How Bar Keepers Friend Could Make Your Thanksgiving Cleanup Easier

Thanksgiving really is one of those holidays we simultaneously look forward to and dread the whole year-round. There's sitting down with close family and friends to enjoy a delicious, home-cooked meal filled with warmth and laughter. There's visiting a distant relative and struggling to fathom how you're possibly related to them. There's the prayer around the table before you carve the turkey, giving thanks for what you have in a moment of reflection and gratitude. There's the good, there's the bad, and there's the downright strange, but Thanksgiving is that holiday that truly puts us in that warm, optimistic holiday state of mind.

But there's one part of Thanksgiving that comes after the dinner, football games, and family: the dreaded clean-up. Indeed, it takes a day or two to fully clean up, store leftovers, and get everything back to normal. Don't get yourself all worked up, though, as there are many helpful tips and suggestions that can make the whole process far easier. From What's Cooking America to Rachael Ray, there is a wide list of suggestions for preparing an easy-to-clean environment free of unexpected hassle. Interestingly, The Kitchn performed an experiment to see which cleaning solutions can best clean those finicky ceramic dishes, and the winner is something you may not have expected.

TheKitchn's Erica Finamore filled a casserole dish with creamy chicken and mushroom soup, baked it into a delicious casserole, dumped it out, and scrubbed the dish clean before proceeding to perform the whole process four more times. While this may sound pretty insane out-of-context, Finamore was conducting an in-depth experiment on household cleaners. Using everyday cleaners — vinegar bake, a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, baking soda and dish soap, dryer sheets, and Bar Keepers Friend – Finamore tested which cleaner would be the absolute best in cleaning sticky, burnt-on foods from your casserole dishes. The answer, she found, was that Bar Keepers Friend came out on top.

Finamore rinsed the dish with water, then added the cleaning powder across the still-stained bottom. After 30 seconds had elapsed, Finamore scrubbed the dish with a damp sponge and gave it a final rinse. Although the stains stayed put after adding the powder, she was able to easily remove even the most burnt-on remains of the casserole with the wet sponge. The cleaning process took only 3 minutes — the shortest time out of all the five cleaning products.

You can order Bar Keepers Friend and save yourself some hassle for only $8 dollars on Amazon, or around $2-4 dollars at your local Wal-Mart or Lowes.