Food caught and burnt on the pan

What to do immediately

1. Do not stir. This is the whole thing. Stirring lifts the burnt layer into the dish and distributes the bitterness everywhere.
2. Take it off the heat at once.
3. Pour or lift the unburnt food into a clean pan, taking it from the top and leaving the bottom layer entirely behind. Do not scrape.
4. Taste it. If the burnt flavour has not carried, you have lost only what was on the base.
5. If there is a faint scorched taste, a spoonful of sugar, a splash of cream, or an acid such as vinegar or lemon can mask a little. A raw potato simmered in it for ten minutes and removed genuinely helps a little here, which is the one place that trick has some merit.
6. If it tastes properly burnt, stop. Bitterness from pyrolysis cannot be seasoned out, and every further ingredient you add is wasted.

Why it caught

• Heat too high for a thick, starchy or sugary mixture.
• A thin pan. Thin bases have hot spots directly over the burner. A heavy pan distributes heat and is the single best preventive.
• Not stirred often enough, or not scraped into the corners where the spoon does not naturally reach.
• Something sugary or milky. Both catch far more readily than water-based mixtures — milk, cream, tomato, anything with honey or sugar.
• Too little liquid, or too much reduction without a corresponding drop in heat.
• Starch settling. Flour, rice, pasta and pulses all sink and sit on the base.

Preventing it

• Use a heavy-based pan for anything thick, milky or sugary.
• Use a heat diffuser on a fierce hob, or move to a smaller ring.
• Stir with a flat-ended wooden spoon or spatula that actually reaches the corners, not a round spoon.
• Once a dish thickens, drop the heat. Thickness and heat do not go together.
• For long braises, use the oven rather than the hob — the heat comes from all sides and nothing sits on a hot plate.
• For rice and milk puddings, the lowest possible heat and a tight lid.

What catches most readily

Milk and cream

Milk proteins settle and stick at surprisingly low temperatures. A heavy pan and a low heat are the whole answer.

Anything with sugar

Caramels, jams, sweet glazes, tomato sauces with added sugar. Sugar sticks and then burns bitter within seconds.

Tomato

Acidic, sugary and thick. It catches more than almost anything else in a savoury kitchen.

Rice and porridge

The starch settles to the base and sits there. Stir, and use the lowest heat you have.

Flour-thickened sauces

The roux sinks. Whisk into the corners, not just the middle.

Pulses and lentils

They settle as they soften. Once thickened, drop the heat.

Common questions