I Just Discovered an “Incredible” $1 Technique for Making My Burnt Baking Sheets Look Brand New (Zero Effort!)

The cookie sheet is without a doubt the unsung hero of my cookware collection. Sure, it’s in almost daily use come holiday cookie season, but beyond its most obvious purpose, I use it for so many other tasks — namely the sheet pan dinner.

It also comes in handy when prepping for big meals. I know what I’m about to say may be controversial, but for our family, the simple, no-prep, crowd-satisfying lunch of saucy chicken wings keeps everyone from getting hangry midday before Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, they’re baked to perfection on my humble and oh-so-hard-working cookie sheet. And in preparation for my super-sticky, super-messy cookie sheet covered in baked-on wing sauce — I wanted to do a dry run before the Big Day — I decided to try a new cleaning trick I just learned.

Costco sells these incredible chicken wings in the frozen section that are easy to prepare, and my entire family loves them — they are, however, a sticky mess. Think bits of chicken wing, plus baked-on seasonings and sauce (made extra messy thanks to the last 5 minutes of the cooking process, when freshly sauced and fully cooked wings are back in the oven for broiling crispy goodness). 

I usually resign myself to the fact that serving this food means a good 10 to 15 minutes of manual cookie sheet scrubbing afterward — not after I tried this pro cleaner’s trick, though.

I keep baking soda around here by the vat-ful (again, Costco for the win). So when I learned about Clean Mama (aka pro cleaner Becky Rapinchuk)’s easy sheet pan cleaning trick involving a simple paste made from baking soda and dish soap, I was all in.

I grabbed a glass Pyrex measuring cup, filled it with ¾ cup of baking soda, and then doused it in Dawn liquid soap until the ratio allowed for me to easily stir it into a spreadable paste (which I’m sure cost less than $1 of ingredients total). I did pretreat the pan with warm, soapy water for about an hour before I even bothered with the paste. That made quick work of scraping off the chicken bits and also provided a surface where the paste could more easily dissolve the stains. 

After a quick dry, I poured the paste out with a spatula, evenly spreading it to every bit of cooking surface. While I probably should have given it more time, I was excited to see how quickly this paste would work its magic — so, in less than five minutes, I was rinsing it off, working in concentric circles with the dish brush. Lo and behold, that cookie sheet was clean as it has ever been, and with precious little elbow grease on my part!

I will be trying it again after some of my go-to one sheet dinners, and next time I’ll go occupy myself for 30 minutes or so and let the paste work its magic longer to compare results. Although it took basically zero effort when it came to scrubbing, I think if I let it sit longer (while tending to other kitchen cleaning duties), it’ll be even easier. 

Once this process was done, I’ll admit that I was so inspired by the simplicity, speed, and minimal effort it took to achieve these incredible results, I tried to take it one step further. I added lemon juice, baking soda, and vinegar to the pan, which swelled and foamed up to just below the cookie sheet edge (all of a sudden I was like a kid enjoying a science lesson). I was hoping for a gleaming result, akin to how that cookie sheet looked before its first use — while the result didn’t quite get me there, I dried off and stored this hardworking piece of cookware with a grin on my face, knowing it had never been cleaner.

Buy: Arm & Hammer 1 lb. Baking Soda, Set of 2, $8.29