How To Clean A Burnt Pot Or Pan: The Easy Clean-Up Method!

Here’s how to clean a burnt pot or pan. Cleaning a burnt pot can be tough, especially when it’s very burned and greasy, but this method makes the job so much easier!

Mary asks:

“Can you tell me the quickest way to remove years of burned on grease on the bottom of my flat pan.“

I’ve used Awesome, Scrub Free, and Dawn Dish Detergent (the one used for cleaning oil from the birds during oil tanker spill from the Valdez that ran aground in Alaska).”

“With the combination of the three, and a lot of elbow grease, I’ve removed some of it, but I’d really like to find one product or method that makes it easier.”

Tawra: I am the queen of burning things. One time I even melted the tea kettle to the burner! No kidding, Mike and mom still tease me about it. I have tried over the years many things to save my pots and pans. Here’s what I do.

I wasn’t clear if you meant the bottom of the inside of a pan or the outside, so I’ll address both.

For Cleaning the Inside of a Burnt Pan:

• Place a generous amount of baking soda (about 1/2 cup) in the bottom of your pan. Make sure it covers the bottom of your pan. Fill the pan with water and then simmer for an hour or so. Most of the burnt-on stuff should come right off. You can do this more than once if needed.
• If the grease doesn’t all come off the burnt pan with the first method, then take a razor blade and scrape off the last of the burned on food. Follow up with an SOS pad to scrub away the rest and after that the pans are usually good as new!

For Cleaning the Outside Bottom of a Pan:

If the burnt on grease is on the outside bottom of the pan, then go straight to the SOS pad and scrub hard. Unfortunately, for years of baked-on grease, this method takes elbow grease—but it’s the most effective option I’ve found. The only easier way we have found to deal with this is to buy a new pan, which was the first thing Mike recommended when he noticed “quickest” and “easy” in your question ;-).

These tips have saved many of my pans over the years, and I hope they work for you too, Mary. Let me know how it goes!

Tawra

[organizing]