3 Surprising Ways to Put Your Dishwasher to Work
The dishwasher is a wonderful thing. It’s so nice to load those crusty dinner plates and utensils into the dishwasher and let them come out the next morning, magically squeaky-clean. I don’t even rinse them anymore! And that combination of detergent and super-hot water makes me feel confident that my dishes are coming out about as sanitary as they possibly can — even cleaner than if I washed them myself! Love that.
Besides being a not-particularly-new wonder of the world, the dishwasher has a few other surprising uses!
Use your dishwasher to …
1. Contain cooking spray
Have you ever sprayed a dish for a cake or lasagna and ended up with that greasy film just about everywhere? It’s so annoying! And that kind of grease can be tricky to wipe up — often you end up just pushing it around in glistening circles on the countertop. Enter: the dishwasher.
Instead of spraying your dish over the countertop or halfway over your sink, open your dishwasher and spray it there. All the excess spray droplets will land inside the dishwasher, and it’ll clean right off the next time you run it.
2. Hold hand-washed dishes
No dish rack? No problem. The dishwasher comes in handy even for your hand-washed dishes. If you’re washing a bunch of dishes by hand, set them in one of your dishwasher’s racks as you work. The dishwasher’s tines will keep them in place while they air-dry, so you don’t have to worry about stopping the washing process to dry and put away the glasses so often.
3. Warm plates for a dinner party
I heard about this idea and then had to walk on over to my dishwasher to check: Yup, it has a plate warmer setting! The same warm air it uses to dry your dishes once they’re washed can be used as a cycle of its own, so that the next time you serve up a fancy meal, you can have your dinnerware all ready to keep the food nice and toasty until everyone has time to eat it.
More on Dishwashers
Is there anything unusual that you like to use the dishwasher for? Tell us in the comments below!