If you love baking, you can’t go without your Pyrex dishes. But like all glass cookware, Pyrex also has an annoying problem—yellowish brown stubborn grease build-up that’s hard to get rid of, but it’s not impossible.
There are many ways to make your glass baking dish look brand new. You can use natural methods like a combination of baking soda and dish soap, vinegar and cornstarch, or toothpaste. Or you can use chemical methods like Bar Keeper’s Friend, Magic Eraser, or dryer sheet.
While you might be tempted to just soak the dish in warm water and use dish soap to loosen the grease, in some cases, some grease stains just won’t budge. So, let’s take a look at some of the best ways to clean a glass baking dish, whether it has grease stains, burn marks, or cloudiness.
What is the Best Way to Clean a Glass Baking Dish?
If you struggle with dirty glass baking dishes, you should know that there are numerous solutions to make your dish look as good as new. And while many people believe that a steel wool cleaner is the best option for removing grease, baked-on food, and grime, that’s not exactly the case.
Scrubbing pads made of aluminum, brass, or steel wool will get stains out, but they’ll also leave behind scratches. So instead, several natural (like vinegar and cornstarch) and chemical methods (like Bar Keepers Friend, dryer sheets, and Magic Eraser) can get rid of all kinds of stains.
Let’s talk more about those in detail.
How to Remove Grease
One of the best ways to remove grease is with vinegar and baking soda. All you have to do is sprinkle some baking soda in the dish and then add some vinegar. Wait for the mixture to bubble before washing the dish.
If that doesn’t work, you can try the methods mentioned below.
How to Remove Burn Marks
Having burn marks on your dish is nothing to worry about. They can mainly be dealt with using the methods discussed below.
But if they’re stubborn and refuse to go away, you can try using an oven cleaner. Or you can try a vinegar baking method where you add vinegar and water to the dish and bake it for 20 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
How to Remove Cloudiness
Cloudiness in glassware usually occurs because of hard water, which is less effective than soft water when cleaning dirty water and dish soap, resulting in a milky film. Minerals present in hard water also tend to leave a cloudy residue. Here’s how you can deal with that:
- Take a container big enough to hold your glass dish and fill it with equal parts water and vinegar.
- Put the cloudy dish in the container and let it soak for around half an hour.
- After 30 minutes, remove the solution and rinse it to see if the cloudiness is gone. If it’s still there, let it soak for another 30 minutes.
- Test the dish again. If it’s no longer cloudy, remove it from the container and rinse it with warm water.
- Use a clean rag or dishcloth to dry the glasses. Scrub off any hard water deposits left behind.
Note that if your dish is cloudy because of etching (caused by very soft or hot water, over-cleaning the word before putting it in the dishwasher, or too much detergent), there’s nothing you can do to fix it. But you can prevent it in the first place by using less detergent and changing the dishwasher’s heat.
The Best Natural Cleaning Methods
You can clean your glass dish in numerous ways without using harsh chemicals. Let’s take a look.
Baking Soda and Dish Soap
Baking soda is used to clean numerous things, including glass baking dishes. And since it’s very stubborn, it can get rid of the most stubborn stains stuck on the plate.
Of course, you can use baking soda, but if you want to get rid of the grease, adding a little bit of dish soap would be better. Here’s what the method entails:
- Add baking soda to the glass dish, particularly on the stubborn grease build-up.
- Add a little bit of dish soap. You can use what you like.
- Fill up your bakeware with hot water and allow it to sit for 15-20 minutes
- Use a nylon or plastic sponge to scrub the dish and then rinse it.
Vinegar and Cornstarch
Both cornstarch and vinegar are two of the best natural cleaners for tough stains on different materials, including glass. In addition to these two ingredients, you’ll also need water and a mesh or nylon scrubber to remove stuck-on stains.
For this method, all you need to do is sprinkle cornstarch on the dish and pour some water and vinegar over it. Allow it to sit for around 10 minutes before you rinse it.
Toothpaste and Toothbrush
Another surprising but effective thing you can use to make your dish look new is toothpaste (whatever kind you use), along with a spare toothbrush.
For this method, squirt a bit of toothpaste on allthe troublesome areas, then scrub them with a toothbrush. Once you’re done, wash the dish thoroughly to get the flavor of the toothpaste out of it—you wouldn’t want your next baked good to taste minty.
The Best Chemical Cleaning Methods
If natural methods don’t work, you can turn to chemicals that are more effective than natural ingredients.
Magic Eraser
Many people swear by Magic Eraser and use it to clean almost everything from the walls to the shower, and, unsurprisingly, they’re suitable for cleaning glass dishes, too.
The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser kitchen scrubber (on Amazon) is mainly designed for kitchenware and contains Dawn dish soap, which makes it easy to clean cookware like glass dishes.
But before you go ahead and use a Magic eraser, soak it in warm or hot water with a little bit of dish soap. This isn’t necessary but can help loosen the most stubborn stain.
Bar Keeper’s Friend
Bar Keeper’s Friend (on Amazon) is also a great option since this cleaning powder is highly abrasive and can quickly eliminate grime. To use it, here’s what you have to do:
- Sprinkle the cleaning powder over the glass dish while paying great attention to areas with heavy residue.
- Take a sponge, dampen it, and scrub the cleaning powder into the dish.
- Once the water contacts the powder, it’ll form a paste. Let the paste sit for around 20 minutes.
- Once the time is up, scrub the dish and rinse.
You can find our cleaning guide for Bar Keeper’s Friend here.
Dryer Sheet
You might find this surprising, but you can also use a dryer sheet to clean your glass dish. Unused dryer sheets contain conditioning ingredients that can soften the grease and food build-up in your baking dish.
Fill up the dish with hot water, add a dryer sheet, and let it soak for 15 minutes. Once the 15 minutes is over, empty the dish. You should now be able to scrub away the stains easily with just a sponge. Next, wash the dish once more with water and dish soap to remove any residue.