Accidents happen. Look away for a second and that pot of whatever you were cooking gets burnt to a crisp on the stove. It’s a common mishap but it’s not worth crying over because you can save that pot with ease. Serious! No need to sweat and scrub and rub. All that charred sauce and food is not going to dislodge from their welded-in position no matter how hard you scrape and scour anyway. Worse still, you just might damage your beautiful cookware.

Using materials not made for the job, here are five unbelievably easy ways to remove that blackened tar.

1. Use Fabric Softener or Fabric Softener Dryer Sheet

(From left) Fill burnt pot with water, bring to boil, squirt in dishwashing liquid, dunk in dryer sheet, then pour everything off (Image Credit: WikiHow and Blossom)

Add a squirt of dishwashing liquid to the burnt pot as you fill it with water. Using boiling water would be a good idea. Fill enough water to cover the black portion. Sit the pot on the counter. Place a dryer sheet (also called fabric softener sheet) in the soapy water and make sure to fully submerge it. If you don’t have dryer sheets, then add a tablespoon of liquid fabric softener. Let the solution sit in the pot for at least an hour or overnight if the burn is very bad.

The next day, pour the solution out of the pot. Most of the grime, oil and food should pour away. Whatever remains should be loosened enough for you to wipe ─ not scrub ─ away.

After all the stains have been removed, wash the pot well since fabric softener was used to remove the stains. It should be nice and shiny, ready for use again.

2. Use Celery

Cut a few stalks of celery, dunk it in the pot with water and boil. See the scum lift off the pot as it boils. (Image Credit: Blossom)

Another way to clean out a burnt pot is to boil celery. Yes, celery, the vegetable. According to Blossom all you need to do is chop up a few stalks of celery, put them in the burnt pot along with water and bring the “celery soup” to boil. Keep boiling until the black scum dislodges itself and lifts off from the bottom of your pot as you can see in the picture. After that, you just pour the black celery and scum water off and you’re back in business with a clean shiny pot again!

3. Use Tomato Sauce

Just pour dollops of tomato sauce onto to burnt or baked-in grease and food in the pot, pan or wok, leave it on for an hour or longer, then rinse off. As you can see, it will be shiny and clean again. No need to chisel and scrape anything off! (Image Credit: Blossom)

This method is quite unbelievable but it actually works! There’s something about the acid in tomato sauce that just loves eating scorched grease. Yes, tomato sauce has acetic acid content of around 4% (from the fruit itself and vinegar used in the making of the ketchup). And thanks to its high viscosity, it’s also great for shining brass, copper and silverware. For burnt metal such as the scorched pot, the tomato sauce should be slathered in a thick layer over the charred mess and left to sit for a few hours or overnight. The next day, you should be able to simply rinse the mess away without scrubbing. Tomato sauce is an effective cleaning agent and it is eco-friendly too, but at RM4.50 a bottle, you might regard it as a waste of good food. Still, you did salvage your pot didn’t you?

4. Use Lemons

Cover all the black parts of the pot with water, throw in the lemons (used ones will also do), put the pot to boil, soak a little, throw off the water and there you have it. (Image Credit: Home Talk)

Lemons are good for your beauty and health in many ways but the one way nobody has thought of is saving you the trouble of scrubbing burnt pots. You just need to cut up two lemons. Dunk them in the pot along with water and bring the pot to a rolling boil. The acid in the lemon and the swimming action of the fruit pieces will do the job of cleaning all the blackened areas in the pot for you. After 15 minutes, turn off the fire, let the lemon water soak until the “soup” cools down. Then you dump the water and lemons along with the fallen-off grime, give it a light wash and your pot is shiny new again.

5. Use Laundry Detergent Powder

Put the burnt point to boil with enough water, then pour in about two to three tablespoons of powder laundry detergent as can be seen in the picture, and keep the lot boiling. After that, pour off the water and you have your beautiful pot back again. (Image Credit: Kabitha’s Kitchen)

It looks like laundry cleaning aids are great for other uses too, so here’s another way to clean your burnt pot without breaking a sweat: use powder laundry detergent. You can choose any brand.

Simply fill the burnt pot with enough water to cover those charred areas, put it on the stove again and turn on the fire. Put in two to three tablespoons of powder laundry detergent (not liquid) and bring the pot to boil.

When the water starts rolling, bring the fire down to low and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

If you need to reuse the pot fast, then continue to keep it on boil for the next 45 minutes, after which you can pour away the water with most of the scum. If there are bits of black stuff remaining, you can wash it off with dishwashing liquid and a light rub with your dishwashing sponge under the tap. All offending bits should come off easily.
If there is no emergency to reuse the pot, then simply turn off the fire when the pot of detergent water comes to a boil. Close the lid of the pot and leave it to steam in its own juices and soak overnight or for as many hours as you can, and…Voila! You’ll have a clean and shiny pot again after you pour off the grime. It’s as easy as that!

For more amazing kitchen hacks, visit Motherhood.com.my.