How To Wash And Maintain Your Silverware And Cooking Pots The Right Way

While we enjoy our family dinners and other meals, the fact that often slips our minds is that they all cooked well, and by that delicious, by virtue of good cooking pots. On the other hand, shiny silverware makes the overall dining experience even better. 

Nevertheless, affording kitchen cutlery may not always be cheap, especially if you want to have shiny and quality utensils.

Fortunately, there are a number of cost-effective and creative ways to maintain your silverware and cooking pots so that they can serve you for years. 

Washing

The image of a sink full of dirty and greasy dishes is not the happiest one. However, with a few tips and tricks to properly wash and thus maintain your dinner sets, you may start enjoying what you once considered real boredom. 

Burned cooking pots and pans 

Burned cooking pots and pans can be a real kitchen nightmare, but things may not be so scary at all. If you happen to burn one, have no worries, for all you have to do is simply scrub off the burned remains of food, and then soak the cooking pot or pan in hot water and leave it like that for some time.

Meanwhile, as you let the hot water loosen the stains, you can relax and play your favorite song or you can check new kitchen products and ideas on Kitchen Authority so you can become a real cooking chef! Then after a few minutes of soaking the pan, rinse it, apply a detergent on it, scrub the burnt area of it again and let the detergent disintegrate the last stubborn burns for a minute or two. Later on, you can rinse and wipe it making sure there are no stains left.

Natural alternatives

Detergents from the market can be effective in washing your utensils, but there could be a downside to it. For instance, the remains from the detergent may sometimes stay unnoticed on your silverware or dishes after washing, so the next time you use a pan or pot, you can unknowingly cook food together with the nasty remains, which may be harmful because they can contain some dangerous chemicals that you don’t want to find in your food.

However, a safer, more natural, and cost-effective alternative can be achieved by using only a few ingredients that you may already have in your kitchen. 

For instance, by using some basic ingredients such as salt, baking soda, vinegar, water, lime, or lemon, you can sanitize not only your silverware and cooking pots but your whole kitchen!

Baking soda

You can do a plethora of things at your home using only baking soda and water. This may also be the cheapest way of cleaning almost anything in your kitchen. 

When it comes to cleaning your dishes and dinner sets, you can make the best natural cleaner you can find at your home by just adding ½ cup of baking soda and a little bit of water until you get a creamy paste, then you can apply it to your cutlery for gentle and safe washing. In this way, you both clean and maintain your silverware and dishes.

Salt and lime

A pinch of salt and a squeezed lime can be a surprisingly effective solution to your dirty steel cooking pots and pans. This is possible due to the acid from the lime and the scrubbing effect of salt, which can easily decompose even greasy or burned pans.

What is more, the procedure is quite simple, just squeeze the lime and add a pinch of salt to the stain you want to remove. Afterward, leave it for a few minutes and then scrub it with a sponge. Finally, rinse it and dry it.

Vinegar

Vinegar has always been our grandmothers’ mightiest cleaning tool. It is a safe and neutral disinfectant that can powerfully sanitize your utensils. By simply pouring equivalent amounts of vinegar and water in a basin, deep soak all your cutlery and leave them so for around thirty minutes. Afterward, rinse them and you will get a bacteria- and microbe-free kitchen set.

A big no-no

If you want to keep your silverware shiny and new, you will need to pay special attention to some details, for these kitchen elements might be more fragile than you might have thought. Be especially careful about scrubbing, for you don’t want to further damage your fork, spoon, or knife. 

In this sense, please avoid using steel wool as much as possible, for it is the worst enemy of your metal cutlery! Instead, the safest option is to use the soft part of your sponge, but if you realize it’s no match to the stains, then you may try with the abrasive part of it.

Likewise, avoid removing food remains from your pan or dish by using a knife or any sharp tool, as this may damage it. Similarly, it’s always a better option to use a wooden spoon instead of a metal one with which you could scratch the surface.

Also, be careful not to pour cold water in a hot cooking pot, for this may cause chipping off the coating. On the other hand, don’t put an empty pan on a high flame, as this may harm the surface of it.

Drying 

Make sure that you always dry your silverware and cooking pots before putting them away, for dampness may become a nest for bacteria and it may also cause them to rust, which is something you certainly don’t want to happen. For instance, you can leave the washed utensils on a drying rack so they can dry on themselves, but this can also leave some watermarks behind. To prevent this, you can dry your utensils with a kitchen towel or a rug.

Silverware, cooking pots, and other cutlery are an integral part of every household. However, proper maintenance is required in order to keep dinner sets shiny and in good condition because you use them at least three times each day.

In addition, decent and polished knives and forks will always leave a nice impression on your guests, which is an additional reason to continuously give your kitchen proper care and maintenance.