Non-stick pans are, for many, the ideal kitchen accessory. Forget burnt-on bits and soaking your pots — these introduced us to a world of easy dinner cleanups. But then it was revealed that under certain temperatures, those non-stick items became not-so nontoxic, sending a number of people back to their tried-and-true stainless steel pans only to remember why they left in the first place: the mess.
Despite being one of the safest materials for cooking, stainless steel can be a pain, with food sticking to the bottom of the pan, leaving pieces of last night's dinner (and the dinner before) caked onto the once-shining cookware. But where there's a will there's a way, and where there's a kitchen hack there's a TikTok. Because according to chef and content creator Kelly Scott, bringing steel pans back to like-new condition isn't as hard as one might think.
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In her now-viral video, the chef shared her foolproof way of cleaning stainless steel, and it requires only a few tools. Scott first starts by filling her dirty pan with water and then places it on the stove over high heat to bring it to a boil. Once the water is simmering, she grabs a wooden spoon and gently scrapes along the bottom of the pan, dislodging those caked-on bits.
From there, she rinses the dirty water down the sink, gives it a quick scrub with soap and water, and turns to what she calls "the key" to this cleaning hack: Bar Keepers Friend. She sprinkles the powdered cleaning agent she deemed a "lifesaver" along the bottom of the pot, scrubs, and, within seconds, everything comes off "like magic." Scott does one more quick wash, getting rid of any of the leftover cleanser, to reveal a perfectly clean pot.
While we'll still dream of a day when all our stainless steel pans require is one round of soap-and-water cleaning, we'll settle for this hack until then. Try out her hack today by grabbing a can of Bar Keepers Friend and her go-to Scrub Daddy Sponge.
