Does Tomato Sauce Permanently Stain Plastic Containers?

There is nothing worse than having leftovers from spaghetti night. While reheated noodles make for a fantastic lunch for the following few days, the stubborn stains that tomato sauce leaves on plastic containers can be enough of a reason to make macaroni and cheese for dinner instead. However, a red splotch or two should not mean the death of a container! In fact, there are ways to clean the common food stain using pantry ingredients.

Baking soda is a popular ingredient in many tomato sauce-removing methods. One solution includes allowing the stained container to sit in a baking soda, water, and dish soap concoction after scrubbing it. The key is letting the solution soak into the container for 15 minutes, then scrubbing again. Baking soda is also often used to get rid of bad odor as well, so it will leave dirty containers stain-free and smelling much better.

If you would rather avoid baking soda, there are a plethora of methods to remove pesky stains from plastic storage containers that don't use it. Instead, white vinegar is used in other recipes, often combined with water or dish soap. This can be used to scrub the stains out of plastic containers as well.

A lesser-known method of removing sauce stains is to use a lemon (the same ingredient that also works as an unconventional trick to remove beet stains from your hands). By scrubbing the area with the endocarp of the lemon and following up with regular soap, the stain may come out this way as well due to the lemon's acidity.

If you're at your wits' end and nothing seems to be getting those stubborn stains out, try using hydrogen peroxide. By filling the container up with hydrogen peroxide and leaving it to soak (the amount of time necessary is dependent on how deep the stain is), the container should be good as new once it's cleaned out normally and washed like an ordinary dish.