Keeping your Nexgrill griddle clean is important if you want it to perform at its best and look great while it’s doing it.
So, if you’ve recently become a Nexgrill griddle owner, or you’ve had one for a while but want to learn how you can clean it better to keep it in the best condition, then you’ve come to the right place.
If you’ve read some of my other articles, then there won’t be anything groundbreaking here, but sometimes it’s nice to know that the advice given applies to your specific model.
In today’s post then, I’ll talk about all things Nexgrill griddle so you know exactly how to clean them and care for them effectively.
Seasoning Your Nexgrill Griddle First
I’ve spoken a lot lately about the value of seasoning your griddle effectively. It’s the single best thing you can do to make cleaning and maintenance as easy as it can be.
So, instead of explaining all the benefits again, I’ll just jump into a quick overview of what Nexgrill says is the best way to season their griddles, so cleaning them is easy from that point forward.
- Wipe down the griddle top with a damp towel to remove debris
- Once clean, set your main burners to a high heat setting
- Leave the grill to heat up for 10-15 minutes
- Then apply some cooking oil with tongues, paper towels, and heat-resistant gloves
- Wait until the oil is cooked off, and then repeat 3 more times
Now, as Nexgrill says, you’re good to grill. This short process that takes an hour in total is all that’s needed to make your Nexgrill griddle easy to clean for a lifetime.
You may, of course, need to re-season after using it for a long time, but that’s an article for another day.
All you need to know for now is, once the Nexgrill griddle is seasoned, it’s ready to be cooked on and then cleaned easily for a VERY long time.
Basically, the initial work you’ve put in now will pay off for YEARS to come.
How To Clean Nexgrill Griddles After Every Use
Once seasoned properly, you can just focus on the easy cleaning tasks – the things you need to do after every use just to stay on top of things and make sure your Nexgrill griddle has as long a life as possible.
First, I should mention, you don’t need a griddle cleaning kit, but it does make life a bit easier, something like this one is priced great and has all you need.
So, after each cook, here’s what to do:
- Wait until the griddle has cooled down slightly after use – I’ll explain why this is especially important in the section below
- Pour on a little water to help create steam, and use a griddle scraper to remove the leftover food, debris, and grease
- Push it all into the grease trough, and use hot soapy water to clean this separately
- Use paper towels to wipe up the remaining water – making sure everything is dry is key to preventing rust and corrosion on the iron griddle top
- Pour on the cooking oil of your choice and spread it around the surface of the Nexgrill griddle evenly, including the sides and corners
Then your Nexgrill griddle is clean and ready for the next use. Always make sure you apply the cooking oil at the end of each clean for two reasons.
First, it means the griddle is ready to use the next time you come to cook because the surface is already covered in cooking oil.
And second (and most important of all) it keeps the surface of the griddle free of rust and corrosion while being stored, meaning you don’t need to do any further deep cleaning jobs when you get the griddle out of storage again.
Keep up with this cleaning routine after every use, and the seasoning will become more pronounced as you go, making it even more effective at keeping food from sticking to the surface.
The reason Nexgrill advises against using soap for cleaning their griddles is that:
- A) using too much water is never a good idea when cleaning an iron griddle anyway because it can lead to an increased risk of rust and
- B) soap will start to break down the seasoning of a griddle over time, meaning the non-stick coating will slowly disappear, food will stick on more and more, and you’ll have bigger cleaning jobs to do after each use just to maintain the griddle.
Even mild dish soap will break down seasoning on an iron griddle like Nexgrill, so it’s best to avoid using it unless your griddle needs a thorough deep clean before re-seasoning it.
Warning About Griddle Warping
Just before I leave you, I wanted to give you a word of warning about warping. This warning applies to ALL griddles really, but especially so for Nexgrill griddles as I’ve seen cases of bad warping online.
You see, when cleaning your Nexgrill griddle, you need to be very careful when you put water on it. If the heat is too high, then when the much cooler water hits the hot iron surface, it can warp.
You don’t need to know the scientific reasons behind this, and frankly I don’t understand them myself, but you just need to know that there are enough cases of people out there who have warped and damaged their Nexgrill griddle by applying water to the surface of it whilst it was still hot.
Yes, you need the surface to still be warm when you’re cleaning it or else the debris and food will stick to it and harden as it cools, making it far more difficult to remove.
The warmth of the griddle underneath loosens up the food a little, but if it’s too hot, then the water you need to move the stubborn bits of food can warp the griddle and it just isn’t worth the risk.
So if there’s one tip you need to remember when you’re trying to remember how to clean Nexgrill griddles, it’s that the surface of it needs to be warm, not hot.
And, as always when I talk about cleaning griddles of any kind, just remember to treat it right and keep up with the cleaning and care tasks or else you’ll end up in a mess where you have to take whole weekends of soaking and scrubbing and using different cleaning supplies just to get it clean.
Really, all it takes is an hour of effort to start, and 10 minutes after every use to keep your Nexgrill Griddles in their best condition and that doesn’t sound too bad, right?