How to Finally Clean Your Stove's Drip Pans

One of the more frustrating parts of the stove to clean and keep clean are the drip pans. They work well to catch the overflow from pots, but once that residue gets cooked onto the surface, it is almost impossible to rinse or even scrape off.

Covering the drip pans and stove rings with aluminum foil only offers limited protection, as spills still get underneath, and the look of crinkled foil doesn’t provide the greatest presentation for your stove.

Here’s a green way to tackle that burnt-on goo that's ruining your drip pans. This cleaning tip comes from blogger Leslie Reichert on the Maid Brigade website, and it uses just a few household items.

Steps to clean drip pans

1. Place the drip pans in the sink in very hot water and let soak for 10 minutes.
2. Drain the water from the sink and pour in distilled white vinegar to cover the baked-on food and grease. Let them sit in the vinegar for 30 minutes.
3. Next, don’t drain the vinegar, but sprinkle baking soda on top of the vinegar and use your fingers to rub the baking soda into the burnt-on crust.
4. Let the baking soda and vinegar work on the stains for at least 15 minutes. You may notice the burnt residue start to flake away.
5. After about 15 minutes, rinse the drip pans with hot water, apply more baking soda and really work the baking soda into the remaining stains.
6. Rinse again and towel-dry.

The vinegar and baking soda should remove the burnt on crust completely, but if there are still areas that didn’t come clean, it may be time to buy new ones. Drip pans are relatively inexpensive, but you may have to order them to fit your specific stove model.

Cleaning the stove rings

Here’s a different cleaning tip to tackle your stove rings. The rings can get just as gooey and crusty as the drip pans. Paula Kashtan suggests this cleaning hack on the Mom.me site.  

1. Take two rings at a time and place them in a 2-gallon plastic bag, Ziploc bag or another storage bag with a seal.
2. Once the rings are in, fill the bottom of the 2-gallon plastic bag with ammonia. No need to fill the bag completely. The fumes from the ammonia tackle the gunk.
3. Leave the rings in the bag overnight.
4. Drain the bag and remove the rings the next day, and give them a good rubdown to remove the remaining crust.