You start cooking your food, then step away for 10 minutes to catch the rest of your show. When you return, your food is still salvageable, but the bottom of your pan is a disaster. It's burnt.
You scrub at it with a sponge, but the black crusty spots stubbornly cling on, threatening to creep into your next meal. Your once shiny, spotless pan now looks far from its former glory. Is it time to toss it? Absolutely not.
Grab a sugar cube. Splash a little water in the pan and then gently rub the sugar cube over the burnt spots – the cube's natural abrasiveness will help loosen the stubborn food particles without scratching your pan's surface. Be careful not to add too much water or the sugar cube will dissolve.
If needed, grab another cube and repeat the process until the burnt residue is gone, leaving your pan gleaming once more. The sugar cube method works wonders, but if you don't have any in the pantry, it's not the only way to rescue a burnt pan. Other unexpected cleaning hacks for burnt pans If you burn your pan and don't have any sugar cubes, don't fret, there are plenty of other cleaning hacks to save your cookware.
For starters, ever think about using a dryer sheet? Yep, toss one into your burnt pan with some dish soap and hot water and let it soak for about an hour. The dryer sheet's softening agents help loosen the gunk. Just remember to give the pan a good rinse afterward — you don't want that fresh lavender scent lingering in your next meal.
For a tried-and-true .
