Cleaning your oven is of utmost importance for your safety, the safety of your family, and the taste of the food you make. Regular maintenance prevents bacteria and grease from building up and causing unpleasant odors when cooking.
After cooking, a simple wipe down of the insides of the oven alone is insufficient to remove leftover food stuck on the walls or any lingering burnt smells. At a minimum, you would need to prepare water and baking soda solution, then scrub the walls with a brush.
Here are some reasons why it is important to properly clean your oven:
- Burnt smell: Each time you fire up the oven, any leftover food will burn and make your home smell like someone has been smoking.
- Safety hazard: If there is food/grease buildup in your oven, you could be risking your life each time you turn it on because of how dangerous it can be when grease smokes or burns.
- Affects the taste of food: An unclean oven adds an unpleasant smell to the food you cook. In addition, the buildup affects the heat transfer between the heating coils and your food. This means you can’t properly execute any recipe that has specific heat and time requirements in your oven. Sometimes they turn out well, other times they become undercooked or burnt.
- Cost savings: A well-maintained oven can last for decades. Cleaning your ovens keeps them in good shape throughout its lifetime, which can save you money on replacement or repair costs down the road.
Now you know why you should be cleaning your oven regularly. Unfortunately, oven cleaning can be a difficult, labor-intensive task that some people choose to avoid. If you are having trouble with tough food stains inside your dirty appliances, a lot of methods can be used to clean them off - so don't feel discouraged!
How to start?
Many people don't know how to clean their grungy ovens, which means it can get really dirty and greasy after a while. Sometimes you may need to scrub away at it for hours on end. This is tiring work that takes time and effort you could spend on other things. If you want to be able to enjoy your oven again, then try out some of these easy ways of cleaning it first. Elbow grease is not required!
Before you clean an oven, the first thing to do is to make sure that the oven is switched off and cooled down. The next thing is to remove any large food residue from the racks and walls of the oven. The final step in cleaning an oven is to apply a degreaser or a detergent with a sponge or a cloth and then wash it all off with warm water.
Below are the exact steps to make the process easier and get your oven cleaner faster.
- Spray an oven cleaner on the surfaces that need attention.
- Leave it for a few minutes before scrubbing or wiping it off with a sponge or cloth.
- Make sure you remove all debris from the racks, then grab a sponge to wipe down the rest of the oven and racks with water and dish soap.
- Finally, dry off any excess water with towels and put away any appliances to avoid rusting.
For our cleaning company CleanMyTribe, the best way we recommend cleaning an oven is with an easy-off oven cleaner. Just spray the cleaner onto the burnt food or grease stains on the walls or racks of the oven and wait a few minutes for it to do its job before wiping away with a damp cloth. It is important that you do not overspray this product as it could damage your oven's enamel coating, so only spray just enough onto the affected areas. Do take extra care to keep the product within the insides of your oven. If any liquid drips onto the outsides, you would want to wipe it off immediately as Easy-off can cause discoloration on your stainless steel surfaces.
Oven cleaning can be a difficult task, but it doesn't need to be!
Maintaining Your Cleaned Oven
The oven is an essential kitchen appliance for all types of cooking and baking recipes. You would want to make sure it’s always ready for use. Any self-respecting, self-proclaimed master chef would not let their oven fall into ruin. I hope by reading up until this point, we can all agree that a clean oven is a happy oven. It doesn't only look better; it cooks better too!
There are many ways to maintain a clean oven, but the most effective ones are wiping spills down quickly and using aluminum foils, baking sheets, roasting bags so you can easily clean up the mess.
However, we would like to caution our readers to avoid lining the bottom of your ovens with aluminum foil as this creates a huge safety hazard. Please keep in mind to stay away from using harsh chemicals or abrasive scrubbers too as they can damage your oven's surface.
Self-Cleaning Feature
For newer ovens with steaming or self-cleaning features, you should use them as they work really well for the occasional cleanups e.g. after thanksgiving. The self-cleaning function either steams or burns off excess food, allowing for an easy wipe down afterward. Before you rush over to your oven right now to run the self-cleaning functions, you would need to prepare your oven.
Always follow your oven manufacturer's instructions. Most would require you to remove all oven racks, any larger pieces of food, and all-aluminum foil prior to the self-cleaning. Once the self-cleaning is complete, let the oven cool down for a few hours before opening to remove any remaining debris.
If you do not have time and want some help deep cleaning your home, then hire a professional house cleaning service, they will do all the hard work for you!
This article is brought to you by CleanMyTribe Indy - an Indianapolis house cleaning service that has been serving Indiana residents since 2017
