I Tried Using a Dryer Sheet to Clean a Sheet Pan — Here's What Happened

Forget about the elbow grease; burnt pans respond to dryer sheets and hot water. Or so says the internet.

I was intrigued when I read about a cleaning trick that suggests you can use a dryer sheet to clean a sheet pan. If it worked, not only would I be cutting back on my tinfoil usage, but I'd also save myself from scrubbing my sheet pans until I run out of elbow grease.

But would it work? Like so many viral cleaning hacks these days, you have to try it for yourself before you can know for sure. So I did.

The Test

Ready to put it to the test, I made a conscious effort to skip the foil and cooked my next sheet pan meal right in the pan. My two favorite Sur La Table pans looked worse for the wear, so I was excited to see if the hack worked as well as much of the internet was claiming.

I followed the directions I read online: I added a single dryer sheet to a pan that had accumulated some burnt bits, added a couple of drops of liquid dish soap, and then poured hot water over the whole thing.

I waited 15 minutes, removed and discarded the dryer sheet, and poured off the water. Some small bits of burnt matter had dislodged from the pan's surface, but there was still a lot left. I set about with my kitchen sponge and dish soap. But this proved futile — the burns wouldn't budge. Then I remembered that the instructions had said that for tougher jobs, which this clearly was, you should soak the pan with the dryer sheet overnight.

I set the pan aside on a back burner of my stove and told my husband what I was up to so he wouldn't accidentally ruin my experiment. Then, I proceeded to prep salmon and vegetables for that night's supper, using a different sheet pan. I knew that a hot oven and vegetable roast would likely result in some burnt bits, and I could see if the 15-minute trick worked on a less intense mess.

The Results

So, did it work?? Not so much. My salmon and veggie roast left a rather unsightly mess in the pan, with pieces of scaly skin stuck to the bottom. This pan would also need to rest with a dryer sheet and hot water soak overnight.

In the morning, I noticed that the salmon pan's residual grease had lifted and little specks of fat had risen to the top of the water. That impressed me, but the real test was about to come. After discarding both dryer sheets and getting my water hot and sponge ready, I set about hand-washing the pans. The salmon skin proved troublesome, and I ended up taking a butter knife to it gently to get it loose. Some of the burnt areas of the first pan I tried to clean finally met their demise, but after cleaning it thoroughly with dish soap and hot water, the pan was still far from sparkling.

I can't say this hack worked great for me, but it did do something, and I might try it again for really caked on burned bits. Overall, though, the dryer sheet hack proved too good to be true.

Related:

• How to Clean Dirty Sheet Pans
• How to Clean Your Slow Cooker
• The One Time-Saving Dishwasher Hack You Need to Try Tonight