If your oven has a self-clean feature, then this may be enough to keep it spotless and smelling fresh most of the time, but if it doesn’t, then you may need the following tips to rescue it from the grip of grease, grime and leftover food debris.
Grab a couple of lemons:
Lemons are fantastic for helping to remove grease and baked-on food particles, and of course, they’re 100% natural, too. Take the juice of two lemons and add it to a baking dish filled with a 1/3 cup of water. Place this in the oven, bake it at 250 degrees for half an hour, and once the 30 minutes are up and the oven has cooled down, simply remove any remaining food remnants with a sponge or firm spatula.
Use simple soap and water:
If your oven is dirty but not filthy, then soap and water and a scrubber should be enough to remove small splotches of food and other stains. You might need to put a bit of effort into the scrubbing, but it’ll be worth it, and the smell is much better than if you’d used harsh chemicals.
Never underestimate the power of baking soda:
To use this in the most effective way, make a paste from ¾ cup of baking soda and ¼ cup of warm water. Take out your ovens racks and smear the paste all over the interior of your oven, leaving it there overnight. The next morning, simply scrape off the paste (which shouldn’t require too much effort) and wipe the oven over with a damp cloth.
Vinegar; so very versatile:
What you can do to make an even more powerful and effective formula for cleaning your oven, is to use the baking soda paste method mentioned in the previous point, leave it overnight (or for a few hours at least) and then squirt vinegar over it before you wipe it all off. The combination of baking soda and vinegar, a base and an acid, makes them fizz together and effortlessly help to soften hard debris, lift particles and eliminate tough stains.
A dirty oven can prevent you from wanting to use it, especially if it has begun to smell stale and grubby, and you’re worried that this may taint the food you cook in it. If your oven is beyond the state where you can use baking soda or vinegar to help clean it, then why not use the services of a professional cleaner who will have plenty of other tricks up their sleeves for getting your oven back to its original condition.
