Ever Wondered How To Clean Your Oven?

If you are anything like me, you probably use your oven about 80% of the time. Most of my dinners are baked in my oven, because of this, my oven is gross and needs to be cleaned. How can you clean your oven?

Oven cleaning can be so difficult and messy, but is so important. Cleaning your oven regularly will increase the effectiveness of your oven, and reduce the amount of overcooked smells when your oven starts to heat up.

So, how do you clean your oven, and keep it clean? Well, I found a super easy(and cheap) way to clean your oven regularly from experthometips.com, by Colleen B. Again, this is a super easy way to clean your oven without spending a ridiculous amount of money on a chemical.

Following Colleen’s suggestions, there are 8 steps to clean your oven.

Let oven cool & remove excess dirt.

It is very important to let you oven cool off before cleaning. Using a cleaner in a hot oven, will not clean the oven. It will burn the chemical/cleaner to the oven.

After removing the oven racks, it’s very important to remove excess dirt and food. This will make the cleaning process much easier.

Clean your oven!

Again, this will be the easiest cleaning you have ever done, but before we get to that, what are you going to use to clean your oven? Colleen explains that the main “cleaner” she uses is baking soda. (So cheap!) “Baking soda might seem unassuming, but it’ll make light work of removing grease and grime from your oven. You can splash the cash on harsh, chemical-based oven cleaning products, but we prefer this cheap and natural oven cleaner.”

Just mix 1/2 cup of baking soda and some water into a dish. This will make a paste that is easy to spread. Spread the paste all over the inside of your oven, while avoiding the heating elements. Colleen suggests on using a rubber glove and your fingers to spread the paste around, but anything will work.

Sleep!

You’re probably wondering what sleep has to do with cleaning your oven. Well, cleaning your oven will be easier, if you leave the baking soda and water paste in your oven overnight. This will ensure that all of the grease and grime come off tomorrow.

Clean your oven racks.

Cleaning oven racks can be a difficult chore itself. Colleen suggests on putting your oven racks in the tub with very hot water overnight, along with some washing powder or dryer sheets. This just made things so much easier!

Another thing that can work is putting your oven racks in the dishwasher. Take them out before the dry cycle, then the grease and grim will be easier to clean off. Once taken out, wipe down with a damp cloth.

Clean oven glass.

When cleaning the oven glass, use the same baking soda and water paste on it. Instead of waiting overnight, let the paste wit for about 1-2 hours then use a cloth to wipe down the glass.

Clean the stovetop.

The stovetop can become incredibly messy, incredibly fast. Colleen came up with another recipe for cleaning the stovetop while waiting for the paste. Mix together; 1 Tbls of salt, 1 Tbls of baking soda, and 1 Tbls of water. Scrub the paste on the stovetop and wipe clean.

Wipe clean!

This step may be the most satisfying step in this whole list. Now you can really see a sparkle and shine. Take a damp cloth and start wiping your oven clean! If there are still baking soda spots, pour some vinegar in a spray bottle and spray to remove excess baking soda paste.

All done! Your oven is now sparkly and shiny! What an amazing feeling it is to have your oven cleaned! Now, how do you keep it clean?

The biggest problem with ovens is the food that drips over dishes and falls onto the bottom of the oven. A couple ways to prevent this is to put lids over dishes, don’t fill your dishes super high, or put a roasting try under your oven racks.