Kitchen Cleanup Tips

Cover the counter.
To limit the mess when preparing meat, chicken, or fish, consider lining countertops with butcher paper (buy it from your supermarket meat department), then fold it up with the scraps and toss it when you're done. The plastic coating keeps juices and goop from seeping onto the counter, saving you one messy cleaning chore.

Tap into phone time.
Place the gear for a cleaning project — say, mineral oil and a cloth for oiling the cutting boards — near your phone to remind you to tackle it the next time you find yourself on hold with your credit-card company, author Joni Hilton suggests.

Cook simply.
"The recipe you cook for Tuesday night is not the recipe you cook on Saturday night," says Chris Kimball, founder and editor of Cook's Illustrated magazine and host of America's Test Kitchen (on PBS stations). For Kimball's family, weeknights call for one-pot meals (soups, stews), dishes cooked fast on high heat (stir-fries, sautés), or pastas, with fruit for dessert. He saves the elaborate, messy meals with multiple side dishes — and bowls and pans and cleanup — for the weekend.

Fill the sink with hot, soapy water.
Then, as you work, drop in the tools and dishes you've used and let soak. (Put knives in a tall glass or other container so you don't risk cutting yourself later.) When it's time to straighten up, a quick drain and rinse often does the trick.

Cook cleanly.
Line baking and roasting pans with foil or parchment paper to save scrubbing later. Find parchment paper at the grocery store or parchment pan liners online at www.webstaurantstore.com; $6.50 for 100. Slip a piece of foil or parchment between a pot's rim and the lid to keep the lid spotless. Coat measuring cups and spoons with nonstick spray so sticky ingredients, like peanut butter, molasses, and honey, slide right out and the cups and spoons clean up easily. After washing meats or vegetables that will go into hot oil in a skillet, limit the sizzling (and avoid getting spatters of oil all over every nearby surface) by thoroughly drying them with a paper towel before adding them to the pan — or use a spatter shield over the pan.

Clear the clutter.
After dinner, gather the odds and ends from the rest of the house that have found their way onto the kitchen counters, the top of the refrigerator, or the floor, then put them all in a basket and have a helper find their homes. Drop little I-don't-know-where-to-put-this items, such as toy parts and twist ties, into a pretty bowl that can serve as a temporary catchall. (A clutter-control solution you might consider when you have the time: Remove all the utensils, appliances, and tea cozies you never use from your most accessible drawers and countertops and store them somewhere else, like the basement or the garage, in clear plastic bins with labels marked CAKE BAKING, THANKSGIVING, whatever.)

Run the dishwasher before bed.
Placing similar items together in the machine means you'll make fewer trips around the room to empty it. Sarah Aguirre, a mother of five and an adviser to the housekeeping section of About.com, runs her dishwasher after dinner and tries to empty it every night before bed (or else before making breakfast) to keep dishes from piling up in the sink with nowhere to go. What could be sadder — except you, having to face them in the morning?

Clean up in stages.
Keep a bowl beside your cutting board to toss scraps into as you work, containing the mess instead of spreading it over the counter. When you're done, empty it, clear away any dishes you've used for pre-prep, and put away ingredients you don't need before you begin to cook. Do a similar deck clearing at each stage, if you can, to make working easier and buildup lighter.

Wear your towel.
Tuck a towel into the waistband of your apron (oh yes, wear an apron). Then you won't have to search for it when you need to wipe up small spills, which in turn won't sit around becoming sticky blobs that need scrubbing later.

Use your downtime.
While the water is boiling, the oven is heating, or onions are softening in the pan, you can be doing small-dose cleaning: Load the dishwasher to clear the sink; wipe up that spill; sweep the kitchen floor. You'll thank yourself later.


Set and bus your table like a pro.
Use a rolling cart — whether wicker, wood, or a little red wagon — to carry dishes and silverware to the table, then clear it of dirty dishes, in one trip each way. This is a chore kids are often eager to help with, says Hilton, a mother of four. At the very least, teach everyone to clear and rinse his own plate.

Keep the refrigerator clear.
A crowded refrigerator is an invitation to spills from things knocked over as you rifle through it before dinner. Start labeling and dating leftovers (with a grease pencil or masking tape and a pen) when you put them away and there will be no more wondering whether the salsa is past its prime. So excavation isn't needed every time you put groceries away, clear the shelves each week before you head to the market. And try a trick for keeping shelves neat from Joni Hilton, author of Housekeeping Secrets My Mother Never Taught Me (Prima Lifestyles, $18, www.amazon.com) and founder of the cleaning-products company Holy Cow: Use large bins to corral like items — smoothie fixings, jams and jellies, sandwich condiments, lunch meats, and cheeses. "It's amazing how clean your fridge stays," she says. And you'll spend less time trying to find the mustard.