The Caraway 8" Enameled Cast Iron Mini Skillet Makes Perfect Skillet Cookies And Doesn't Need Seasoning – But It’s Not Flawless

After cooking with the Caraway 8" Enameled Cast Iron Mini Skillet, testing it on everything from delicate frying to small-batch desserts, it’s clear that the pan delivers impressive quality without the usual need for seasoning and pan maintenance. That said, a few minor snags make clean-up trickier than expected.

The best cast iron cookware typically demands regular seasoning to maintain a low-stick surface. The Caraway skillet does away with that maintenance while still delivering an excellent sear and crisp edges across a range of dishes. However, the enamel coating isn’t quite as low-stick as some cooks might hope.

Here’s how I found cooking with the Caraway 8" Enameled Cast Iron Mini Skillet, what I loved, and the small drawbacks that ultimately knocked a star off an otherwise promising pan.

Product Specifications

Design and First Impressions

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As the name suggests, the Caraway 8" Enameled Cast Iron Mini Skillet is Caraway’s smallest enameled cast iron offering – perfect for single portions or sides for two.

What sets it apart is the enamel coating, which eliminates the need for pesky and ongoing cast-iron seasoning. Unlike traditional cast iron cookware, it requires none of the regular oiling or upkeep typically needed to maintain the surface. For me, that’s a major advantage. I’ve often avoided cast iron because I know I’m unlikely to keep up with the meticulous care it usually demands, without which it will rust.

The Caraway's smooth enamel coating covers the sides and interior of the pan, leaving the handle and base with more of the rough cast iron texture you might expect. Because of this, Caraway notes that you should not slide the cookware across counters or stove tops to prevent damage.

The pan is heavy for its size, weighing just under 4lbs. I am a regular gym-goer, and even I found holding this pan for too long in one hand to be uncomfortable for my wrist. That said, it is fairly well-balanced, and the helper handle makes taking it from the oven a lot easier.

As always, we give bonus points to any product that arrives in fully recyclable packaging, and Caraway succeeds with this. The box was entirely cardboard, making it easier and more sustainable to dispose of.

Cooking Performance

Delicate Frying

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The true litmus test for any frying pan or skillet is how well it can fry an egg. This is a tricky test to ace, especially for a non-stick pan, but any pan that can manage it is a certified winner. We are looking for tender whites, with crispy brown edges that release easily.

The Caraway Mini Skillet delivers half of this. The pan heats evenly over a medium heat and retains temperature as you cook. With a good splash of oil, I added the egg and started frying. The base and edges crisped wonderfully, but the egg was difficult to remove from the pan. The pans in the Our Place Essentials set we reviewed, lined with ceramic rather than enamel, made very light work of frying an egg and released instantly. Clean up there took 30 seconds.

Being enameled, I could not use a metal spatula for the Caraway as it would damage the coating, so a plastic one had to do. Some of the egg's edges lifted perfectly, but the center stuck (this story repeated itself with a later, messy, pancake test). It came away eventually, and without breaking after a little coaxing, but it was not the seamless experience I wanted for the first thing in the morning.

It was not only I who experienced this, either. Before testing it myself, my fellow in-house testing expert, Dan Fauzi, tested the pan for a few days, and found their tempeh also stuck while cooking, and cleaning it up afterwards took 'four times longer' than their usual pan.

Because of this, I was apprehensive about the tofu test. Tofu is a regular staple in our house, and can be tricky to fry without falling apart. With a good coating of oil and a low temperature, the tofu fried just as easily as it does in my favored stainless steel pan, and with no more or less sticking, either. Because it didn't release perfectly, I lost some of the perfectly crispy edges, but otherwise it turned golden with minimum fuss.

Overall, the pan handles delicate foods fairly well. However, releasing food from the surface takes a bit of technique, something that may frustrate cooks who choose an enameled pan specifically for its promise of convenience.

Meat and Sautéing

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A cast-iron skillet must be able to sear meat beautifully without burning it or tearing it apart, and I am happy to say that the Caraway Mini Skillet delivered. My turkey sausages browned beautifully and evenly, and I could comfortably fit four in the pan. There was no sticking at all, either.

After removing the sausages, I threw in some onions to sweat down, and was pleased at how the pan handled browning without burning or sticking. However, when I added my par-boiled potato cubes to make a quick hash, the starch began to stick immediately.

I did, admittedly, overfill the small pan somewhat, which made crisping the potatoes harder, but I fear this would have been more difficult regardless, with the constant sticking.

One thing I did enjoy, however, is as the pan is enameled, I could cook acidic foods right away, so I threw some tomatoes in towards the end to cook through without the fear of damaging a seasoning layer and pitting the metal beneath, which is a typical concern on cast iron.

Once again, my experience was mixed. The meat cooked beautifully, and the onions sautéed well, but the sticking and the mess it left behind made cleanup more difficult than I’d want for a simple lunchtime meal.

Skillet Cookie Dessert

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I would be remiss not to test the pan with a classic skillet cookie. This quickly became my favorite use for the Caraway 8" Enameled Cast Iron Mini Skillet, baking a crisp, golden dessert perfectly sized for two to four servings (depending on how hungry you are).

For the test, I adapted a recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction, my go-to source for anything sweet. I folded chunks of my favorite chocolate into the thick dough and pressed it into the buttered skillet before baking for 40 minutes. The result was excellent: Evenly cooked, studded with melted chocolate, and golden across the surface without a single dark or charred spot. It was hard to fault.

While the pan was still warm, I divided the cookie and lifted out two portions with a spatula. The base was just as crisp as the top, and only a few crumbs were left behind.

The remaining half, however, told a slightly different story. After cooling in the skillet, the cookie hardened (as cookies tend to) and once again clung stubbornly to the enamel surface. It was eventually released with minimal breakage, but the process required a bit of maneuvering rather than sliding out cleanly.

The leftover crumbs scraped away easily with a plastic spatula, but the lesson was clear: Remove the cookie while the pan is still warm, then store it separately.

Once again, the results were impressive, but the experience was slightly mixed. The pan delivers excellent cooking performance, yet the release and cleanup felt a little too finicky for an enameled skillet designed for convenience.

Cleaning, Storage and Maintenance

Maintaining traditional cast iron cookware is typically a hands-on commitment. Proper care involves careful scrubbing, immediate drying, and regular seasoning. However, this process usually rewards you with remarkable durability and heirloom longevity.

The Caraway 8" Enameled Cast Iron Mini Skillet takes a different approach. Like the best Dutch ovens, it has an enamel coating that removes the need for seasoning altogether. For cooks who want high-heat, stove-to-oven performance without committing to a demanding maintenance routine, that’s a major positive.

In practice, however, the pan doesn’t always deliver the easy-clean experience you might expect.

When food releases cleanly, washing up is refreshingly simple: Warm water, a non-toxic dish soap such as ATTITUDE from Walmart, and a soft abrasive sponge are all it takes. But if anything sticks (such as a fried egg or a piece of tempeh), the process becomes far more laborious. On one occasion, I resorted to boiling water to loosen stubborn debris and still struggled to remove it. After cooking the egg, I spent several minutes scrubbing this one small pan alone.

That experience is not unlike cooking with a brand-new traditional cast iron skillet, where early sticking is common while the seasoning gradually improves with use. That said, the Caraway pan promises reliable performance straight out of the box, with no seasoning process to develop over time.

Unlike the Mini Lancaster Skillet, which our professional chef, Lydia Hayman, reviewed, which became less sticky as time went on, I fear this pan’s cleaning experience will remain largely the same with continued use, as the enamel coating's functionality will remain as it is.

Storing is simple thanks to the pan's small size, slotting into a storage rack easily. It is important not to stack items with this pan without cookware protectors, available at Amazon, or you risk scratching the enamel or the pan below.

How Does the Caraway 8” Enameled Cast Iron Mini Skillet Compare?

The Caraway 8” Cast Iron Mini Skillet is unique with its enameled coating, meaning that, unlike many other cast iron skillets, it does not require seasoning. This makes long-term maintenance a breeze in comparison to cleaning and caring for other cookware.

Its performance is not too dissimilar to other cast-iron skillets reviewed by our team. As with the Lancaster Mini Skillet, it is made from quality cast iron, is oven and multi-stove safe, and heats evenly for crisp, golden results.

That said, it is not a particularly low-stick offering, with the larger Field Company Skillet, also reviewed by Lydia, outdoing the low-stick performance by a mile. While you need to season this pan, Lydia found that the seasoning layers built up over time and improved. Every frittata she cooked released from the pan perfectly with no residue or sticky mess, as did pancakes. The only trouble came from fried eggs (again, a tricky test to ace), but the slight mess was simple to clean.

The Mini skillet can also not be used on campfires like the Field Company offering, due to the enameled surface, restricting its use to the kitchen only.

Should You Buy A 8” Caraway Cast Iron Mini Skillet?

All in all, I would recommend the 8” Caraway Cast Iron Mini Skillet for cooking smaller portions, for those who have the patience when cooking and desire the 'cast iron sear', but do not want to spend hours seasoning pans over time.

The pan is a convenient single-serving skillet for most everyday tasks, so long as you do not mind spending a little more time on clean up. For proteins and desserts in particular, it is perfect, and I will be coming back to it for these specific tasks whenever I am cooking just for myself.

The fact that I do not have to season the pan for the same great sear as traditional cast iron is also a bonus, especially as a self-certified 'lazy cook' who wants delicious results without having to season cookware every few uses.

For more delicate cooking tasks, however, I think I will be sticking to my stainless steel frying pan instead. I will continue to experiment with it over the coming months to see if I can nail a technique to make this pan truly perfect, but until then, I have to concede that it is not the most practical pan for those who do not have the patience for scrubbing or scraping.

How We Test Cookware at Homes & Gardens

The best cookware has to tick all the boxes: Versatility, manageable weight, safe materials, brilliant cooking performance, and, crucially, ease of cleaning.

You can read more details about how we test cookware at Homes & Gardens, including how long we vet each piece for and specifically which recipes we trial.

I test all cookware in my own home under real-world conditions – usually mid-week meals cooked before or after work, putting the pans through regular use over a range of recipes to get a good understanding of how they perform and fit into the everyday, hardworking home.

What Else to Shop

To improve your cast iron experience, here is a selection of my all-time favorite accessories – tools that make cooking, cleaning, and maintaining this cookware far easier.

All prices correct at the time of publication.

Still looking to shop around for the perfect pan? Check out our definitive list of the best non-toxic cookware to find the perfect match for your routine.

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