Top skills! The best cast iron skillets for every kind of cooking occasion

You're going to see a lot of Lodge skillets on this list, and the brand has been crafting what it calls "heirloom-quality" cast iron cookware in the small town of South Pittsburg, Tenn. for nearly 125 years, making it the oldest and longest-running U.S. cast iron manufacturer. 

The company's most basic skillet, the Classic, is exactly what its name suggests — simple and timeless — and it's very reasonably priced at under £40 for the 9-inch version. Whether you're a total cast iron newbie or a (pre)seasoned pro, you can't beat the utility and value a Lodge skillet offers.

Even if you don't wind up buying a Lodge skillet, be sure to bookmark its website: It's packed with lots of tasty-looking recipes and helpful tips on how to care for your cast iron skillet and make sure it lasts for decades. 

The traditional seasoning on cast iron skillets does not tolerate long-term exposure to acidic ingredients well. It's not just about ruining the seasoning, either: If you're not careful, the acid can cause trace amounts of iron to leach from the pan and funk up your food.

Enter: the enameled cast iron skillet, which sports a glassy coating that does two important things — it replaces the pan's natural nonstick seasoning, and it makes the pan suitable for cooking with acidic ingredients like tomatoes, citrus, wine, and vinegar.

That being said, that coating is also an enameled cast iron skillet's biggest weakness: It'll crack if it gets too hot, which pretty much negates the appeal of using cast iron for its ability to retain heat.

If you're going to go the enameled route, we recommend picking up one of Le Creuset's French-made Signature Skillets: they're dishwasher-safe, the wide loop handles are easy to grip, they're covered by a lifetime warranty, they come in lots of fun colours, and the matte black interior enamel has been specially formulated to withstand relatively high temperatures.

If you took Lodge's everyday cast iron skillet and made its sides just a couple inches higher, you'd get the Lodge Cast Iron Deep Skillet, an incredibly versatile piece of cookware that upholds the brand's reputation for value and durability. 

There's enough room in this puppy for baking and deep-frying on top of all the usual things one does in a cast iron pan. Plus, if you get a lid for it, you can use it as a casserole dish.

As with all cast iron cookware that bears Lodge's branding, this deep skillet's main drawback is the fact that it's pretty expensive. You're paying for a high quality product that could last for generations, though.

We're sorry to break it to you, but there's no such thing as a lightweight cast iron skillet. Well, technically there are, but none that we would recommend.

Making a lightweight cast iron skillet means making a thin cast iron skillet, which winds up defeating the point of making a skillet out of cast iron: The material's thickness and heft afford it unmatched heat retention and distribution. 

If you want something that cooks like a cast-iron skillet but won't sprain your wrist when you try to flip a pancake, we recommend looking into a skillet made of carbon steel. For one thing, its chemical makeup is actually quite similar to that of traditional cast iron. It also requires regular seasonings to keep it nonstick, and that coating of seasoning shouldn't be exposed to anything highly acidic.

The biggest difference between the two materials is their ability to retain heat: Since there's less mass in a thin, light carbon steel skillet, it doesn't do as good a job with long-cooked foods.

As far as brands go, Matfer Bourgeat, a family-owned French manufacturer that's been in the culinary biz for over 200 years. Its carbon steel cookware is remarkably durable and distributes heat quite well — plus, its 10.25-inch Black Steel Frying Pan weighs just 1.41 kilograms, which is about half the weight of your average same-size cast iron skillet. 

A fancy Le Creuset skillet doesn't belong in the great outdoors — leave that puppy sitting on your hob or hanging on the wall for everyone to admire.

A versatile, no-frills, extra-tough pan that can hold up to an open flame and withstand some scrubbing to remove the resulting soot makes a much better camping buddy when you're roughing it in the woods. 

To literally no one's surprise, Lodge makes a budget-friendly pan that fits the bill. Its Cast Iron Combo Cooker is a 10.25-inch, moderately deep skillet that comes with a multipurpose lid. You can place that lid on top of the skillet to transform it into a casserole dish, or cook with the lid separately as a shallow skillet or griddle. Realistically, it's the only cookware you'll need to pack. 

A lot of people loath cast iron grill pans. They aren't as multipurpose as regular skillets, and they're an absolute nightmare to clean, apparently.

At the end of the day, there are really only two reasons why you might be inclined to add a cast iron grill pan to your cookware collection: either you don't want your bacon to stew in its own grease while it fries (a grill pan's ridges will prop it above the drippings), or you don't have access to a traditional grill but still want those "sexy lines" on your food. 

If you're still on board, just go with the Square Cast Iron Grill Pan from the ever-dependable Lodge. It's nothing fancy, but since you'll probably be relegating it to just giving meats and veggies a quick sear, it doesn't need to be.