Does Half An Onion Really Work To Clean Your Grill?

It's Saturday afternoon, and your barbecue plans are locked and loaded. You've marinated and seasoned your meat, and your grill is ready to be fired up. But as you lift the hood, you're left staring at greasy, crusty grates forgotten from your last cookout. Don't feel like grabbing a grill brush, soap, and water? No problem. Just head to the fridge, grab an onion, slice it crosswise, spear it with a grill fork, and run it down the preheated grates. Voilà!

Using half an onion to clean your grill might seem like another gimmicky TikTok trend, but it's a practice that has been used for ages. It's long been a traditional method in Latin cuisine, as highlighted in Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral's book "Asada: The Art of Mexican-Style Grilling."But you might ask—does it actually work? And how does it work?

As it turns out, onions are an effective solution for cleaning grill grates due to their natural acidity. The onion juice helps lift grease and dried-up debris. And as a bonus, they can even improve the flavor of grilled food and serve as a natural non-stick coating. This can be especially useful when grilling things like skin-on salmon.

Before you get too excited about this new discovery, it must be said that there is still some debate about how effectively onions can disinfect a grill. Onions contain antibacterial properties, mostly due to a chemical called allicin (the stuff that makes you cry when slicing onions). Allicin is commonly known for inhibiting and killing many strains of fungi and bacteria, which is where much of the belief in an onion's disinfecting powers comes from. However, onions may not contain enough allicin to effectively kill off bacteria, and another household staple has been found to be a more effective disinfectant: lemon juice.

Lemon juice is often overlooked in grill-cleaning conversations, but there are many advocates for it. Some even suggest that a combination of lemon juice, onion, and even vinegar could be the ultimate remedy for disinfecting your grill.

So next time you're planning a barbecue, whether you're grilling smoky sausage links or experimenting with grilled pizza, wiping your grill grates with an onion beforehand can help remove leftover grease and lubricate the grates. But if you're aiming to deep-clean your grill, don't shy away from adding a bit of lemon juice into the mix. It could be the secret ingredient that takes your grill from clean to spotless.