The oven cleaning is a chore that often falls to the bottom of your to-do list. Cleaning the oven is one of the least favorite household chores for 41 percent of Americans.
The self-cleaning feature on an oven is not very effective. It requires a great deal of heat and energy. There are some ways to make oven cleaning a bit easier, and they all involve lemons.
Lemons can make your kitchen sparkle.
We’ve already shared old-school hacks to clean kitchen items with lemon, including cutting boards and that smelly garbage disposal. The citric acid in lemon juice is antibacterial and antiseptic. The lemon also has a refreshing scent, and the oils found in the rind add shine. Here are two ways you can clean your oven using lemons.
Use a Lemon Steam Bath
Take, for example, the video that was shared by TikTok’s @my_styled_living. It contains a clever tip to make oven cleaning smell citrus-scented. She recommends cutting a few quarters of lemons, placing them into an ovenproof dish, and covering them with water. She then bakes it at 250 degrees F (about 30 minutes). Then, she dips a sponge in the lemon water to clean the oven doors and racks, leaving them sparkling and smelling of lemon.
OvenClean.com, a professional oven cleaning company, has been promoting this cleaning method for a long time.
On their website, they write: “If you want to remove some stubborn grease and dirt from the inside of your stove, try steam cleaning.”
They use lemon and water in a similar way to the TikTok video. Still, with some differences: instead of using the entire lemon to steam the oven, they suggest cutting the lemons into pieces and adding the juice to the water. The dish is then placed in the oven until it begins to heat.
They write: “Keep an eye out for the water, and as soon as it starts to boil, shut the oven door, allowing the steam to circulate, while it cools down.”
Lemon and steam together can help you to remove “the grease and grime, giving you an early start on a quick oven cleaning.”
Lemon Scrub
Baking soda can be used to give the lemon steam bath a boost. We’ve discussed this before. Baking soda can also be used to degrease.
In a bowl or dish, mix the baking soda and water until it becomes a paste thin enough to be spreadable but not too watery. Spread the paste on the inside of your oven door. Let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes. Wipe up the paste with a wet cloth.
With the lemon and baking soda, you can have your oven sparkling in no time. Cleaning the oven might not be the most enjoyable chore you have to do, but it will be on your list of things to do.