The Fresh Ingredient You Need To Get Your Grimy Oven Clean Again

The oven may be one of the hardest-working appliances in the kitchen, but the payback is that it can get pretty grimy inside. If you don't clean your oven regularly, it'll have to work even harder to reach the right temperature, which may result in higher energy bills. The baked-on grime can also release harmful chemicals, affecting not only your food but also the air quality in the kitchen. Of course, a can of spray-on oven cleaner contains plenty of dangerous chemicals of its own which can make it hard to breathe and even damage your oven. To stay on the safe side, you may wish to opt for a more natural solution like cleaning your oven with lemons, which are among the more acidic fruits.

There are two different ways you can use lemons to clean your oven. If you squeeze a couple of lemons into a pan filled with water then bake the whole thing at low heat (250 degrees Fahrenheit) for a few hours, the steam will help break down all the gunk so it can be wiped off more easily. You can also chop a lemon in half, dip one half in baking soda, and use it a sponge to scrub the oven. While you might think this acid/alkaline duo would cancel each other out, instead they combine their super cleaning powers to take on the evil Dr. Grease and his minions (these being charred bits of who-knows-what). The baking soda also adds a mild abrasiveness which the lemon lacks.

The issue with using lemons as a cleaning aid is that they can be pretty pricey. If you have a lemon with squishy soft spots on the outside, this can mean the juice has turned bitter and is no longer good for cooking, so you might as well repurpose it as an oven cleaner. If your lemons are still fresh and you'd rather save them to use in homemade lemonade or a lemon cream tart, you could instead use distilled white vinegar (aka cleaning vinegar) as an acidic, all-natural cleaner which tends to be a lot cheaper than fresh lemons.

Boil a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water on the stove (boil the water first, then add the vinegar) and stick the pot in the oven for an hour or so to loosen up the dirt. Alternatively, you can combine vinegar with dish soap and water in a 1:1:1 solution to use as a spray-on oven cleaner. Let it sit for a few hours, the same way you would with a can of the aerosol stuff, then scrub down the walls of the oven.

Vinegar can be partnered with baking soda, too. Stir a tiny bit of water into some baking soda to make a paste, rub it all over the dirty parts of the oven, and leave it alone for several hours to dissolve the grease. Once it's had a chance to do so, spritz it with a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water. This will make the baking soda all fizzy, which is not only fun to watch but also boosts its cleaning power.