I’ve never burned a pan so badly before in my life. Long story short. I tried to make Mexican rice the authentic way which included putting foil under the lid and letting the rice cook until it was well done at the bottom. Well, mine did more than cook until it was well done. It burned to a crisp.

Since this is my favorite pot that I use for chili, soups, and pasta dishes, I had cooked up a full-blown tragedy.  My Schulte-Ufer pot that I bought on sale years ago and would cost me more than a hundred bucks to replace, was a piece of scorched stainless steel. But there was no way I was throwing my go-to pot away.  I had to salvage it.

For several days, I tried everything to clean my pot. Bleach. Dawn. Bleach and Dawn together. Tried scrubbing it with foil.  After days of letting the pan soak and desperately scouring the Internet,  I finally discovered a cleaning solution.

Pour equal parts of white vinegar and water into the burned pan, put it on the stove and turn the heat on medium high. Use a wooden spoon to lift the burned pieces off the bottom as the vinegar and water heat up.

Once that’s done, you’ll need to dump out the burnt pieces. I poured lemon juice and coarse salt into a pan and used a scrubber to get the rest of the residue off.

After some elbow grease, I was able to get the pot looking good again. I’m still going to work on it some more so that it’s shining and glistening again, but I’m so happy that  I was able to salvage the pot and put it back into use. Hope this helps someone else.

Stay blessed,

Barbie