Before moving to our new home a few weeks ago, I went on a cleaning spree. I wanted everything to be as shiny and new as possible for the new house. One of the things I tackled was our stainless steel pots and pans. Over the years, they have taken a major beating! Some of the bottoms had gotten so discolored--they were black. Yuck! A few months ago, I discovered that oven cleaner can also be used to clean stainless steel pots and pans. It literally works like magic...with little effort on your part!

Here are a few of my pots and pans before:

Here they are after:

Impressive, huh?! They are like NEW!

OK, so here's what you do. Gather all of your stainless steel pots and pans. Go to a well ventilated area and liberally spray the pots and pans with oven cleaner.

Place the pots and pans into a garbage bag and close tight. Make sure not to put more than one or two pots and pans in each bag. Leave the bag with the pots/pans outside overnight. The next day, open the bag and remove the pots and pans--placing them on top of some newspaper or old towels to protect the surface you're working on. Wipe away the gunk on your pots and pans with a cloth or use a brillo pad for the more stubborn spots.

Rinse pots and pans using water and then clean as usual.

Remember: Make sure to use rubber gloves and to work in a well ventilated area! Oven cleaner can be very harsh.

Also, as you can see from some of the pictures above, I also cleaned an oven broiler pan and a non stick cookie sheet using the oven cleaner method. The broiler pan came out sparkling clean, but the process did NOT work on the cookie sheet. It messed up the non stick finish so please do not try this on anything with a non stick finish. Only use this on stainless steel items!