Hey! This site is reader-supported and we earn commissions if you purchase products from retailers after clicking on a link from our site.
When you purchased your first oven for your new house, you were thrilled to bake homemade cookies and cakes that you most miss from your home. You were also delighted when you held your house welcoming party with your friends and served them the mouthwatering oven-baked chicken meal. Those were the happy days with your new oven.
Then, you saw the reality of owning and maintaining an oven. You’ve noticed that there’s a grimy and pungent smell that is present inside your oven. It was an ugly scene that you panicked and started to turn on its self-cleaning function.
It somehow did its job; however, your oven glass had looked dirtier due to the residue left by the burning procedure of your oven’s auto-clean setting. It also caused your oven and the whole kitchen to stink.
Determined to make your oven look as new, you purchased several oven spray cleaners. It did its job, but it left a dizzy feeling caused by harsh chemicals that were included in those products. You also discovered that it could bring harmful health effects to you and your family.
Feeling hopeless, you began to lose your interest in your oven. Then leave it untouched for months until you replaced it with a new oven. This scenario might be familiar with most of us who are struggling with cleaning our ovens. Although some ovens have a self-cleaning function, it does not guarantee to clean it in the most effective yet safest way.
But did you know that there’s a simple method that ensures to clean your oven without dealing with an unpleasant smell and hazardous effects brought by auto-cleaning setting and several oven cleaning products?
You can bid goodbye to other methods that didn’t work for your oven, and turn to the most basic yet underrated ingredients that are found in your kitchen — baking soda and vinegar.
Yes, you heard it right. These two kitchen ingredients can work miracles with your stinky and gruesome oven. Let me tell you why these can do wonders not just for your oven but with your whole kitchen.
How Baking Soda and Vinegar Can Effectively Clean Our Ovens
Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, contains neutral compounds that are formed from cation (positively charged ions) and anion (negatively charged ions). Though it’s a neutral element, its pH level is higher compared with other neutral components, making it the opposite of the acidic levels of other oven cleaning chemicals.
It is also a mild alkali that reacts well with substances with lower pH levels. With this, it can remove dirt and grease by combining it with water. Apart from this, baking soda contains slightly abrasive material that works more effective than our typical soaps. It safely gets rid of your oven’s stains and small particles.
Aside from being an active cleaning agent, baking soda can also remove bad odors caused by bacteria formed from various food and chemicals inside the oven. Since most odors are found to be acidic, and baking soda is a basic neutral ingredient, it can neutralize the air and eliminate pungent smells.
Vinegar, on the other hand, can also work as your active agent in cleaning your oven. It is an acidic material that reacts well with various stains caused by different substances.
However, there are specific vinegar types such as white vinegar that we should refrain from using as our cleaning agent. For safety concerns, you can choose other milder vinegar types such as apple cider as your alternative to white vinegar.
Combining baking soda and vinegar is a perfect cleaning match for every kitchen utensil, bathroom, and laundry materials. Since they have an acid-base reaction, they can work hand in hand in resolving hard stains and dirt particles that were left inside your oven. With the proper procedure, it can disinfect, deodorize, and freshen your oven for less than 24 hours.
Steps in Cleaning Your Oven Using Baking Soda and Vinegar
Now that you know how baking soda and vinegar can be our helpful cleaning tandem, you can try these ingredients in cleaning your oven. But before you begin your cleaning task, check first if you have the following essential materials.
- Baking Soda
- Vinegar (e.g., apple cider)
- Rubber Gloves
- Sponge or Damp Cloth
- Spray Bottle
- Plastic Spatula or Scraper
- Paper Towel
If you have everything you need to clean your oven, you can start to follow these easy yet essential steps in freeing your oven to dirt and odors.
1. Turn off the oven that includes its gas.
You wouldn’t want to get into much bigger trouble, right? So, make sure to turn off your oven and plug it off from any electrical source. This also applies if you have a gas-operated oven.
2. Get rid of everything inside your oven.
Remove the racks from your oven and clean them separately with soap and warm water. You should also put away your oven’s pizza stone, oven thermometer, and other objects that would disturb you from cleaning the interior of the oven.
3. Create your baking soda paste.
Make your baking soda paste by mixing a half cup of baking soda with three tablespoons of water. This amount is enough to create a spreadable paste for your oven.
4. Spread the paste inside the oven.
After you have your desired paste, you can start to spread it inside your oven. Use rubber gloves to reach the dirtiest and hardest stains without dirtying your hands and nails. You can also apply an ample amount of paste in the burnt-on areas. Take note that you should avoid putting it on the heating components inside of your oven.
5. Let it sit overnight.
It is best advised to rest your baking soda spread in your oven for at least 12 hours or overnight. This amount of time would let the active ingredients of baking soda to produce its beneficial effects.
6. Wipe away the paste using a damp cloth or sponge.
After resting the spread, you can start to wipe it away using a damp cloth or sponge with warm water. You can also use a plastic spatula or scraper for hard-to-reach areas and tough stains.
7. Spray vinegar.
You can spray vinegar to your oven’s interior, removing the residue of baking soda. It will also soften the hard-paste so you can wipe it away quickly.
8. Wipe again with a paper towel.
If there’s no trace of baking soda or other particles inside your oven, you can wipe it with a paper towel for the final wipe-down. In this step, you can see how your gloomy oven can turn into a good and fresh-looking oven again. Here are some more do’s and don’ts when you clean your home.
Conclusion
Cleaning your oven is a necessary yet tedious task. Your efforts and time may be wasted without knowing the most effective way of cleaning. There’s a lot of oven cleaning products that are available to the market, but you can’t fully guarantee your safety in using those cleaning materials.
Your oven’s auto-cleaning function can also bring disturbance both to your house and your neighborhood. Thankfully, baking soda and vinegar offer the safest, cheapest, yet great ingredients that can work miracles in cleaning and deodorizing your oven.
