Why tomato sauce stains plastic, and the 30-second fix

Warm water, grease-cutting dish soap, and a crumpled paper towel lift out the lycopene that bonds to plastic when hot leftovers open its pores.

tomato stains out of plastic containers — Kathleen Franklin / CC BY 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Delish food editor Brooke Caison explains why tomato sauce turns plastic containers orange. Cooked and canned tomatoes are loaded with lycopene, a heavily pigmented antioxidant that repels water. Plastic repels water too, so the pigment bonds to the container.

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