Everyone who owns a cast iron skillet has done it once. The pan comes out of the oven, you put it on the hob to finish a sauce, and twenty minutes later you grab the handle without thinking. The handle is part of the pan, it’s solid iron, and it’s every bit as hot as the cooking surface.
A folded tea towel works until it slips, or until a corner drags through the gas flame. Oven gloves are fine for getting the pan out of the oven but clumsy for shaking it about on the hob. What most cast iron cooks end up with instead is a silicone sleeve that lives on the handle.
The Lodge one
Lodge make the skillets half the country seems to own, and the Lodge Silicone Hot Handle Holder is shaped to slide over their handles. It’s a red silicone sleeve with the Lodge logo and a little skillet moulded into it. Lodge say it fits skillets 9 inches and larger, it’s heat resistant up to 500°F, and it goes in the dishwasher.
The fit is the part people tend to like. It’s snug, so it stays put when you lift a heavy pan instead of twisting round in your hand, and the silicone gives you a grip that doesn’t slide.
Before you rely on it
- Check your pan size. It’s made for the bigger Lodge handles. On a small 6 inch skillet it’ll be loose, and handles from other brands vary, so measure yours against it before assuming it’ll fit.
- Take it off before the pan goes in the oven. It’s a sleeve for handling, not something to bake with. Slide it back on once the pan is out.
- It isn’t magic. Silicone slows heat down rather than stopping it. If you hold a pan that’s been on a high flame for a long time, you’ll start to feel it. Long enough to move the pan or tip it into a plate is what it’s for.
- Get two if you can. Bigger skillets have a small helper handle on the other side, and that gets just as hot. A spare sleeve or a dry oven glove covers that hand.
It’s a dull bit of kit and you’ll forget it’s there, which is sort of the point. Here’s the Lodge handle holder on Amazon.
