What is your number one kitchen cleaning tip or trick?

Thank you Halfpint + Sheila for your recs! Here's the piece: https://food52.com/blog/28122-community-cleaning-tips-2023

For all things cleaning, I always check in with Sarah McAllister, @gocleanco on Instagram & YouTube. Her cleaning solution of 1 gal hot water, 1 tsp powdered Tide and 1/3 cup bleach is my go-to for mopping floors, wiping down cabinets, stainless steel appliances, etc. No suds so no need to rinse. Good old Mr. Clean (Sarah taught me to put it in a spray bottle) is so good on seriously greasy surfaces and Easy-Off Fume Free makes short work of cooked-on stovetop disasters.

I always have 2 cleaning products in my kitchen: Dawn dish soap and Bar Keepers Friend. I find that you need a good degreaser (Dawn) and a scouring powder (BKF) for 99% of kitchen cleaning. These 2 products make cleaning the kitchen a lot easier. Because a lot of foods have a bit of fat in them, a good degreaser or soap will dissolve and break up fats. BKF has oxalic acid (so wear gloves when using it) which is effective in dissolving burnt on food from pots and pans.

As former chemist by education (BS in chemistry) and training (10 years in R&D & production), vinegar + baking soda = nothing. This is an acid-base reaction that produces a water solution that contains ionic salt and CO2 gas (ie. the fizzing/foaming). The acid and the base neutralize each other and that's it! it does not dissolve grease (because it's basically water) nor does it dissolve hair. That said, baking soda is good for softening proteins. It's a good meat tenderizer. You can make a thick slurry with a little water & baking soda, apply to burnt on food and let it soften up enough to scrap/scour off.

Lastly, hot water is probably the biggest help with kitchen cleaning. For greasy messes, hot soapy water is the best :)

I’ll go first! This is not necessarily a trick, but something that has helped keep my kitchen clean and cut down on waste. I wanted to stop using so many paper towels in my kitchen, but found it hard to do because I had no place to store my reusable towels. Then I bought two small countertop baskets – one for clean towels, one for dirty – to keep them separate and easy to access. Now a single roll of paper towels lasts forever in my kitchen because I only use it to mop up bacon grease – for everything else I use + wash the reusable towels like I would my napkins.

As for my well-seasoned baking sheets, I could definitely use some tips – and would love to hear your best cleaning hacks.