If You Dread Doing The Dishes After Thanksgiving, This'll Make Life Way Easier

You won’t believe the one mistake virtually everyone makes when loading the dishwasher.

The Thanksgiving meal is done and you’re enjoying a tryptophan-induced haze when a wave of dread washes over you: There’s still a sink full of dishes to deal with. What a buzzkill, right? Cooking a Thanksgiving meal is a lot of work, but so is cleaning up afterward.

What most hosts want after a Thanksgiving meal is to get the dishes done as quickly as possible. That way, they can go back to visiting with family or reclining on the couch watching football. We reached out to some professional household cleaners trained in the most efficient ways to tidy up, and asked for their very best tips when it comes to tackling the Thanksgiving dishes. Putting their advice into action is going to make your holiday a lot more enjoyable ― and restful.

Do what you can in advance

Holly Moore, owner and founder of the in-home cleaning company Maids and Moore, told HuffPost that you can take steps to make your post-meal cleanup less overwhelming before you even begin cooking. For example, she recommends buying disposable pans for cooking the turkey and some of the sides, like macaroni and cheese, that tend to result in a lot of scrubbing. You can plate your turkey and the sides on something that looks nicer, but using disposable pans will cut down on the number of items you’ll have to clean later.

Rhonda Wilson, a quality lead cleaner at FreshSpace Cleaning, said that pre-lining baking sheets with foil, or laying down parchment paper in pans, can also save you some effort later.