Today’s post is an ode to the spray can we all keep in our kitchen cabinets. That’s right, today we’re talking about cooking spray! While most of us use it to keep food from sticking to our casserole dishes and baking pans, that’s just the tip of the iceberg! There are plenty of other unexpected ways to put to to good use though, and many of them involve keeping things clean!
It sounds pretty unbelievable that a greasy, oily spray could help with cleaning, right? But it’s true! And today I’ll be sharing 9 of my favorite cooking spray cleaning hacks to help drive that point home. ;-) These tips will help you clean all sorts of things, from your bathroom to your car! And who knows, these tips might convince you to keep some cooking spray with your cleaning supplies too!
9 Remarkable Cooking Spray Cleaning Hacks
1. Soap Scum
Use cooking spray to break down even the most stubborn soap scum in your tub or shower. Just spray the area with cooking spray, and wait 5 minutes for the spray to break down the soap residue. Then cover the area with a little non-toxic dish soap, scrub, and rinse clean.
2. Greasy Hands
After a messy project, use cooking spray to clean up greasy or paint-covered hands. Just spritz a bit of cooking spray onto your hands and rub them together until the greasy mess starts to come free. Then wash your hands with a bit of grease-cutting dish soap to wash the mess away!
3. Frosty Freezers
After defrosting your freezer, use cooking spray to ensure that it stays frost-free for longer. Just spray the inside of the freezer with a bit of cooking spray, then wipe it off with a paper towel so only a thin layer of oil remains. The ice will make it much harder for ice to adhere, making the whole freezer much easier to defrost next time around!
4. Cheese Grater
The proteins in cheese can make it really difficult to clean off of kitchen tools like your cheese grater. But you can use cooking spray to make it so the cheese never sticks to your grater in the first place!
Just spritz the inside and outside of your cheese grater with a bit of cooking spray. Then as you grate your cheese, the cheese shreds will slide right off and leave very little cheese residue behind.
5. Faucets
If you want to leave behind a dazzling shine on your bathroom faucets, just grab your can of cooking spray! Spray a tiny bit of it onto your clean bathroom fixtures, then buff them to a shine using a clean, dry microfiber cloth. (You might want to keep your sunglasses handy to block the glare!)
More Ideas You'll Love
6. Shower Door
Glass shower doors are beautiful when they’re clean, but they can also be notoriously difficult to keep clean. But you can use cooking spray to make it easier! The spray it onto your glass doors, let it sit for a few minutes, then clean as usual.
7. Bugs On Cars
Speaking of tough things to clean, how about those little splattered bugs that cement themselves to the front of your car? It can take ages to remove them, and it’s easy to damage your car’s paint job in the process. It turns out that cooking spray is the answer to removing those stubborn bugs safely!
Just apply a spritz to any bugs that are proving difficult to remove, and wait for a minute or so. Use a clean microfiber cloth to remove both the spray residue and the bug.
Related: 17 Of The Best Hacks For Cleaning Your Car
8. Food Storage Containers
Sick of all of your Tupperware containers getting stained red? Before you fill up a container with a stain-prone food (like tomato-based sauces and curries), spray the inside with a little bit of cooking spray. It will act as a protective barrier between the food and the container, and you won’t have to worry about staining!
9. Sticky Dough
When you’re baking, use cooking spray to prevent sticky doughs from getting stuck to your hands and countertops. And a little bit goes a long way here, so you don’t need to use much!
Do you have a favorite cooking spray tip, trick, or hack?
More Ideas You'll Love
I plan to try a couple of these tips! I use Pam, anyway. When it gets a little slippery, I wrap a couple rubber bands around the can to create a grip, so I can hold onto it. Works great!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Thanks, once again, for an awesome newsletter!
Be very cautious about spray getting on surfaces where one would walk. It is SLIPPERY and cannot be easily seen. Overspray is main cause of this hazard.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I also use cooking spray to dry my manicure .
Please log in or create a free account to comment.For the faucets, and I would add the whole sink I would like to suggest something else that professional cleaners use. Baby oil! Just take a few drops of baby oil on a cloth to your dry sink and faucet and shine away… it’s amazing! Alternately, I have experimented and found one elegant shiner and that is lavender scented massage oil! Yes, in the naughty isle in Walgreens :) I use it because it shines just like the baby oil, only leaves a calming smell in your kitchen. Thanks for the tip about the bug cleaner. As soon as it gets to a decent temperature here in WI where I can wash my car outside I am dying to try it!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.So weird that you posted this cuz my mother sent me this a couple months ago & when I say “sent,” I mean she printed it up & snail mailed it to me – that & a couple recipes & a calendar (she’s silly like that). I’ve tried the cheese grater & the sticky dough one so far & it worked great!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.How sweet of your mom! I love that :-)
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Not silly – she loves you and shows she cares- I miss my Mom that did things like that!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.If you drive through Florida during the Love Bug season, people spray their cars first. In Love Bug season, you will have the front of a car that looks like it was painted through a screen door 3 times.
The first time it happened, it took 3 car washes and scrubbing to get rid of the baked on bugs. The next time, one trip through the car wash because of the cooking spray. Google it.
A good wax does not do as well.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Good to know about these tips. I found out about the tip for my plastic containers after they already had the tomato sauce stains. I think the one about not flushing grease is just common sense. We always just use an empty jar to drain our cooking grease into. I know some folks also line a cup with a paper towel , then freeze and put it out with the garbage.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Baking soda and hot water will remove the red sauce color in your plastic containers as well, just let soak for awhile
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I agree with the consensus of this group that cooking spray it is just not a good thing for many reasons. But you can buy a pump and make your own! That’s what I do.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.It’s the oil in the cooking spray, that’s the real star. So just applying some oil to a cloth, and using it in the same ways mentioned here. And no oil overspray ( along with the nasty chemicalls) going into your lungs!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I live just north of Toronto, in Canada. Our local municipal water supplier has been pushing about not using oil or grease that can be flushed down the pipes as it makes grease balls – huge ones.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Regarding bugs on cars: give your car a good hand wax and polish in spring and fall and you shouldn’t have a problem getting bugs off as long as you wash your car regularly.
Regarding sticky dough: some flour dusted on your hands and worktop should alleviate that problem.
Wrong as the Love bugs are just as bad as the Shadflies in Northern Ontario. I know because I’ve lived in both places. So the Spray does work better then waxing. Good Luck!!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.It’s funny, I just read a very long list of uses for WD-40, and it does all the same things. Well, I wouldn’t use it for things that come into contact with food. The thing I like about WD-40 is that it isn’t greasy. And yes, GK36, cooking spray IS full of yucky ingredients, and is probably why it isn’t found in European supermarkets.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.WD40 is great for my glass shower doors–and tile! I just spray and then wipe. Amazing!
Please log in or create a free account to comment.It’s strange… cooking spray just isn’t a thing here in the UK. It’s not sold in any supermarkets. I wonder if there’s some ingredient in it that Europe has banned?
Please log in or create a free account to comment.I waw asking myself the same question…
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Was
Most likely ! It should only be used like cleaning… the ingredients are icky! ;-)
Please log in or create a free account to comment.Just use a touch of baby oil from your dollar store with a cleaning cloth or paper towel instead on the whole sink. It will shine like a mirror! See my post above Fri 15 Feb, 2019.
Please log in or create a free account to comment.