Don't strip it. Just do a quick stovetop season.

Rarely. Probably never from a single acidic meal.

Stripping a cast iron pan is a nuclear option—lye, vinegar soaks, hours of scrubbing. You really only need that if the seasoning is flaking off in chunks or the pan is rusted to hell. A tomato sauce incident? That’s a minor wound.

Acidic foods can dull or patchily strip seasoning, but it’s almost always surface-level. You fix it by giving the pan a quick stovetop seasoning: heat it up, rub in a thin layer of oil (canola, grapeseed, whatever), let it smoke, then let it cool. That’s it. Maybe do that once or twice and keep cooking.

If you repeatedly cook tomatoes in the same spot and the seasoning looks genuinely wrecked (grey metal showing, rust forming), then sure—strip and reseason. But that’s rare. Most people overestimate the damage.

Bacon, not chemicals.