How to Clean Cooked-on Gunk From your Stainless Pots and Pans - with Little Effort and No Harsh Chemicals

Tired of scrubbing cooked-on, crispy, and burnt food out of your pans, often without complete success?  There is an easy and chemical-free way to do this. Read on....

I recently purchased new stainless steel pots for cooking. It has been a while since I've used new stainless steel pots - almost everything that I have been cooking since unpackaging these babies has been burning on the bottom or sticking to the pan. I'm not sure how much of the issue is that the pans are brand new and how much is OE ("operator error"), but it has been incredibly frustrating getting into a good cooking rhythm with my new cookware.  This picture illustrates what was happening - crusty, hard, burnt stuff coating the bottom of the pan that when scraped away, leaves black, stuck pieces.  Nasty.

I went online to find solutions.  First off, let me say that I'm used to cooking with higher heat than I think these pots and pans like.  So I have dropped the heat, and have taken to seasoning the pans before using them, and this has helped with some of the sticking, especially in the frying pans when I cook eggs.  But as you can see in the picture above, I'm still having a bit of trouble with food burning on the bottom.  So I tried a few solutions that I found on the Internet.  The one solution that has worked every time and perfectly is...

Vinegar. Just Vinegar (well, and some water too).

Putting vinegar into a stainless steel pan with hot water and boiling it for about five minutes makes the burnt gunk lift off with minimal scrubbing and wiping. The gunk basically just peels off of the pan.  It also seems to work well for food that is just kind of crusted onto the pan - not necessarily burnt, but just really hard to scrub off.  And it works for that white, calcification-like layer of gunk too.   I do believe that you can do this without boiling the water and vinegar on the stove, as I have twice just left the pan soaking with the solution in it and about 15-20 minutes later, I was able to clean it easily and completely.  I added about 1/2 cup of vinegar to about 3 cups of water - you don't need much vinegar to make this work.

In my travels around the Internet on this topic, I found contradictory information about using vinegar as a cleaning solvent on other surfaces like aluminum, cast iron, or teflon. Due to its highly acidic profile, it seems like it can cause a reaction with some metals or corrode them over time, so if you are using something other than stainless steel, do your homework first before using it on your pots and pans to make sure that it is safe for your application.

Here are the before and after pictures from last night's cleaning of the chili pot:  

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​So simple. So easy. Try this solution out, and let me know how it works for you!

Bon Appetit and Happy Dish Washing!