Tired of scrubbing pans? The secret cleaning hack hiding in your fridge
Left a pan on the stove too long and now the base is caked in a greasy, burned layer of gunk? Fear not, a food cupboard item can clean it.
Burning pots and pans is easily done - certain recipes demand lengthy cooking times and leaving a pan on the stove for several hours at a time increases the risk of scorching it, the contents, or both. And then it’s easy to forget about a pan left on the hob.
That can leave you with a layer of hard, burned grease stuck to the bottom of your pan which is almost impossible to remove. Even soaking the pan for hours in soapy water won’t shift it, and scrubbing it with a steel wool scouring pad like Brillo is a lot of hard work and will probably end up damaging your pan.
There are plenty of of old housewives’ tricks to return a burned pot back to his gleaming best - dishwater tablets, boiling with water and lemons, vinegar and baking soda...
Food cupboard staple used for cleaning burned pans
Another, little-known hack involves a item that may be lurking in your store cupboard - tomato ketchup.
One of ketchup’s main ingredients is vinegar, which contains the active ingredient, acetic acid. It’s the vinegar in ketchup which can break down and loosen the structure of certain kinds of oils, greasy stains, and bacteria, making it easier to clean.
Simply coat the base of your burned pan with a layer of ketchup and set aside for around 30 minutes. Place the pan on a towel or a sheet of newspaper to collect any drips.
After leaving the ketchup with work its magic, test by wiping a small area with a paper towel to see if the greasy dirt easily comes away. If not, apply more ketchup and leave to sit for another 20 minutes or so.
To remove the ketchup, use a metal spatula to scrape off the grime off the bottom of the pan to reveal the clean surface underneath. Rinse in the sink with warm, soapy water then pat dry with a clean kitchen towel. You will be amazed at the results!
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