Ovens and microwaves are at the heart of the home cooking process in most households — which is probably why these essential appliances take so much cleaning. Ovens in particular can become encrusted with carbonised food and grease very quickly, even if you’re taking preventative measures.
Thankfully, cleaning your oven and microwave doesn’t have to be a terrifying experience. These handy oven cleaning hacks should make your life you a lot easier.
1. MAKE A PASTE
Make a paste of two parts baking soda and one part water, and apply it to particularly thick and stubborn accumulations inside your microwave oven. Give it around 10 minutes of contact time, and then wipe the paste off with a wet sponge. The hardened gloop you have so much trouble removing should come off with relative ease.
2. SOGGY PAPER TOWELS
If you need to clean your microwave oven in a hurry, simply soak some paper towels and place them on the turntable. Run the microwave on high for three minutes, and you should find that steam alone has cut through the worst of the grease and hardened food.
3. A LITTLE SEASONING
Don’t leave greasy spillages in your oven to harden. While you obviously can’t start cleaning an oven when it’s still hot, you can make cleaning it later a lot easier by sprinkling ordinary table salt over the spillage immediately. Once the oven has cooled enough to clean, removing the greasy mess will be easy.
4. LAUNDER YOUR OVEN PANS
Oven and broiler pans can become almost black with scorched grease over time. But to keep yours looking shiny and new, sprinkle some ordinary laundry detergent over them while they’re still warm. Wait for 15 minutes, and then use a paper towel to scrape away the mess. You should notice that grease and carbonised food come away quite easily.
5. KEEP YOUR RACKS MOVING WITH OIL
To keep your oven racks moving smoothly, start by scrubbing them — and the wall ridges they slide into — with steel wool. Then spray the sides of the racks and the ridges with a little vegetable oil. Think of this as nature’s own WD-40.
6. COAT HANGERS MAKE GREAT FOOD DEBRIS REMOVAL TOOLS
If you have a freestanding oven, there’s a good chance that crumbs and gloop will find their way between small cracks. To scoop out general food debris, insert a straightened metal coat hanger into the gap at the wall. Pull it forwards until it comes out at the front of the oven. You’ll be amazed at what you can drag out.
7. USE BIN BAGS FOR OVEN TRAYS
Instead of scrubbing oven trays for hours at a time, put them into a large black bin bag, and add a third of a cup of dishwashing liquid and a cup of white vinegar. Add enough warm water to nearly fill the bag. Leave it in your bathtub for a couple of hours, and your racks should be almost clean when you drain the homemade cleaning solution.
8. USE THE POWER OF STEAM
The chemicals used in commercial oven cleaners can cause serious skin and breathing problems, so they should be avoided if at all possible. One way to clean your oven without any cleaning agents whatsoever is by using the Shark Handheld Steam Cleaner.
Chip away at any excess accumulations of food and grease first, and collect debris with a small hand brush. Then simply point the jet of superheated steam where it’s needed. Give everything a wipe afterwards, and your oven should be ready for its next mission.
Ovens can become very dirty very quickly if they aren’t cleaned regularly. But by using these hacks, you can reduce your kitchen cleaning workload considerably.
