Make baking trays and dripping pans look as good as new with a few simple tricks

When we cook food in the oven we often use a drip pan that collects all the food fragments, oil or fat produced by the meals being cooked and positioned on the higher shelves. The drip pan is used at the bottom of the oven so the oven itself does not get dirty with grime that is difficult to remove. And further, the trays that directly hold the food during cooking, even if lined with parchment paper or using aluminum foil, always get very dirty after each use.

Ideally, we should clean these after each cooking, but we don't always do it promptly enough, and there are materials that cause stains and encrustations such that, even when acting promptly, it takes a lot of work to remove all the dirt and grime. It is therefore worthwhile to use some homemade tips that help us to remove stains and encrusted dirt without too much effort and giving satisfactory results.

Creativo

If the situation is not too bad, just pre-treat the items by immersing the tray or drip pan in hot water with dish soap (or even Marseille soap) for half an hour and then using a plastic scraper (such as those used to knead dough) or a rigid plastic or wooden fish/egg-lift to loosen the encrustations, and then you can put the items in the dishwasher.

If, on the other hand, they are very dirty and have very hard encrustations, try to remove the dirt as much as possible with a paper towel, then plug the sink and fill it with boiling water; pour 150 grams of sodium bicarbonate into the water and immerse the pan or tray leaving it to soak for one hour. This step will soften the encrustations enough so that you can remove them with a sponge - and then you can wash it as you usually do by hand or in the dish washing machine.

As an alternative to baking soda, you can fill the sink (or even a sufficiently large basin) with boiling water and a cup of white vinegar.

If you still need to scrape off the dirt and without being too aggressive with the surface - perhaps when there is mostly just a greasy film to remove - then you can cut a lemon in half, sprinkle the surface with baking soda and then rub the lemon on it, as if it were a sponge. Squeeze the lemon a little as you go along to release the juices. For the corners you can also use an old toothbrush, which does not have hard bristles. Then rinse with hot water and wash again with normal dish soap or Marseille soap.

What is your favorite method for cleaning baking trays and drip pans?