How to season a Blackstone Griddle

How to season a Blackstone griddle is absolutely necessary. Seasoning is the process that changes the surface of the original steel to non-stick. It is done by smoothing, cleaning, and finally seasoning the steel by coating it with oil.

It takes a bit of patience to get this done. Honestly, the process was a lot easier than we were expecting. If you have ever seasoned a cast iron skillet, you will be just fine. For the rest of us, just remember these 3 words: smoothing, cleaning, and seasoning. They are all logical, so don’t get intimidated. All the steps flow into the next and before you know it, you will have a seasoned griddle.

Jump to:

• Blackstone Griddle
• Seasoning a Blackstone Griddle
• How to season a Blackstone Griddle
• Smoothing
• Cleaning
• Seasoning
• Seasoning Final Step: Grilling Onions
• We had to keep on going… The first cook on the Blackstone
• Grilling eggs on the Blackstone
• Are you looking for more outdoor cooking recipes?
• Useful Tips and FAQs
• How to season a Blacksone Griddle

Blackstone Griddle

The Blackstone griddle is made out of steel. Steel is used in a wide variety of products and is well sought after in the cooking industry. It is heavy and durable. When properly seasoned it will last for generations. Once seasoned you can cook eggs without sticking or use the high temperature for beautifully seared steaks. As you season the Blackstone griddle you will see it turning black, especially in the center with an outline of bronze. The seasoning helps with releasing food easily, just like a non-stick pan, and prevents rusting.

Seasoning a Blackstone Griddle

First and foremost congratulations on your new griddle. Now that you have put it together, it is essential to season the Blackstone griddle. The process is very simple and it only needs a few household items with one being unique*. Let’s go over the list of items as you will use them during the whole seasoning process:

• Buffing Stone* (We used this one). It is going to smooth and remove any imperfections on the steel and give the oil a better surface to season the Blackstone griddle.
• Warm water with a touch of diluted dish soap. This will help loosen any dirt on the flat top after using the buffing stone.
• Fresh warm water. This is to wash the rest of the small particles off.
• Quality dish towel. This will help with removing the big particles from the smoothing and push the water to the rear drain.
• Paper towel roll. Get the good stuff here and “kill two birds with one stone”. The good stuff is ideal for cleaning up and spreading the oil during the seasoning.
• Oil. Our choice was olive oil for baking and sautéing. It is the oil we use for all of our cooking. This is a personal decision and there are quite a few options. We have seen people using avocado oil, Crisco shortening, or even canola oil. Do your research and use what you are comfortable with. Here is the link to what we used: Bertolli Olive Oil
• Long BBQ tongs. It’s going to get hot and you are going to want to have a standoff between your hand and the griddle.
• Heat-resistant mitt (like an oven mitt). This is a good bit of safety equipment. I found out the hard way halfway through seasoning that I should have started with one on my hand.
• Onions. These will be for the last part of “How to season a Blackstone griddle”.

How to season a Blackstone Griddle

We are going to walk you through the process: Smoothing, Cleaning, and Seasoning. The seasoning is ended with grilling onions. It took us about 3 hours to do this seasoning and frankly we were chatting and having fun. So, if you’re more focused it will be faster.

Smoothing

1. Remove all papers, stickers, or any other packaging from the Blackstone.
2. With your hand, feel the griddle. It will be smooth in some areas and have slight imperfections like bumps, roughness, and even some rust spots. This is your starting point.
3. The stone is going to smooth out all these imperfections. Use even pressure on the stone and rub the griddle up and down. You may need to concentrate on the more rough spots with a circular motion.
4. Don’t forget to use the stone on the edges inside and out, as they need to be seasoned too.

Cleaning

1. Rinse the griddle using a dish towel and fresh warm water with a hint of dish soap. Note: Pay attention to how much water you are using. The back drip pan only has so much volume.
2. Finalize the rinsing with warm tap water until all the stone material is removed. This may take a few rinses.
3. Check to see how you did. Once the griddle is all clean from the stone dust, feel the griddle with your hand. Is it smoother, more even? If yes move on to seasoning.
4. We had to redo a few spots that weren’t quite there yet. So we repeated the Smoothing and Cleaning steps in those areas.

Seasoning

1. Make sure you have room to work and good ventilation because now it is time for the heat.
2. Now that your griddle is smoothed, cleaned of dust, no standing or pooling water, start your burners on low for 5 minutes. We prefer to slowly heat up the griddle. This allows the steel to evenly heat up.
3. Increase the heat to medium-high (second to last black mark) for an additional 5 minutes.
4. Final heat increase, turn the burners to high heat. After 5 minutes, we had a dark oval shape in the middle of the flat top with a bronze ring around it. A slight bit of smoke was coming from the middle as well.
5. Now it is time to apply the oil. We used a squirt bottle and added 2 tablespoons of oil over the whole flat top. With a paper towel at the end of long tongs, evenly coat the griddle, don’t forget the sides. Make sure there is no pooling.
   Note: Go slowly here, the oil is superheated from the grill and can easily splash up.
6. You will have rolling smoke as you apply the oil. Once the smoke subsides, for us it was about 9 minutes, reapply the oil and evenly coat it all over the flat top. Remember the sides, too.
   Note: After applying oil twice, I put an oven mitt on because of the heat. I would suggest using one from the start.
7. Repeat step 6 until you see the blackened oval with the bronze outline in the middle of the griddle expanding to the edges of the flat top. We redid the oiling process 5 times until the blackening reached all the corners.
   Note: The corners did not get fully black. They became a bronze color. Update: we have been cooking with the griddle for a few months now and the corners are all black now.

Seasoning Final Step: Grilling Onions

Congratulations! On reaching the last step. All you need to do is grill a bunch of onions.

1. Reduce your burners to low. Give it about 5 minutes so the griddle can cool off a bit.
2. Slice about 6 large onions, place them in a large bowl, and only coat them with oil, no salt or other seasonings. We used the same olive oil.
3. Once the flat top has cooled off a bit, pour your onions on the griddle. Using a pair of BBQ tongs, spread them over the surface.
   Note: Depending on the size of your onions you may need some more to cover the grill.
4. Move the onions around while you sauté them, especially in the corners where you probably need a little bit more seasoning.
5. After about 25 minutes I decided to concentrate the sautéd onions on two areas of the flat top, the middle and sides.
6. Turn off the two side burners and move the onions to the middle two burners for about 10 minutes.
7. Turn off the middle two burners and turn on the two side burners to low.
8. Divide the onions and move to the side burner flat top areas for about 10 minutes.
9. Turn all burners back on at low and spread the onions all over the grill top once again for about 10 minutes.
10. The onions are nicely grilled and the final step of seasoning is done, take them off.
11. Close the burners and let the Blackstone cool off for about 15 minutes.
12. Once it has cooled off, apply a final even thin coat of oil, with no pooling.
13. You got it done! You are now ready for your first cook.

We had to keep on going… The first cook on the Blackstone

Karina and I couldn’t wait. We had to know how good this seasoning was. Once the griddle had cooled off, we decided to test it.
What better way to see how a non-stick surface holds up than cooking eggs?

We have a Blackstone 36 griddle, which has 4 burners. So for the test we cooked one egg per burner, 2 scrambled, and 2 over easy.

Grilling eggs on the Blackstone

1. Preheat your griddle to medium-low.
   Note: I was on low and it worked but a higher temperature would have been better. Great for the test though!
2. Apply a thin, but even coat of oil.
3. For this test/recipe, we cracked each egg into separate bowls and add salt and pepper.
4. We scrambled 2 of them and left 2 whole.
5. Pour your eggs one at a time over each burner area.
6. Cook to desire consistency.

They were all so tasty. Our daughters only want eggs off the Blackstone, now.

Are you looking for more outdoor cooking recipes?

Check out the Smoked Pork Butt we did a few months ago. It was so tender and flavorful. And if you have leftovers, the pork makes the perfect addition to quick fried rice or quesadillas on the Blackstone.
Another favorite quick meal is to add our Smoked Sausages to sautéd onions and peppers.
Try our Cheesy Garlic Bread in the air fryers underneath the Blackstone.
BBQers and Smokers who love potatoes, you have to try our Twice-Baked Potatoes. The whole recipe is done on the BBQ or smoker.
Oh, can we tempt you with dessert?
We head back inside for our San Sebastian Cheesecake a simple, sweet, and creamy treat.

Useful Tips and FAQs

Now that your griddle is seasoned, how did your first cook go?
Let us know in the comments below.