).

Prices are typical 2026 supermarket pricing for a basic store brand. Specialty brands cost 2-4x more without functional benefit for seasoning.

The best oil for seasoning a cast iron skillet: grapeseed

Smoke point: 420°F · Drying: semi-drying · Saturated fat: 10% · Price: ~$8 for 16 oz

Grapeseed wins because it’s the only oil that nails all four criteria simultaneously: high enough smoke point for proper 450°F polymerization (with margin), low saturated fat (high in polyunsaturated linoleic acid), semi-drying so the resulting film is hard but not brittle, and cheap enough that you don’t ration it.

The finish is noticeably smoother than canola or Crisco after the standard 4-round seasoning. Most people who switch from “whatever I had in the pantry” to grapeseed report a slick, glassy black surface they didn’t get before. The Kitchn’s side-by-side test of 5 oils picked grapeseed for the same reason: it created the most consistent nonstick surface across their test pans.

A 16 oz bottle of grapeseed oil lasts most home cooks a year of seasoning (each round uses about half a teaspoon). It’s also a perfectly good cooking oil for high-heat applications like searing and frying, so it’s not single-purpose.

Where to buy: any major grocery (Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s) carries store-brand grapeseed in the cooking-oils aisle. Pompeian and La Tourangelle are both good national brands. Don’t bother with “cold-pressed” or “organic” markups for seasoning purposes; the polymerization is identical.

Runner-up: canola or vegetable oil

Smoke point: 400°F · Drying: semi-drying · Saturated fat: 7-16% · Price: ~$4 for 48 oz

If you don’t want to buy a dedicated bottle of grapeseed and already have canola or vegetable oil in the pantry, use it. The smoke point is 20°F below grapeseed (400°F vs 420°F), which is still comfortably above the 450°F target if you check your oven calibration, but you may see slightly more smoke during the bake. The finished seasoning is functionally identical for most home use; a side-by-side tester would notice grapeseed is a touch smoother, but you would not.

Lodge officially recommends canola or vegetable oil for this reason: it’s what most people have, it works, and the marginal grapeseed advantage isn’t worth telling people to buy a special bottle.

The “vegetable oil” label in US groceries is usually soybean oil (sometimes a blend). Soybean is slightly higher in saturated fat than canola but otherwise behaves the same way for seasoning. Treat them as interchangeable.

For high heat: refined avocado oil

Smoke point: 520°F · Drying: non-drying · Saturated fat: 12% · Price: ~$14 for 16 oz

Refined avocado oil has the highest smoke point of any common cooking oil, which means you can crank the oven to 500°F without the oil burning off too fast. Useful if your oven runs hot, if your range hood is weak (less smoke during the bake), or if you’re seasoning a stripped pan that needs aggressive curing.

The downside: avocado oil is non-drying, so it polymerizes more slowly and less completely than the semi-drying oils. The finished seasoning is good but not as durable as grapeseed for the same number of rounds. Compensate by doing 5-6 rounds instead of 4.

Also: $14 for 16 oz is roughly 2x grapeseed. Worth it only if you genuinely need the high smoke point. For most home kitchens, grapeseed is the better trade.

Important: make sure the bottle says “refined avocado oil.” Unrefined (sometimes called “virgin”) avocado oil has a much lower smoke point around 375°F and is the wrong product for seasoning. The refined version is what you want.

Restoration only: flaxseed oil

Smoke point: 225°F (culinary) · Drying: drying · Saturated fat: 9% · Price: ~$15 for 8 oz

Flaxseed produces the hardest, glassiest seasoning of any oil. It was promoted heavily around 2015 (after Sheryl Canter’s famous blog post claimed it was the “perfect” oil) and a lot of cast iron enthusiasts switched. Then, a year or two later, those same pans started shedding seasoning in big black flakes.

The reason: flaxseed is a drying oil, the same chemical family used to finish hardwood floors. It cures so hard and so completely that the film has almost no flexibility. Cast iron expands and contracts every time you heat and cool it. Over months, that thermal cycling cracks the rigid flaxseed film and it flakes off the pan.

The current cast iron consensus is that flaxseed is fine for one-time restoration of a pan you stripped back to bare iron and want to bring back fast, but not for ongoing maintenance. After the first 3-4 flaxseed rounds, switch to grapeseed or canola for any future re-seasoning. Or just skip flaxseed entirely; grapeseed will get you to the same place in one or two extra rounds without the brittle-film risk.

Cost is the other problem. At ~$15 for 8 oz, flaxseed is roughly 4x grapeseed by volume and 19x canola. For a one-time use, fine; for ongoing maintenance, expensive.

Buy it in the refrigerated section of a health food store or Whole Foods (Barlean’s and Spectrum are common brands). Refrigerate after opening; flaxseed goes rancid quickly at room temperature.

The classic: Crisco shortening

Smoke point: 360°F · Drying: semi-drying · Saturated fat: 25% · Price: ~$5 for 48 oz

Crisco is what your grandmother used and it still works. The smoke point is lower than grapeseed (360°F vs 420°F), so it smokes more during the bake, and the higher saturated-fat content means the finish is slightly softer. But it’s cheap, shelf-stable, and forgiving: an over-applied Crisco coat is easier to recover from than an over-applied flaxseed coat.

Jeff Rogers (The Culinary Fanatic) seasons all 165 of his pans with Crisco using a stepped temperature method (200°F → 300°F → 400°F over 2 hours) and his results are some of the best in the cast iron community. The technique compensates for Crisco’s lower smoke point by ramping gently.

If you have a tub of Crisco in the pantry and don’t want to buy another oil, use it. The finish will be very good. Just don’t try to crank the oven to 500°F with Crisco; the smoke will be aggressive.

What to skip (and why)

Olive oil

Smoke point: 375°F (refined), 325-375°F (extra virgin). Below the standard 450°F seasoning temperature. The oil will smoke off the pan as a partially-cured tacky film rather than polymerizing into a hard surface. Kent Rollins recommends olive oil with the caveat “I’m a slow and go man,” meaning he seasons at lower temperatures, but at standard 450°F it’s the wrong tool. Olive oil is perfectly fine for cooking on an already-seasoned pan.

Coconut oil

Smoke point: 350°F (unrefined), 400°F (refined). Saturated fat: 87%. The smoke point is borderline and the saturated fat content is the highest of any common cooking oil. Coconut polymerizes slowly and softly, producing a finish that wears off faster than the semi-drying oils. Refined coconut oil is acceptable (not good) for seasoning if you have nothing else and don’t mind extra rounds. Unrefined coconut oil should not be used.

Bacon grease

Smoke point: ~325°F. Saturated fat: ~40%. Smoke point too low, polymerizes poorly, and rancidity is a real risk on a pan that isn’t used daily. Bacon grease will eventually polymerize into a usable seasoning if you cook on the pan constantly, but as the seasoning oil for the oven bake, it’s the wrong choice. It will, however, leave a nice bacon flavor in the pan for the first few uses, which is the actual reason people recommend it. Cook bacon in your pan if you want bacon flavor; don’t use bacon grease as your seasoning oil.

Pure lard

Smoke point: 374°F. Saturated fat: 39%. Same issues as bacon grease (smoke point too low, high saturated fat, rancidity risk on infrequently-used pans), without even the flavor upside. Some old-time cooks swear by lard and their pans look great, but they’re also using the pans daily for high-fat cooking, which is doing most of the work. As a deliberate seasoning oil, lard is a worse choice than grapeseed.

Lodge Seasoning Spray

Cost: ~$7 for 8 oz. This is canola oil in an aerosol can with a small markup for the propellant and packaging. Buy a $4 bottle of canola oil and apply it with a paper towel. You save $3 per round and you’re not breathing aerosolized canola.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best kind of oil to use to season a cast iron pan? Grapeseed oil. Smoke point 420°F, high in polyunsaturated fat, ~$8/16 oz, widely available. Canola is a near-equal runner-up if you already have it.

Should I season cast iron at 350 or 450? 450°F. The oil must exceed its smoke point for polymerization to start, and 350°F is below the smoke point of most cooking oils. Full method walkthrough in our how to season a cast iron skillet guide.

What oils should not be used on cast iron? For high-heat seasoning: olive oil (smoke point too low), unrefined coconut oil (too much saturated fat), bacon grease, lard. All four are fine for cooking on an already-seasoned pan; they’re just the wrong tools for the seasoning bake itself.

Which oil has the highest smoke point? Refined avocado oil at 520°F, then refined safflower at 510°F, then refined peanut at 450°F, then grapeseed at 420°F.

Can I season cast iron with olive oil? You can, but you shouldn’t, at the standard 450°F oven method. Olive oil’s smoke point is below the target temperature, which produces a partially-cured tacky film instead of a hard polymerized surface.

Is grapeseed oil really better than canola oil for seasoning? Marginally. Grapeseed’s smoke point is 20°F higher and the polyunsaturated content is slightly better. In side-by-side tests, grapeseed produces a slightly smoother finish. The difference is real but small; canola is a perfectly acceptable substitute.

What oil should I use on cast iron after cleaning? Any neutral high-smoke-point oil (grapeseed, canola, vegetable, avocado). A few drops on a paper towel, wiped across the warm pan after washing. The daily wipe isn’t a polymerization step; it’s rust prevention plus light seasoning maintenance.

What you can do now

You can walk into any grocery store, spend $8 on a 16 oz bottle of grapeseed oil, and have the best seasoning oil for cast iron in your kitchen. If grapeseed is unavailable or you don’t want to buy it, the canola or vegetable oil you already own is 95% as good. The actual difference between “the right oil” and “the wrong oil” for seasoning is whether the smoke point lets polymerization run, and whether the saturated-fat content lets the polymer set as a hard film instead of a soft one. Everything else (drying classification, price, brand) is a refinement on those two questions.

When you’ve picked your oil, the next step is the actual seasoning method: half a teaspoon of oil, buffed almost dry, baked upside down at 450°F for an hour, repeated 3-4 times for a new or stripped pan. The full method walkthrough covers the chemistry, the step-by-step, and the four failure modes (sticky, splotchy, smoking, peeling) and how to fix each. For the day-to-day routine that keeps the seasoning intact between bakes (including the soap-myth treatment), see how to clean a cast iron skillet.