So, did it work?? Not so much. My salmon and veggie roast left a rather unsightly mess in the pan, with pieces of scaly skin stuck to the bottom. This pan would also need to rest with a dryer sheet and hot water soak overnight.

In the morning, I noticed that the salmon pan’s residual grease had lifted and little specks of fat had risen to the top of the water. That impressed me, but the real test was about to come. After discarding both dryer sheets and getting my water hot and sponge ready, I set about hand-washing the pans. The salmon skin proved troublesome, and I ended up taking a butter knife to it gently to get it loose. Some of the burnt areas of the first pan I tried to clean finally met their demise, but after cleaning it thoroughly with dish soap and hot water, the pan was still far from sparkling.
I can’t say this hack worked great for me, but it did do something, and I might try it again for really caked on burned bits. Overall, though, the dryer sheet hack proved too good to be true.