These Tiny Kitchen Staples See All The Action But Rarely Get Cleaned

Quick, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you consider the kitchen items you use most often? We're willing to bet you think of tools, appliances, or utensils — fair play, but what about those two little heroes, your salt and pepper shakers? They are so crucial for almost every meal, both as you cook and as you enjoy dishes at your table, and yet using them is indeed so second nature that they're easy to forget. And that means we often forget to clean them, too.

You may not think about them when washing up, but your salt and pepper shakers are overlooked kitchen countertop items you need to be cleaning regularly. Think about that aforementioned fact of just how frequently they're used — they're touched by everyone in your house on a daily basis, plus guests you have for meals. Also, when you're using them while cooking, you're touching them as you're touching all different foods, including raw meat, and they're also accumulating oily build-up from being by the stove, which acts like a germ magnet. When ABC News studied various items on restaurant tables for bacteria levels, they found pepper shakers' bacteria count in particular to be 11,600. You may not have as much traffic in your home as a restaurant does, but that's a good indicator of how many germs are hanging out on your shakers. Forgetting them could be a kitchen-cleaning mistake that turns toxic.

You want to wipe down the outside of your shakers every two weeks or so, although if you do in fact often use them near the stove and while handling food, up that to weekly. Similarly, you only need to wash the inside of the shakers every few months when you're already refilling them, but again, if they're getting a lot of heat and moisture, make sure you're doing this every couple of months or so.

Your shakers may be dishwasher-safe — give that a check and pop them in a cycle if so. If not, a good scrub with warm, soapy water followed by a thorough rinse will do the trick. To really get in there, especially if the shakers haven't been cleaned in a while, use a bottle brush in addition to a dishcloth. Hold the empty containers up to the light and see if you catch any cloudy spots or residue. If so, fill them with warm water and a pinch of baking soda, let them sit for about 30 minutes, then rinse.

Salt and pepper shakers are super easy to clean once you know why and how, and keeping them bacteria-free is a major upgrade for your daily cooking and meal-enjoying. If reading this has made you realize you haven't cleaned them in so long you might want to replace them, remember you can repurpose salt and pepper shakers for seeding your garden.