Great meals are at the heart of every home. A great meal will help you relax after a hard day at work. Great meals allow you to bond with your family and friends as you catch up on the latest stories making headlines.
A party is not complete with some tasty food and all these scenarios are a testament to just how important food is in our lives.
To prepare and serve tasty meals in your home, you will need good cookware and as we all know good cookware is not cheap. You will have to pay a little bit extra to ensure that you have great pots and pans that will make it easy to prepare the meals that you love.
When you make this investment, it is imperative that you go the extra mile to maintain the cookware and this is what this article is all about.
I have realized that people are not careful when using their cookware and this has greatly reduced the lifespan of the pots and pans they have in their kitchen.
This article highlights 6 tips for caring and cleaning cookware we take for granted.
Top Tips for Maintaining Cookware
To maintain the cookware in your kitchen for long, there are a few things that you need to do and here are some of them;
1. Get the right cookware
Getting the right cookware is the first thing that you need to do if you want to enhance your cooking experience. The right set of pots and pans are easy to clean and maintain and this will ensure that you are able to use them for a very long time.
They are also built with durable materials that ensure proper heat distribution for a seamless cooking experience.
If the cookware is non-stick, then the non-stick coating will be firmly fixed to the surface to prevent it from peeling off as you prepare your meals. This not only ensures the safety of your meals but also makes cleaning and maintaining the cookware very easy.
2. Avoid using metal utensils with your cookware
Always use wooden or plastic utensils to prepare your meals. Avoid metallic utensils since they will scratch the surface of the cookware as you cook. They will peel the non-stick coating off and this will mean that your foods will stick to the surface as you cook.
Metal utensils also leave ugly scratches that ruin the appearance of the cookware when they are used to prepare meals. This wear and tear eats into the surface of your cookware and before you know it, your cookware will have lost its sturdy structure.
3. Use gentle cleaning agents
You may be tempted to use strong cleaning agents to keep your cookware clean and shiny all the time but this is a wrong move. Strong cleaning agents eat into the surface of the cookware to cause corrosion. Strong cleaning agents like bleach also cause discoloration and this will leave your pots and pans looking ugly.
The best way to clean your cookware is with gentle dishwashing detergent and warm water. If the pots have some tough stains on them, soak them in water for some time to soften the stains for cleaning.
Use a gentle scouring pad to clean the pots and rinse with warm water. Avoid using steel wool to clean coated cookware.
Steel wool will scratch the porcelain coating on your cookware and expose the delicate inner surface.
4. Let hot cookware cool off before washing
After preparing meals, people usually rush to dip their hot cookware in water. They usually do this to prevent the food stains from sticking to the surface so as to clean them easier later on.
This, however, is a wrong move since the sudden temperature changes when hot cookware is immersed in cold water will make the surface to deform and this will ruin the appearance and functionality of your favorite cookware.
The best thing to do would be to let the cookware to cool before washing them or soaking them in water. This will limit surface deformation and this way, your cookware will remain in the best shape for long.
5. Dry the cookware before storage
You need to make sure that your cookware is dry before you store them. Wet cookware catches rust over time and this is the reason why you need to ensure that all the cookware is dry before storage.
Use a dry piece of cloth to wipe away all the water after washing your cookware. If you don’t have the time to do this, hang the cookware to dry on a rack overnight. This will eliminate all the moisture and prevent the metallic parts of your cookware from rusting.
6. Do not stack the cookware on top of one another
When storing your cookware after use, it is advisable not to stack them on top of each other. This will prevent the cookware from colliding which can cause the porcelain coating to peel off.
This will compromise your cookware since without the non-stick coating, you will not be able to prepare your favorite meals without food particles sticking to the surface.
Colliding cookware are also likely to leave ugly scratches and dent marks on the surface and this way, your cookware will lose their amazing look. You are, therefore, advised to find better ways to store your cookware such as hanging them on hooks.
This will minimize the collisions and this will go a long way to keep your cookware in the best condition for long.
Conclusion
You will need your cookware to be in the best condition for you to prepare tasty meals that everyone will enjoy. Proper maintenance will also help you cut the cost of having to replace damaged cookware every now and then.
The 6 tips for caring and cleaning cookware we take for granted highlighted above will help you maintain your cookware in the best condition for a very long time.