Forget Crusty Baking Sheets: Get Them Good As New With Two Kitchen Staples You Already Have

Not everything that comes out of your oven looks delicious. While quality baking sheets can help you serve up some cookies, cakes, and other tasty treats (not to mention all those sheet-pan dinners), they also become a landing spot for gunked-on food and oil residue. Those brown stains are the result of cooking oils regularly reacting to high heat, and while dish soap can clean many things, it's not strong enough to tackle all that grease on its own. Beyond being unsightly, they can also lead to hot spots and uneven heating. Those traces of oil could even affect the sweet taste of your Grandma's snickerdoodles.

The good news is there's a fix, even for those who have been delinquent in dealing with baked-in stains. And the process doesn't involve oven cleaners, which tend to contain toxic ingredients that are doing more harm than good,or intense scrubbing that could damage your pans' non-stick coating. Rather, the perfect recipe for bringing baking sheets back to life involves baking soda and dish soap. When you combine baking soda and dish soap to clean, you get a one-two punch: The soap binds and lifts oils while the baking soda works as a mild scouring powder.

Even if your baking sheets are in rough shape, this cleaning method is easier to perfect than your great aunt's secret chocolate chip cookie recipe. Once you've rinsed away any excess food particles from your pans and patted the surface dry, simply sprinkle baking soda over your sheet and top with a dollop of dish soap and a tiny amount of water. (You can also blend the two together in a separate bowl, then put it on the pan.) To really get things cooking, allow the mix to sit for at least 15 minutes before you start scrubbing the stains away.

To avoid dealing with intimidating messes down the road, consider investing in a silicone baking mat or using parchment paper for each baking session. And while you don't have to commit to a deep clean every time, be sure to give your baking sheets a good scrub with dish soap after each use. For truly stubborn stains, soaking them in hot, soapy water overnight is the most important step when cleaning burnt messes from a baking sheet. Avoid the temptation to simply toss the whole mess into the dishwasher, as it can discolor and damage aluminum pans. And though non-stick varieties are technically dishwasher-safe, the machine can wear down the non-stick coating over time, requiring more frequent replacements.