USA Enamel Use & Care
Care for your new piece of USA Enamel™ so that it can last for generations to come.
Quick tips for cooking:
- To start, choose a burner closest to the size of your dutch oven and preheat with a little oil before adding food. Don’t preheat an empty dutch oven on your stovetop—this can cause your cookware to crack or break.
- Some bread recipes call for preheating the dutch oven in the oven. This is perfectly safe to do since the heat will be more consistently distributed across the entire dutch oven.
- Just like with all of our classic cast iron cookware, enameled cast iron has great heat retention, so there’s no need to cook over a high heat. Stick to a low to medium heat only. This prevents burnt food and stuck-on messes.
- As you cook, use wooden, silicone, or nylon utensils to stir, blend, or flip your food. This will protect the enamel finish from being scratched during the cooking process.
- We love to bring our dutch oven to the table for family-style serving! Just be sure to place your hot cookware over a trivet to protect your table or counter.
Cleaning & Storage:
To best preserve your piece’s finish, we recommend hand washing your enamel cookware. This can simply be done with warm, soapy water.
(Note: Citrus juices and citrus-based cleaners, including some dishwasher detergents, should not be used, as they can dull the exterior gloss. It is not harmful and will not impair the cooking performance, however, the use of these products is not covered by our Lifetime Limited warranty.)
- Allow your enamelled piece to cool, then use a gentle dish soap and use a scrub brush, scrub cloth, or pan scraper to easily remove food from the cooking surface.
- After you clean, dry your cookware completely before storing.
- We love to store our enamelled dutch oven on our stovetop - but any cool, dry place will do! Before you store, make sure your enamelled cast iron has been dried completely and use our handy pot protectors to prevent moisture buildup and chipping.
How to Remove Stains From Enamelled Cast Iron:
A small amount of staining is to be expected when cooking with enamel, especially if your dishes require long cook times, include dark or colourful spices and ingredients.
To remove slight stains, begin by cleaning your enamelled cast iron as noted above.
- Then, rub your cookware’s surface with a damp cloth and Lodge Enamel Cleaner or another ceramic cleaner according to directions on the bottle. And voila! Slight stains will be gone.
- For more stubborn stains, soak the interior of the cookware for 2-3 hours with a mixture of 3 tablespoons of household bleach per litre of water.
Sometimes in this process, you may realize it isn’t a stain but baked-on food. To remove those stubborn bits, boil 2 cups of water and 4 tablespoons of baking soda for a few minutes. Then use a pan scraper to loosen the food. Follow this process with a good cleaning with soap and a scrub brush.