How To Clean a Wok + Tips on Daily Wok Care

Learning how to clean a wok is essential for maintaining its quality and ensuring delicious, flavorful meals every time you cook. Luckily, cleaning a wok is rather simple with just a few things you should keep in mind. In this guide, we'll explore the best practices for cleaning both new and seasoned woks, along with valuable tips for daily care. 

Whether you're dealing with factory oil residue or seasoned layers of flavour, proper cleaning techniques will preserve your wok's integrity and enhance your cooking experience. So let’s dive right in and uncover the secrets to pristine wok maintenance.

How To Clean an Unused Wok

In case you’ve just bought a new wok, it’s worth giving it a good cleaning, both to remove the factory oil and to have a clean wok that you can season. This process couldn’t be simpler and it applies to aluminium, stainless steel, and cast iron woks:

• Rinse the wok under warm water
• Scrub it with a sponge or soft brush and rinse it again
• Wipe it with a paper or kitchen towel
• Let it fully dry before you store it or, ideally, put it on the stove over low heat until all the moisture dissipates

A bit more complicated aspect of using a new wok is seasoning it properly.  We’ve dedicated a whole article that explains how to season a wok, but in short, it involves:

• Heating up the wok until it instantly evaporates any water that comes into contact with it
• Waiting for it to cool down and coating the wok in high smoke point cooking oil
• Heating it up again until seasoning has seeped into the material and the wok has acquired a matte finish.

How To Clean a Seasoned Wok

When we are talking about seasoned woks, the best practice is to wash them as soon as you are done cooking. If you’ve properly seasoned your wok, it will have a non-stick surface so it should be possible to wash it using only water and a sponge or soft brush. Pour cold water over your wok, use the brush in circular motions, and then drain the water.

After you’ve cleaned your wok, use a kitchen cloth or paper towel to dry it off and put it on the stove over low heat to dry out any excess moisture. Now, this works if you are going to wash your wok right after using it, however, let’s assume you won’t get around to it right away so the wok and the leftover ingredients will have time to cool down. 

In that case:

• Move the wok over to the sink, pour a bit of water and gently scrape off the thick, crusty residue that you can with your spatula.
• Take a soft brush or a sponge and wash the entire surface with firm circular motions. It’s easiest if you start from the middle and work your way out. Scrub until there is no residue left. If you use an abrasive brush, you may scrape off the patina. This is not the end of the world, but it does mean that you’ll need to re-season your wok.
• If you cooked a very greasy or oily meal, you can use soapy water or mild dish soap to help you clean it completely. This is true whether you are using a stainless steel, aluminium, or cast iron wok. One of the myths surrounding cast iron cooking is that you should never use dish soap - this is not true. You can use mild dish soap when needed.
• After you’ve removed all residue from cooking, rinse it once more, and use a paper or kitchen towel to dry your wok. Finally, put it on the stove again and heat it until there is no moisture left. This step is crucial because rust can easily form if you store a moist wok.

What You Should Not Do

Cleaning and caring for a wok truly is as simple as we described above, however, there are three things you should take care not to do. 

1. If you are making a dish with acidic ingredients, like lemons or tomatoes, don’t leave your dish in the wok and clean it as soon as you can. The acid can easily lead to the formation of rust. 
2. Don’t let your wok soak in water for a long time, say overnight. The water molecules can seep into the wok material and cause rust to form and even cause microcracks if you do this often enough. It’s better to leave your wok to sit as-is until you clean it instead of soaking it. 
3. Don’t wash your wok in the dishwasher. This tip is not as crucial as the previous two, as many modern woks are made to be dishwasher-safe, however, dishwasher cycles can reach high temperatures and high water pressure, both of which can be abrasive to the material. It’s always safer to wash your wok by hand.

What if Your Wok Has Rusted?

Even when you care properly for your wok, rust can develop. Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world and you don’t need to throw it out. How to clean a wok from rust is not that different from regular cleaning. You can relatively easily restore a rusty wok by scrubbing it with a steel wood pad or an abrasive brush and dish soap.

Simply scrub until you’ve removed all the rust and then rinse the wok. You may need to do this several times if the wok is severely rusted. However, this process will also remove most if not all of the seasoning that the wok has, so you will need to re-season it after you are done cleaning it. Plus, you may need to cook a few dishes until the wok has soaked in all the flavours again, but it should be as good as it was quickly.

Do You Need to Buy a Wok?

In case you are reading about how to clean a wok because you want to know how easy it would be to maintain one if you owned it, we hope that question has been answered - quite easy. And we can help you get one - at AGC Catering Equipment, you can order a Chinese wok online and we will deliver it to your door. 

We also sell other stainless steel and cast iron cookware if you are looking to equip your entire kitchen. You may also wish to see what’s currently on sale in case you wish to save a few dollars. And if you have any questions, feel free to contact us, we’ll gladly tell you all you want to know.