Remove Grease And Grime From All Your Cookware With A Laundry Room Essential

There's more to a home-cooked dinner than a mouth-watering menu or uncorking wine that's been aged to perfection. Once dessert's served and the meal's over, there's that time-consuming, tedious cleanup. Most glasses and plates can be thrown in the dishwasher, but what if your cookware is coated in stubborn food particles that just won't budge? You might want to enlist a dryer sheet. 

Believe it or not, there are several ingenious uses for dryer sheets that you're probably unaware of — until now that is. While dryer sheets are typically used to keep your load of laundry fragrant and wrinkle-free, it just so happens their properties can refresh your pots and pans. Dryer sheets have softening agents and anti-static compounds that can help separate that tough grime and food particles from your cookware. It's a trick that not only works, but will save you a lot of elbow grease. The only downside? Those pots are going to need to soak. 

Turns out, it's pretty easy to bring this dryer-sheet hack into your post-meal cleanup. To start, pour a little bit of hot water into the dirty baking dish — just enough to cover those messy spots. Place a dryer sheet on the surface of the water and gently press down so the sheet is submerged in the mess. If you need to call in reinforcements, add a few drops of dish soap.

Then the waiting game begins. While some say the dishes shoule soak with the dryer sheet for 15 to 30 minutes, others say that overnight is best for particularly stubborn areas. Once the time is up, discard the dryer sheet, pour out the water and wipe away the soggy food particles with a damp sponge. With that tough grime and grease out of the way, the cookware should be easily wiped and washed clean as normal.

To make this cleanup even easier, try scrubbing crumpled newspaper on grubby cookware before adding the water. Since it can buff away the top layer of the mess, this clever newspaper hack gets the grease off your pans with ease. With any luck, you're just a few steps away from having your pots, pans, and baking trays look like new.