This Laundry Staple Is the Key to Cleaning a Burnt Pan

Many recommend using soda but I prefer citric acid, it works better and when combined with dishwashing liquid, it dissolves faster https://infomiasto.eu/jak-wyczyscic-przypalone-i-brudne-garnki-oraz-patelnie/ but you have to use a scourer too. In any case, it is easy to clean.

I use baking soda and lemon juice. Depending on how bad the burn, I will add dishwashing detergent and hot water and let it sit a while. Food sponges off easily. Don't use on the old brown coated non stick pans. It eats the coating away. But it is especially effective on corning ware or other glass casserole dishes.

As a veteran of rescuing ruined pots and baking dishes and the bottoms of over used frying pans, I would like to add my foolproof method. Pour a copious amount (and I mean copious) of dish washing powder and very hot water - leave to soak. If it’s really awful - repeat the process. It never fails!

Do you mean sAponification, rather than "sponification"?

been using paper towels the same way for years, and no dryer sheet chemicals

Back in the days of yore, viz., the 1940s and 1950s, we had few of the myriad of commercial products for cleaning tough burnt on foods on utensils and ovens. There was soap (but not the detergents of today such as Dawn), Spic and Span (1928) abrasive cleansers like Ajax, Old Dutch Cleanser, Comet (1956) etc, steel wool, and rags. Rags, because this was before paper towels were common as wet strength resins, like Kymene, had yet to be invented and commercialized. Every household had a rag bag.

But there was one product that worked very well, and was made by a chemical company Boyle-Midway. And that product was a gel, called Easy-Off. Easy-Off is available today, though no longer a gel, but rather in a spray can.

The Easy-Off in the days of yore was a thick, gloppy. brownish gel made with sodium hydroxide, trisodium phosphate and other nasties. It came in a jar with a brush applicator in the lid. You brushed it on a surface -- any surface -- such as a pot, pan, tray, or oven wall, preferably prewarmed, and waited for about ten minutes. Voilà! Old cross-linked grease, burned on bits, and that peculiar brown film you see on well used pans and utensils would wipe or rinse right off. You had to wear gloves though as that stuff would blister the skin, as my mother once found out when she cleaned the oven one day.

Today, Easy-Off is still available, is more convenient to use, and is reformulated as a spray. It contains sodium carbonate mostly instead of sodium hydroxide as the alkaline agent which hydrolyses those pesky burnt-on grease films by means of a sponification reaction. (If your organic chemistry is rusty or non-existent, you can look up sponification or just take it from me that it chemically breaks up the molecular structure of fats and grease.) Trisodium phosphate was pretty much eliminated in household cleaners in past decades owing to the issue of phosphate run-off pollution.

Easy-Off today comes in a variety of forms, as this has become a brand name. I recommend the Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner formulation for stubborn grease and burnt on items. You WILL NEED TO WEAR GLOVES preferably long ones, and avoid skin and eye contact. This is powerful stuff and can result in chemical burns.

If you have a collection of trays, racks, or pots with brown film, which is nigh impossible to remove, try it. You will be amazed.

I recognize that many readers of this list are probably not conversant with consumer chemicals, nor the companies that produce them. The Boyle-Midway of yesteryear was absorbed by other companies, but its remnants live on in the British Consumer giant, you never heard of, Reckitt Benckiser, known more simply today as RB. You have used other of their products most likely (Air Wick, Brasso, Calgon, Cēpacol, Clearasil, d-CON, Durex, Enfamil, Finish, Gaviscon, Glass Plus, K-Y, Lysol, Mr Sheen, Mucinex, Sani Flush, Vanish, Veet, Woolite to name a few). Easy-Off is one of them too, of course.

I am not now, nor have I ever been associated in any way with this company nor its predecessors.

When I have a sugar based sauce that burns on to the point one wants to discard the pan and consider buying a new one, I use a razor blade to remove as much as I can then move to my chain mail scrubber. Lastly Barkeepers friend if necessary

I cover the bottom of my Stuck On Cast Iron pots & pans with green dish washing soap, cover w plastic wrap and leave over nite. In the morning I wipe out the residue, flush w water, dry & oil my pan, and I'm good to go!
I'll try the dryer sheet!
Thanks, LV Laurrie

Anyone have a secret for easily cleaning off all those brown bits that accumulate on aluminum sheet pans?

I have had great results with putting about 2" of water in the scorched pan, add 1/2 c. baking soda and boil for about 5 min. Dump out, rinse and if needed, a steel wool pad will remove anything left with no hard scrubbing.

This method requires constant supervision until pot removed from heat. Fill pot with 1/2 inch water, cover, bring to a boil for 1 or 2 minutes MAX. Do not lift lid, turn heat off and wait 15 minutes. The steam created from boiling water will remove most burned food.

Boiling water, sprinkle with baking soda - let sit overnight. Use scrubbier the next morning. Magical!

Oxi-Clean. You must use very hot water to activate it; boiling hot is best. Cover all burned areas with water, then add a good dose of powder, say 1/4 cup for ever quart of water. Be careful because it does bubble at first in hot water. Leave for a few hours. It dissolves anything organic, which is why it works so well on stains. With crusty pans, it works even on old burned-on food, even on cast iron. I've tried everything else mentioned here --except the dryer sheet thing, which sounds too chemical-laden for my tastes, and Oxi-Clean works best, and is not toxic.

I clean burnt pans by filling them with water, dropping in a denture tablet or two, and letting it soak overnight. The next day, all the burnt-on grime just slides right off.

If it's a stainless steel pan/pot, BarKeeper's Friend works great. It's a powdered cleaner that comes in a perforated shaker container like Comet or Bon-Ami. For almost any type of pan, I've used cream of tartar with a cup of boiling water to clean even baked on mac&cheese. Just let it sit awhile and all the burned on crud will come away with minimal scrubbing.

I use liquid Clorox/bleach; just enough to cover the bottom of the pan and let it sit 30 minutes to overnight. I learned this from a restaurant manager many years ago.

I'll keep the dryer sheet in mind. I recently discovered another product that works quite well. (Unfortunately also after a multi year effort I thought futile with another burnt pan.) Biokleen's Soy Cream Cleanser. Rescued the aforementioned several years prior burnt pan, the inside of my oven from caked on overflow, and many other pans since. Liberally coat the burned bits, let sit overnight, then scrub.

I've always had good luck by adding a spoonful or two of powdered dishwasher detergent to a pan and letting it soak. When I come back to it, the stuck-on food washes right off.

There's a great deal of controversy about the general safety of dryer sheets; their contents vary quite a bit and content listings on non food items are quite limited- at the least most of them contain scents. I've always used boiling with baking soda to clean off burned food; a lot of comments on the subject use baking soda, but for some reason few think to boil it, which makes a tremendous difference. Use a strong solution- 2 Tb./c and up- usually takes 10-15 min., but in severe cases may need more time. Some people also use oiling vinegar, which works pretty well but is expensive and reeks to high heaven

Thanks, Karen. Any idea if this trick works on “aged” burned on problems? A small side question; is “burnt” the new acceptable “burned”?