15 Genius Ways You Should Be Repurposing Parchment Paper Around The House

Parchment paper is a baker's staple in the kitchen — a disposable tool that helps maintain the integrity of your baking sheets and minimizes mess. Sadly, parchment paper isn't recyclable since it often has a silicon coating, the same substance that makes it nonstick for baking and able to withstand high temperatures over 400 degrees Fahrenheit. However, it can be reused and repurposed. Using parchment paper once and throwing it away is wasteful. Fortunately, for you avid bakers and cooks out there, there are a number of ways to maximize your parchment paper's life cycle and mitigate excess waste in your home. Plus, it's cost-effective to use less parchment paper! You can use it to clean your sink, store cheese properly, prevent splatters in your microwave, and soak up used candle wax. 

While some ways of reusing parchment paper are fairly obvious, like utilizing it for multiple batches of baking projects, other genius uses are not quite as common as they should be. Given the environmental benefits of reusing and repurposing parchment paper — like contributing less to landfills — these unexpected yet smart ways to incorporate parchment paper throughout your house is easy on both your wallet and the environment. Just remember to clean the paper of residue before you reuse it, and don't try to use parchment beyond its life cycle; if it has been heavily used (if it's burned or has way too much grease and oil on it, for instance), then move on to your next piece.

Have a grimy sink? That parchment paper piece left in your drawer from last week's cookies may be the fix. Parchment paper can help you say goodbye to hard water stains; when crumpled up, its texture helps lift stubborn water spots in a way that multi-purpose cleaner can't. Simply wad the parchment paper up into a ball and gently rub the stains along the metal of your faucet. Even some stubborn, months-old spots will come out with this trick since the paper chips away at the mineral deposits that form stains.

Parchment paper can withstand very high temperatures, so it's safe to use right on a frying skillet or in an air fryer as a layer between the pan and food. Its nonstick surface makes it an ideal tool to use in your skillet for recipes like fried eggs, hash browns, or seared seafood — much like in baking, parchment paper makes it much easier to clean your pans and prevents excess residue from stubbornly latching on. Just be sure to trim the parchment paper to size to minimize fire hazards when frying. 

Using parchment paper to clean candle wax messes is an one of the biggest ways to use parchment paper that you're probably missing in your home. Candle lovers know that sometimes wax can accidentally drip onto places you worry about staining, like upholstered furniture or carpet. But parchment paper can save the day! After you've removed as much wax as you can from the fabric, lay parchment paper over it and heat it slightly with a hair dryer. The parchment paper will absorb the wax; repeat this step until it's all absorbed.

There's more than one way to use parchment paper while baking, and a genius one is to repurpose paper from your latest loaf of bread for your next batch of muffins. Simply cut the parchment paper into squares that match the size of your muffin mold. Sometimes using a guide, like a small can of soda, will help you get the measurements just right, but typically you'll need 5-inch squares for standard muffin tins. Put the liners in place, pour your batter in, and bake. Easy as that!

Though parchment paper is often used in high-temperature situations, it can be used very effectively for freezing jobs too. Wrapping foods, like meat for example, in food-safe materials like parchment paper helps prevent freezer burn and overall is much better for longer term and safe food storage than simply keeping food in its market packaging in the freezer. That extra layer of packaging also helps keep protect food for future eating, especially if you're separating each item. Leafing parchment paper between batches of cookies keep them aesthetically pleasing, too.

Parchment paper isn't just for the big oven; it's great for microwave use too! Repurposed parchment paper or wax paper can be used as a trick that will keep your microwave sparkling clean in your home, especially when reheating something particularly messy. You'll end up cutting your paper towel usage quite bit when you cover your food with used parchment paper for a microwave reheat — no need to wipe up much, if anything, since it's so good at preventing splatters and spills.

Paint splatter on doors or baseboards sometimes is a reality for DIY home improvers, but prepping these problematic spots with parchment paper can prevent a whole lot of headache. Tape the parchment paper onto areas where paint splatter is most likely to happen. Since parchment paper is quite flexible, it can move around differently shaped doors with relative ease, including moldings, cabinets, baseboards, window sills ... you name it. And since it's smooth and nonstick, paint will roll right off and won't seep through to the baseboard.

This hack is great for those days when you know your car floor mats will see a little extra action (muddy hikes, anyone?). Place larger sheets of parchment paper over your floor mats, and tape them down when necessary, to have a great temporary shield against mud, grass stains, or sticky sand. You can either vacuum the mess up quite quickly since you won't have to go over any grooves like you would the mat, or you can simply dispose of the repurposed parchment paper if the grime is particularly significant.

We love them, but our children and their friends make quite the mess during meal times or parties! Repurposed parchment paper makes for the best place mats for children's meals because you can easily lay them down to mark out each person's spot at a table, let them get as dirty as our messy eaters will get them, and then simply throw them away — or wash and reuse them! Much like using parchment paper to cover spots while painting, since it's leak-free, grease or other liquids won't seep through to your table.

Tangled jewelry is an absolute pain to try to fix, so save yourself the hassle and use parchment paper with your jewelry instead. Wrap your jewelry pieces in small chunks of parchment paper to store them in individual, DIY packets that you can carefully unfold, refold, and reuse many times. This is great to do at home, but also while you're traveling so that your necklaces and earrings don't get tangled up in each other. You don't want to ruin your vacation over a broken or unwearable piece of jewelry!

Reused parchment paper, particularly pieces you've used multiple times for baking, can get brittle and dry after so much heat exposure. Once it reaches that point, it may seem like there's no other use for it, but there is one last thing you can utilize it for: to clean up kitchen scraps. Use rigid parchment paper to scoop up pieces of food waste, like potato peels, veggie stems and leaves, and small bones, from the counter for more efficient cleanup than using your hands as (much smaller) scoops.

It can be a pain to store a bunch of stencils and cookie cutters, especially the seasonal ones that you only use once a year, but with parchment paper you can cut out your own stencils for baking surfaces. Bear in mind that you should keep designs somewhat simple since parchment paper is so flexible and delicate. However, once you get the hang of it, you can decorate many cake tops and sides with fun designs that you don't need to spend so much money on stencils for. 

Who doesn't love a good charcuterie board? But sometimes, the sheer amount of cheese is enough to overwhelm even the best cheese heads. Save it for another day — sans mold — by wrapping it in parchment paper instead. Cheese needs to breathe when it's stored, and wrapping it in plastic retains moisture and propagates mold. Parchment paper lets the cheese breathe, prevents moisture, and stores better than alternative wrapping materials. Remember to put it in the crisper drawer to keep it in a consistently stable, cold environment.

Toba Garrett, Dean of the Institute of Culinary Education, believes paper cornets or paper piping cones are the best when it comes to decorating baked goods. She says that "paper cones provide control when piping — the smaller the bag, the greater the control." It's a chosen method by many pastry chefs. While parchment paper is the "humble" baking tool that makes the paper cornet, the payoff is better than traditional pastry bags or other plastic bag hacks. For paper cornet techniques, watch ICE's TikTok to learn how the chefs do it!

That pesky space between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling can be a strangely problematic blank space that many people don't know quite what to do with. It's a magnet for dust and dirt, and can be overlooked during house cleaning day. But a great way to make that cleaning easier on you is lining the tops of your cabinets with sheets of parchment paper. Its tacky surface collects grime, dirt, and grease that may permeate your kitchen. When its saturated enough, simply throw it out!