Get your baking trays gleaming again with this cleaning hack.

Keeping your baking trays and roasting tins perfectly clean is a nightmare. It seems like as soon as you put them in the oven they come out covered in grease and grime that’s completely burnt onto the surface and refuses to budge.

You can minimise this problem by always covering your trays in baking paper or kitchen foil, but this isn’t always practical, especially if you’re using a deep roasting tin where the sides will also get dirty.

But worry not, because there is something you can use to clean your trays and get them sparkling once again – and it’s an item you probably already have lurking in your kitchen cupboards.

The hack was shared on Reddit after one user asked for help cleaning a roasting dish that had stubborn oil stains on it from having roasted vegetables the night before.

The post read: “How would you go about cleaning this pan? Dawn [washing up liquid] and a Scrub Daddy did nothing to it. Vegetables in olive oil were roasted on it.”

It didn’t take long for people to jump in with their suggestions for cleaning the pan, with over 140 comments on the post within the first 12 hours of it being uploaded.

And among the most popular recommendations was a classic natural cleaning staple – baking soda.

One person suggested: “Hot water with baking soda sprinkled on the stain. Leave it overnight, and it will wash off.”

Another added: “Make a thick paste with baking soda and water and use one of the green sponges or any scrubbing sponge. If it doesn’t come right off, then add a little more baking soda. I do this on a regular basis with my pans.”

While a third wrote: “Boil hot water, pour in, add baking soda and a bit of [washing up liquid], and leave overnight. Because it’s aluminium, I would use parchment paper on the bottom of the pan to cook. Much easier to clean!”

There were also several other suggestions for cleaning the pan, including using a steel wool scrubber to aggressively scrub the stain away, as well as soaking it overnight with a dissolved dishwasher tablet.

One said: “No need for so much extra work and product. Sprinkle a bit of dish soap or dishwasher detergent. Soak with HOT water overnight. Done!”

And some others even recommended simply leaving the stain and just using baking paper or kitchen foil in the future.