Easily Clean Gunky Baking Sheets With An Item In Your Laundry Room

While we're usually all about food here, occasionally we like to branch out into other kitchen-related topics like cleaning, which is a lot more fun when you incorporate a few unusual hacks. For example, did you know that ketchup can clean cast iron and even sugar cubes can be used as an abrasive for scrubbing burnt food off the bottom of a pan? Now, however, we present a laundry-kitchen crossover: dryer sheets for cleaning sheet pans.

Take a few dryer sheets and cover the sheet pan (or the stained area) with them. Pour hot water into the pan until the sheets are fully submerged, then let them sit for an hour or more. (Overnight is okay.) Pour out the water, discard the dryer sheets, then clean the pan with soap and water. You may still need to do some scrubbing to remove any baked-on gunk, but the laundry softener in the dryer sheets should have helped to loosen it up.

The dryer sheet hack is definitely worth a try, but depending on the type of stain, the material of your baking sheets, or the brand or scent of the dryer sheets you have, your cleaning mileage may vary. This is pretty much true of any cleaning hack, so it's always good to have a few backups in case the first one you try doesn't succeed. You may also want to explore other methods if you don't use dryer sheets and would rather not buy a box just for cleaning your sheet pan. Two other sheet pan cleaning hacks involve an inexpensive ingredient you probably have in the kitchen already: baking soda.

Mix equal parts baking soda and distilled white vinegar. If your sink is big enough to fit the sheet pan, you can soak the entire thing in this solution. If not, pour it into the pan and let the pan sit on the counter for up to an hour. Again, you'll still need to scrub to get all the gunk out, but both the vinegar and baking soda should lift most of it off. Yet another way you can clean your pan with baking soda (that doesn't involve any soaking) is to mix a small amount of soda with hydrogen peroxide to form a paste. Rub the paste on the pan and allow it to remain there for a few hours, then simply wipe it off with a sponge. As the paste itself acts as a mild abrasive, you shouldn't need to do too much scrubbing.