The Best Ways to Clean Your Dutch Oven (and Prevent New Stains)

One of the things a Dutch oven does best is sear and cook “low and slow.” Sauces reduce, sugars caramelize, and meats brown with great success in these pots, but your food won’t be the only thing left with a brown crust. The creamy white interior of enameled Dutch ovens can get pretty gunky. Here are some ways to clean stubborn crud, and prevent more from building up. 

1. Boiling is your best friend 

If you try to clean burnt sauce and stuck meat residue right off of the stove, you’ll likely ruin your sponge on the first pass. Don’t attempt to scratch it off with steel wool or your fingernails (you want to keep those). Your first line of attack is loosening any burnt-on crud with a good old fashioned boiling. To do this, fill your Dutch oven about three-quarters full or with enough warm water to submerge the burnt food. Throw your pot back on the burner and bring it to a boil. Putting the lid on will help the water boil faster and loosen anything that might be stuck to the inside of the lid too. 

Let the water simmer and soften the food residue for about 15 minutes. You’ll likely see the water lifting material already. Using a sturdy utensil, like a wooden spoon or spatula, scrape around the bottom and sides of the pot. Remove the pot from the heat and dump out the hot water. Scrape at any missed spots with the wooden spoon and then clean the pot again, but this time with warm, soapy water and a sponge. Dry it off thoroughly.

2. Add baking soda to the mix

After a couple weeks of serious usage, you may start to see some discoloration, or stubborn streaks and brown staining around the inside of the Dutch oven. If your regular boiling with water method isn’t cutting through, add a tablespoon of baking soda to the soaking water per every four cups of water. Let the alkaline solution simmer for about 15 minutes with the lid on (again, so the steam can soften any stains on the lid’s interior). 

I throw a sponge straight into the pot and scrub around the stained areas with a wooden spoon. This might take a bit of elbow grease but the baking soda will help lift those stains if you keep at it. You can see a faint line in the picture of where the boiling baking soda water ended and I didn’t scrub with the sponge.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Spot treat with more baking soda. If you have some stuck stains, you can make a paste with baking soda and a few drops of water. Rub the baking soda paste into these stubborn areas. The gentle abrasive nature of the paste is often enough to lift the stain.

3. Bleach out remaining stains

I have not attempted to use a bleach solution yet, but America’s Test Kitchen recommends it for brightening up the interior of your enamel-finished Dutch oven. To do so, make a solution of one part bleach to three parts water and pour it into the pot. Let it sit overnight and the next day, after rinsing and washing it out thoroughly, you’ll reveal a perfectly spotless interior. As always when working with bleach, make sure the room is well-ventilated.