My husband has been helping more with the cooking lately. He has been home more, with the new baby and lockdown, and it has become both easier and more necessary for him to help. He is mostly confined to reheating leftovers but he’s expanding his repertoire slowly.

The downside of this help is that my husband is not known for his attention span and dinner often ends up burnt. I've had lots of opportunities to test out the best way to clean pots and pans, ideally without spending £20 on pot cleaner.

Of course, if you can spend £20 on pot cleaner then the le cruset cleaner probably is the best thing that you can do if not though I’m here for you.

Hopefully, you haven’t started scrubbing yet. You saw what you'd done and ran immediately to google. You want to avoid using anything abrasive that might scratch your pan and damage it further.

The first thing to try is boiling water. In cooking, we deglaze the pan. This is the process of adding liquid to the hot pan to mix the caramelised bits of food on the pan into the dish. You can use a similar method to clean your pan.

Fill your pan with water so that all the burnt bits are covered. Allow this to simmer for around half an hour, adding water as necessary. You should see bits of the burnt food flake up off the bottom of the pan as the water simmers. You can repeat this until all the food has come off or until it is soft enough to wipe away.

To scrape the food away I use a silicone scraper. These flat rigid tools can get under the thicker patches and scrape them off without damaging the pan. For any smaller areas,  I like to use a wooden bristle pot brush or a coconut scrubber. These are soft and won't damage your pans.

If your burnt food is still being stubborn you can switch to vinegar. cover all the burnt areas with a 50:50 mixture of vinegar and water and simmer. The acid in the vinegar will help the food to break down.

My final suggestion, for really stubborn burns and oil marked pans, is to use dishwasher tablets (or gel or capsules or powder). This is the closest you can get to the le cruset cleaner without dropping the cash. Dishwasher cleansers contain enzymes that break down food. Start by scraping off as much as you can with a silicone scraper. Then you need to put your full measure of cleanser (whatever you use in a dishwasher load) into the pan and pour over boiling water to cover the burnt food. Allow this to sit for around half an hour and then bring the water to a simmer.

I have had some truly terrible pans come up clean using this method and I hope you will too! Let me know what you think on Instagram and I'd love to hear your tips too.