How to Make Cleaning Pans Easier

After I have spent hours in the kitchen preparing a good meal for my family, the last thing I want to do is struggle to scrub a pan to get it clean.

Out of all the kitchen tips and tricks I have learned over the years, this one remains one of my favorites that I use at least a couple of times each week.

To make cleaning pans easier, always line them with Heavy Duty Wide Aluminum Foil.

The brand doesn’t matter – use the Amazon brand, Great Value, Reynold’s Wrap, or whatever you can find.

Using Wide Aluminum Foil

The usual width of aluminum foil is 12″. In order to completely cover a pan, I buy the 18″ width. This ensures the pan is completely covered, and there is enough foil to go over the lip of the pan.

Any time you are cooking something messy on a baking sheet – bacon comes immediately to mind – you want to ensure the lip is covered. When the pan is cool, you can easily pull all of the foil to the middle into a ball (roll it in on itself), and the grease is easily contained within the foil.

You never have to figure out what to do with grease this way, since it goes right in the trash inside of the aluminum foil. What a time saver!

The other morning, I pulled some sausage balls from the freezer. While they are not a super greasy food, the cheese can melt on the pan causing clean up to be harder than I would like.

You can see in these pictures that I quickly lined the pan with wide aluminum foil (the Walmart Good Value brand). I always spray the foil with cooking spray to make sure the food will pull off easily and not stick.

I placed the sausage balls on to cook, waited for them to cool, and then placed them on paper towels to drain.

I rolled the tinfoil onto itself in a ball, tossed in the trash, and I could quickly wash the pan with no fussing or scrubbing.

Once you start lining pans with foil, you will never go back. It makes the clean up easy!

What is one of your favorite kitchen tips? I would love to read about it in the comments!