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Why is it that some of the most useful items in the kitchen—like cast-iron skillets, wooden cutting boards, and colorful enamel pots—are also the most difficult to clean? I can't go a week without pulling out my Dutch oven for a sauce-making endeavor, and my cast iron has been known to feature in all three meals in a given day. But both are made from finicky materials that require special care and cleaning techniques; neither is the place for my basic kitchen sponge. Thankfully, a few products made to target these common but hard-to-clean surfaces are all you need to keep your tools grease stain- and grime-free. In the scheme of things, adding one extra spray to your cart is a fair price for a lifetime of perfectly roasted chicken.
As people who cook a little more often than the average Joe, the Epicurious team has strong feelings about the best ways to care for testy materials like wood, stainless steel, and enamel. Scroll on for our top picks for surface-specific tools, plus tips on how to use each to achieve sparkling cleanliness in all corners of the kitchen.
Cast iron
Cast iron maintenance is an inevitability for most home cooks; if you've got a grill pan, press, griddle, or go-to skillet made from the heavy-duty material, you're going to have to care for it, which is a slightly more involved process than your other cookware requires. That said, the reputation that cast iron gets for being impossible to clean or too finicky for a busy cook is overblown. As long as you know the basics and have the right products for when you find yourself in a (literally) sticky situation, you'll be good to go.
In general, warm water and gentle dish soap are all you'll need to clean your go-to cast iron skillet—just be sure to dry it immediately after rising and rub it with a little neutral oil to protect the cooking surface. For any really stuck-on food, use a chainmail rag like The Ringer, which can strip the pan of debris and grease without scraping off any of your hard-earned seasoning. Dry and oil it just like you would the pan you're cleaning after use and it'll serve you just as long as the cast iron cookware it maintains.
Wood
Big, butcher-block style cutting boards tend to get the most specialized maintenance, but if you have a wooden salad bowl or even a set of wooden hand tools that get a lot of play in your kitchen, you should be treating them to the same care system every so often. Day-to-day, the only needs are warm water and gentle dish soap, plus a thorough dry (sensing a theme?) that keeps your boards, tools, and bowls from cracking or warping over time.
Every few weeks, however, all of your most-loved wooden kitchen tools need an extra bit of love, in the form of a two-step moisturizing routine. First, wipe a food-grade mineral oil all over your (clean and completely dry) cutting board (or wooden bowl), covering every edge and side in an even coat; prop it up on its side to allow the oil to soak in for an hour or two. Then spread a board cream (usually a mixture of beeswax and mineral oil) all over the board in a thin, even layer before setting it aside to dry overnight. The next morning, wipe any excess into the board with a clean kitchen cloth and it'll be able to withstand another month of continued use.
Bonus: for set-in stains or smells, try sprinkling the area with coarse salt and rubbing it in with a half lemon, cut side down. Or dilute white vinegar with a bit of water and spray the entire surface of your cutting board. Let it sit for two or three minutes, then wash and dry as normal.
Dishes
At Epi, we take every aspect of kitchen cleanliness very seriously, including regular-degular dish washing. In our quest to find the very best dish soap for everyday washing, we landed on Seventh Generation's Free & Clear, which was the hardest-working product of the 15 brands we tested. It easily cuts through grease and caked-on food, and a little goes a long way, meaning that you won't be adding dish soap to your shopping list nearly as frequently as you probably are now. It rinses clean and doesn't leave any soapy residue behind, which can ruin the vibe with pretty glassware. And finally, it's plant-based, hypoallergenic, and is never tested on animals.
For a more sustainable option that also gets the job done exceptionally well, you can also try washing your dishes with an unscented bar soap. Stay with us: not only will you eliminate extra plastic packaging by switching to a bar, you'll also end up with squeaky clean (think of the grease-eliminating nature of using bar soap in the shower) dishes.
Knives
This should not come as a surprise to you at this point: the best way to care for your knives (aside from keeping them sharp and well-protected) is to wash them with hot water and a gentle dish soap after use and immediately dry them with a kitchen towel. Leaving knives in the sink to be washed is dangerous and can promote rusty edges, and expensive chef's knives should never be put through the dishwasher; give your sharpest tools some by-hand TLC and they'll reward you with years of slicing and chopping.
Enamel
Does the bottom of your Dutch oven or pastel DTC pan look like a freaky oil spill of darkness and despair? The Epi team swears by two specific products for hard-to-clean kitchen tools like these: Bar Keepers Friend and The Pink Stuff. Bar Keepers Friend's soft cleanser is a frothy liquid that I personally have used on everything from the inside of my oven to the wall next to my stove. But it's best use-case in my opinion is on the underside of stained and worn enamel cookware, which has a tendency to build up because it's rarely put in plain view. A small squeeze and some elbow grease is enough to make my very well-used Le Creuset look like new.
By contrast, The Pink Stuff is a TikTok-famous paste that scours sticky and stained surfaces into submission. You may need to stir it before using to reincorporate the liquid that settles to the top, but once it's a thick and gritty solution, you can scrub it onto nearly any surface (pan bottoms for sure, but also shower tile and kitchen backsplashes). It has a tendency to sell out, so snag it if you see it online—this stuff's grease-dissolving powers are not to be missed.
Stainless steel
If you're like me, you have a lot of stainless steel in your kitchen. My fridge, microwave, oven door, and prep table are all made of the material, which puts all my fingerprints on display. For those areas, I'm partial to a specific stainless steel spray, which buffs out smears and stains in an instant. But for the cooking surfaces of stainless steel pots, pans, lids, and handheld tools, a much more common (and less expensive!) product is the best bet: baking soda.
Baking soda is a very gentle abrasive that can remove tough stains from stainless steel cookware without scratching it. Just sprinkle it across your pan and add just enough water to moisten. Then scrub with a clean kitchen cloth to loosen any dark spots or burnt on bits. I like to have a bulk bag of baking soda for cleaning purposes separate from the box for baking, so I don't feel like I'm forgoing a cake project in the future by dumping a bunch into my favorite skillet.
