A great pandemic grilling tip: clean up with an onion

Here’s a great grilling hack for everyone cooking more outside now that the weather has turned hot. The worst part about grilling is cleaning the grill, I think. I typically buy disposable grilling sheets at a local dollar store to put over my grill so food doesn’t bake on it. That cuts down on how much wire brushing I need to do in the cleanup stage.

But now I’m going to try this hack from Southern Living magazine that says an onion can be a handy cleaning tool for a grill. Just cut a large onion in half and put the cut side down on your grill, moving it up and down with a long grilling fork to remove cooking residue on the grill, it suggests.

I use these disposable grilling sheets to keep my main grill clean, but this onion trick sounds like a great alternative.

“For extra gunk-fighting power, spray the grates with lemon juice or our old friend white vinegar first. The extra acidity helps with the cleaning process,” the magazine article states.

“Not only do onions have natural antibacterial properties, but if you’re cooking with charcoal, you can throw into right in the coals when you’re finished to add flavor to whatever you’re grilling,” it goes on to state.