Stop Doing This to Your Grill—It Won’t Make It Nonstick

On a good day, the internet is a treasure trove of helpful tips and hints for all aspects of our everyday lives. On a bad day, it’s a rabbit hole of unreliable facts and hacks—especially on social media, where misinformation abounds. We applaud the efforts of those sharing their tips—it has led to some handy cooking tricks we can get behind—but some are often too good to be true.

When grilling season strikes, we see loads of outdoor cooking content, including how to prepare your grill for summer and how to avoid the biggest grilling mistakes, with tried and true methods to cook perfect steak, salmon, kebabs, and more.

“Everyone’s grandmother,” @brunchwithbabs (aka Barbara Costello), joined in the fun with her own list of grilling do’s and don’ts that offers a couple of unconventional approaches to cleaning grill grates and making them nonstick. I knew I had to try both to see if they deliver or fall short.

How to Clean Your Grill Grates

Cleaning your grill grates before each use is essential for optimal performance. To do so effectively, preheat the grill. Hot grates are easier to clean.

While I agree with ‘Babs’ that we should no longer use wire brushes to clean our grill, I don’t totally buy into her alternative. Costello suggests using half of an onion to scrub the grates clean. This does work pretty well, but so does crumpled-up aluminum foil held by tongs, and then I’m not wasting an onion. The balled-up foil also has the benefit of fitting down into the grates better to knock the gunk off the sides, too. Until I get around to getting a new nylon grill brush, scouring pad, or stainless steel grate scraper, I’ll personally stick with what I know and save my onions for eating.

If you do choose to clean your grates when they’re cool, you can use soap and water in the kitchen sink.

How to Make Your Grill Grates Nonstick

The second trick was what really had me intrigued. We all worry that our marinated pork chops or juicy, cut fruit will stick to the grates and we won’t get those beautiful grill marks. So if I hear a way to avoid this, you can bet I’m trying it. Costello used the cut side of a potato to rub the grates, explaining that “the starch in the potato creates a nonstick surface.” Yet another reason potatoes are the true heroes of the pantry.

Spoiler: It didn’t work for me. Sorry spuds, you didn’t save the day this time. Apart from the same issue I had with wasting something that should go on the grill instead, it actually made my grates more sticky. I’ll give a disclaimer—it appears Babs and I have different surfaces. It looks like her grates are stainless steel, while mine are cast iron. But either way, I’ll give this hack a hard pass.

I lean traditional here as well. Making sure my grill is nice and hot, I simply wipe the grates down with a paper towel doused in oil (with a high smoke point), held by long tongs. This classic method hasn’t done me dirty yet.

With all the grilling how-to’s out there, I applaud efforts to find new ways to make the cleaning and cooking process easier. However you choose to grill, I’m just happy it’s that time of year again and can’t wait to keep flipping burgers.