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Don’t you need to season carbon steel cookware?

Or do you perform a quick season on the cooktop right before frying / searing? In that case, you could also use stainless steel cookware, which is even less maintenance than carbon steel.

Yes, you need to. I have a couple from IKEA and they come with seasoning directions inside.

Stainless steel is very foolproof actually, but at the end of the day, we mostly prefer silicone/wood utensils in the house, except a couple of items.

Isn’t carbon steel more maintenance heavy than cast iron? I was always told that you always need to coat carbon steel after use otherwise it will oxidize, while cast iron has a protective polymerized coating that helps it to resist that naturally, and in my experience this has held true where CS equipment oxidizes readily (and stains from acids) while cast iron has more leeway due to the initial coating.

Carbon steel has the same maintenance requirements as cast iron. I do like it better because of weight though.

The lighter weight makes maintenance much easier in practice.