Dirty dishes are without a doubt my least favorite part of cooking. They seem to multiply on their own at my house, never abating. And there’s nothing worse than spending what feels like an eternity standing at the sink scrubbing dried sauces or caked-on food to no avail.
But our dish soap review taught me a trick to make this dreaded chore go a little faster—something I do every single time I wash dishes now.
You’ve heard of marinating chicken thighs or steak tips, but what about marinating your dirty dishes?
The Best Dish Soaps and Dish Sprays
How much do you really know about that bottle beside your sink?
Read Our ReviewDuring our dish soap testing, we dirtied identical sets of dishes with measured portions of hard-to-clean foods, such as cooked-on eggs and dried-out oatmeal remnants. We controlled the water temperature and the type of sponge and amount of soap we were using, then we used each soap to wash sets of dishes two ways—presoaked in soapy water and not presoaked.
While some dish soaps worked slightly better than others, we discovered that no matter which soap we used, it took notably less time to wash the dishes if we let them marinate in warm, soapy water first.
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You may have always pre-soaked your dishes, but do you know why it works? Dish soaps use surfactants (little tadpole-shaped molecules with water-loving heads and oil-loving tails) to clean. The two parts encourage water and fat to mix, suspending oil droplets and other particles of food residue within tiny structures called micelles, which you scrub and rinse away.
But here’s the key: The surfactants are working whether you are actively scrubbing the dishes or not, as long as they’re dispersed in the water. Once your dirty dishware has soaked for 5 to 10 minutes, wash it all by hand as normal. The surfactants will have done their job, and it'll take a whole lot less elbow grease to scrub your dishes clean. Even caked-on sauces come off so much easier than they would have without presoaking.
It’s like a million tiny dishwashers are giving you a head start—and who doesn’t need a head start on the dishes?
Tips for Marinating Your Dishes
- Shrink down your sink. You could fill up your sink with water, but I've learned it's more effective (and uses less water) to use a soaking vessel that is about half to two-thirds the size of your sink. Any large bowl, basin, or pail will work. That way, you can still use your sink while you wash. I usually pile my washed (but not rinsed) dishes beside the soaking vessel as I go, and then rinse everything at the end so that I don’t have the water running the whole time.
- Don’t soak anything with wood. If wood absorbs too much water, it’s liable to crack over time.
- Use your downtime wisely. While my dishes are soaking and my little surfactant buddies start cleaning for me, I spray and wipe down my counter, cooktop, and table. By the time I’m done with the surfaces, the dishes are ready for me to swoop in and finish things off.
- Marinating doesn’t mean leaving them for the morning. You only need to soak the dishes for 5 to 10 minutes or so—don’t take this as an excuse to leave them overnight!
Now that I started marinating my dishes, kitchen cleanup has gotten a whole lot more manageable. It’s one of my favorite cleaning hacks—that and a good true-crime podcast to pass the time!
