Pie irons are a campfire classic for the family. They’re a great way to get the kids involved in cooking dinner without it becoming a chore. All you need is one or two good pie iron recipes to keep the kids entertained at the campsite in the evening.
Pie irons are the wilderness version of a panini press.
- Pie Iron Grilled Cheese – Fun for Kids – (Perfect Recipe for Your First Pudgy Pie)
- Pie Iron Pizza – Fun for Kids
- Pie Iron S’mores – Fun for Kids
- Pie Iron Tacos – Fun for Kids
- Pie Iron Omelets – Fun for Kids
- Pie Iron Sloppy Joes – Fun for Kids
- Pie Iron Cornbread – Fun for Kids
Tips For Cooking Pie Iron Recipes
There are three things that you’re going to want to keep in mind to make your pie iron cooking experience great.
First: A pie iron should be seasoned just like any other cast iron cooking surface. (see below for how to season your pie irons before you take them out camping).
Second: You need to preheat your pie irons before you start loading them up with goodies. I know, they’ll be hot, but trust me, it is important. If you don’t reheat them, your food will end up sticking. Consider getting some high temp barbecue gloves for handling them.
Third: It’s good to have a cheap cutting board or metal rack handy to set your hot pie irons on while working with them. A pie iron fresh off the fire can burn a brand into a lot of surfaces.
How to Season Your Pie Irons
If you plan to take your irons camping with you – make sure you get them all seasoned and ready to go before your trip. This would be a pain in the bum to do at a campsite.
The first thing to do with a set of new pie irons is to wash them with hot soap and water to remove the thin paraffin wax coasting that they came coated with to prevent rusting during shipment. Some steel wool will help here.
Once your pie irons are properly seasoned – you’ll never use soap again.
The trick to seasoning your cast iron is to coat it with flaxseed oil (or vegetable oil if you don’t want to spend the money), wipe it off well with a dry paper towel, then heat it. Then you repeat the process a few more times until your cast iron turns a lovely shiny black (it starts out very silver). Here are the irons all oiled up and ready for heating.
I opted to use my backyard propane grill to speed things up. I turned the heat up to high, set the greased irons on the grill, closed the lid, and let them heat for 30 minutes.
Here’s a shot of them from the back after heating.
And here’s the front.
After 3 rounds of oiling and heating, the irons finally have a lovely black finish.
The inside finish still isn’t super smooth (I didn’t wipe the oil down very well with a dry paper towel prior to putting them on the grill), but here’s a shot of the before and after so you can see the color difference. Even though the interior finish isn’t very smooth – it still cooked my pudgy pies like a boss.
