I’d like to season my cast-iron - food sticks to it terribly, even though it was pre-seasoned. The best recommendations I find are for frying bacon and that sort of thing. I’m mostly vegetarian (I occasionally eat fish), and, I’m eating a low-calorie diet, so my options are limited.
Any ideas for non-recipe ways to season the pan, or anything that won’t be too high calorie? If nothing else I’ll take something fatty that at least I can eat. 
The traditional way to start it out is just to smear it with Crisco and then stick it in your oven and let it bake in. Crisco isn’t animals, is it? I think it’s soybeans.
ETA - oh, and make a couple batches of cornbread in it. That does the trick.
Vegetable oils really aren’t that good for seasoning cast iron. But I’ve found that Crisco works adequately.
I have always seasoned my cast-iron with either corn oil or Crisco. I use a paper towel or clean dish rag to give it a good coat, then bake at max heat for an hour, let cool a bit, then repeat about two more times, then let it cool overnight in the oven.\
I have heard that animal fat is better, but in my experience, vegetable fats (oils) work just as well.
My method’s about the same as above. Coat with vegetable oil (the wiki article suggests palm or coconut but I’ve always used regular veggie oil). Wipe off excess oil drips with a paper towel and let it sit overnight until the oil is a bit tacky.
Turn it upside down in the oven and bake on max for an hour or two until the oil, and whatever crusties were on the pan are nothing but baked-on black carbon. If your stove has a self-cleaning feature, you could set it on that. It’s best to do this during nice weather so you can open doors & windows. There will be fumes.
I used sesame oil on a cast iron wok I had to season. Seems like it was 30 minutes on a relatively low temp, like 250. I took it out, cooled it, gave it another coating of oil, and popped it back in again, 30 min at 250.
My stir fry slides around in there like it’s on nonstick.
Crisco works for me, just like my mama taught me (and mama didn’t have any problem with using animal fat)
At this point, you can also just go ahead and cook with the slightly-sticky pan. If it’s too sticky to handle, you can do a dry scrub with a generous handful of salt, then rinse and towel dry and cook with it. Four or five repetitions later and you’ll have a decently-seasoned pan. And after a couple of months of regular use, it’ll be as slick as ice.
I actually have cooked in it about five times (using salt to scrub it out if things stick) but it’s getting increasingly sticky, that’s why I want to do some seasoning. I’m mostly cooking things like tilapia which aren’t very fatty.
Coat it with vegatable cooking oil (inside and out), and bake it at 350 degrees for a few hours. Repeat, and you should be good to go. When you store it, a light coating of oil will keep it in great shape.
You know how to care for cast iron, right? Soap/detergent is a big no-no, since it gets into the pores of the iron and can cause your food to taste like soap. A trick to cleaning is to wipe out thoroughly, put some water in and heat it, and ball up some aluminum foil and use that as a scouring pad. The foil will not damage the coating.
I camp alot, and I have a cast iron Dutch Oven that I use. If carefully maintained, food will not stick to the pan at all; in fact it’s almost like Teflon.
The main thing about animal fats is their higher melting and vaporization points. Vegetable shortening is the cheapest alternative but if you don’t mind price, you could try a semi-solid vegetable fat like coconut oil or cocoa butter.
Can someone give me some more clues on no-water scrubbing? I have NEVER gotten the salt thing to work. Any kind of meat that bleeds juice into the pan forms a baked-on layer of scum that simply will not come off short of softening it with some water.
I’ve never heard of a no-water scrubbing thing for cast-iron. No-soap for sure, but not no water. The salt thing works best with a bit of very-hot water coating the bottom, and lots of salt for abbrasive. Just make sure it’s totally dry everywhere before storing away
I find that salt works well with dried on residue (yeah, I’m not always great at doing dishes right away). I put a couple of generous pinches of Kosher salt (because it’s bigger and coarser) and use a bunched up paper towel to wipe it around in circles. It’s a little like using sand paper to flake off what I don’t want to be there. I haven’t found that it removes the seasoning.
For bigger chunks or thicker layers, I have a neat plastic pan scraper that’s great for prying food off of the pan.
As far as seasoning, if you eat eggs and don’t care about cholesterol, I would melt a chunk of butter in the pan, wait for it to get good and hot, and then fry an egg or two, Making fried eggs in mine always leave it beautiful. Pancakes work well too.
I’ve tried the salt thing too. Doesn’t work for me. Often, I can just wipe out the pan with a paper towel. If some scrubbing is required, I put hot water in the pan, let it soak a short while then give it a good scrubbing with a brush. If the pan’s well seasoned the crud should come right off and then you just have to make sure you thoroughly dry the pan and apply a light coat of oil to it.
I don’t use salt scrubbing for cleaning off food; I have a stiff-bristled brush, which under running water takes pretty much anything off the pan. (Just dry thoroughly and oil before storing.) The salt scrubbing is part of the seasoning process, when I need to remove sticky residue.
Bump because I have found something important to note: when I previously said I’d tried salt and it hadn’t worked, what I’d tried was using ordinary table salt. Inspired by this thread, I went out and got some actual kosher salt. TOTAL DIFFERENCE!. Kosher salt isn’t simply coarser, apparently it’s more porous as well. It does a fabulous job of binding to and removing food residue. Between that and the fact that I haven’t needed to use water to clean my pans, they’re keeping a MUCH better coating.
I used a coarse-grained Kosher salt. Still didn’t like it. It took too many paper towels and basically just made a mess. I’m okay with some hot water, a scrub brush, drying and re-oiling. YMMV, of course. I’d say try out the various methods and settle with what works for you.