It only takes a few minutes of unsupervised cooking on the stove for your food to burn and your pans to get scorched. Unfortunately, even your stainless steel pots and pans can burn if you’re not careful enough. Here are some effective cleaning steps that will help remove that pesky burnt bottom in no time.
Step 1
If your pan is still hot, your first move should be to let it cool down thoroughly before attempting to clean it. Once cool to touch, use a spoon to scoop out as much food as possible. We know you might be hesitant to scrape your stainless steel pan so do this step gently to ensure most of the burnt particles are removed before you go on to the next step.
Step 2
Using an acidic ingredient is the best way to get a reaction with the grime accumulated at the bottom of your pan. We recommend using 50% water, 50% white vinegar solution to submerge the burnt residue. Then place the pan on the stove and allow it to boil for 10 minutes. Once this is done, take the pan off the stove but make sure to leave the solution in.
Step 3
While this depends on the severity of your burned pan/pot, you can add up to 3 tablespoons of baking soda to the white vinegar solution. This will cause a reaction that will result in foaming/bubbling, which is completely natural. Leave this for 15 minutes, which will also allow the solution to cool down. Remember, however, baking soda should NOT be used when cleaning anodized aluminum utensils. This might damage the coating.
Step 4
After this, empty the solution and rinse your pan. You might find some chunks of burned food falling out as you do this with little to no stains left behind. Remove as much of the loosened food particles as you can before moving to the next step so you reduce your chances of scratching the pan.
Step 5
Stainless steel pots and pans aren’t scratch-resistant so you need to use a scrubber that isn’t abrasive when scrubbing your utensils. A sponge might just do the trick as well. If there are any stubborn marks left behind, simply sprinkle some baking powder over it and resume your scrubbing.
Step 6
The last step is to rinse once again. However, there are certain instances where stubborn marks and burn stains will remain. In this case, repeat steps 1-4 a minimum of three times in order to get the job done.
Accidents do happen in the kitchen so this simple guide will definitely come in handy when you need to get your stainless steel pots and pans cleaned!