It seems you do not know how to boil milk without burning it, which drives you mad. You’d be there watching and stirring endlessly, yet it burns and sticks to the bottom.

In this video tutorial by Jen Evansy, however, the pan is coated with either butter or cooking oil.

We all know how easy and annoying it is for milk to stick and burn to the bottom of a saucepan or pot. It would typically form a sticky layer of burnt milk, which is difficult to clean, especially after turning your pack to the cooker for merely one second.

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There is a simpler way to boil and not burn so that you don’t throw the entire thing away.

Explanations

After you add milk to a dry saucepan, it will flow into microscopic imperfections in the bottom of the pan.

The milk protein will then coagulate and stick to the pan as the milk heats.

If you mist the pan with vegetable oil spray before adding the milk, it creates a thin film on the surface of the pan. The oil acts as a barrier, reducing the chance of the milk proteins adhering.

How to boil milk without burning

Do the following to boil your milk while keeping it from burning:

1. Don’t scrape the pan constantly

You will get a film of cooked or scorched milk on the sides and bottom of your pan when heating milk for your hot chocolate, bread, homemade ricotta, coffee, or custard.

But you have been doing it wrong scraping the bottom pan constantly to prevent the scorch or film. Constantly scraping is not a practical thing to do to keep the milk from burning.

2. Wet the pan with water

It may seem strange but wetting your saucepan with water stops it from burning the milk. The recommended practice is to add the milk after wetting the pan to keep the milk from sticking.

In an experiment, Cook’s Illustrated pretreated 3 identical metal saucepans with water, and it turns out the solution you are looking for is to swirl about 2 tablespoons of water around the bottom of the pan and sides.

If you lightly spray the surface of the pan with vegetable oil, you will find just a tiny bit of milk residue after boiling the milk. However, you will not notice any off-flavors from the oil.

If you rub the bottom and sides of the saucepan with butter, the result will be similar to boiling the oil in an empty pan not treated with water. You would also have to stir the milk every 2 minutes.

3. Add whole milk

Finally, add your cups of whole milk and cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes. Since you treated the saucepan with water, the milk will not burn, so you get a clean result.

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We have also already indicated the result to expect when you use vegetable oil or butter.

Final thoughts

The next time you heat milk, save yourself some pan cleanup by first misting the pan with vegetable oil spray or swirling in some water before adding the milk.