Clean Your Oven with Baking Soda
No one looks forward to oven cleaning. You put your oven out of commission for hours and heat up your house with the “self-clean” cycle or wear a Haz-Mat suit to use a heavy-duty oven cleaner. Instead, make a DIY oven cleaner using ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda to dissolve grease and get a clean-oven shine.
The Trouble with Oven Cleaners
If you’ve ever looked at the ingredients on the label of a commercial oven cleaner, you know it’s a laundry list of chemicals. Conventional oven cleaners contain a range of chemicals such as potassium hydroxide, monoethanolamine, sodium hydroxide, and butoxydiglycol. These and other chemicals can irritate your respiratory system and burn your skin, lungs, and eyes. Directions for using a commercial oven cleaner recommend wearing long gloves and avoiding inhaling the fumes. Understandably, many people are concerned about using these chemicals around their families and pets or in an appliance used to cook your food.
Fortunately, there is a natural alternative to commercial oven cleaners, and you don’t have to worry about wearing gloves to use it. As a bonus, it costs a fraction of the price of spray-on oven cleaners and it doesn’t leave a chemical residue that can cause odors the next time you use your oven.
Baking Soda to the Rescue
Baking soda is non-toxic, inexpensive, easy-to-use, and remarkably effective on cleaning oven grease. Baking soda is alkaline, and oven grease made of food particles is typically acidic. Baking soda neutralizes acids and breaks down the grease, allowing you to wipe it up without a lot of elbow grease. It’s also a mild abrasive, so it works well at removing dried, stuck-on foods. You don’t have to turn your oven on, and you can use it immediately after cleaning with baking soda.
In most cases, baking soda works its magic in just 15 minutes, making oven cleaning less of an arduous chore and more something you can do in the span of a single episode of your favorite sitcom.
An Easy Oven Cleaning Process
The basic baking soda oven cleaner recipe for regularly cleaned or lightly soiled ovens is as follows:
Ingredients:
– 3/4 cup baking soda
– 1/4 cup warm water
Instructions:
1. Mix the baking soda and warm water to create a paste.
2. Using a sponge or rag, spread the paste throughout the interior of your oven, avoiding the heating elements.
3. Let the paste sit for 15-20 minutes.
4. Wipe the paste and grime out of the oven with a damp cloth.
5. Optionally, you can spray the interior with a mix of equal parts water and white vinegar to help remove any remaining baking soda residue.
Repeat if necessary for tougher stains, or try the heavy-duty method below.
Donna Freedman’s article provides an alternate heavy-duty baking soda oven cleaning recipe for those times when months or even years have gone by between oven cleanings:
Ingredients:
– 1 cup baking soda
– 1/4 cup water
Instructions:
1. Mix the baking soda and water to create a thick, sandy paste.
2. Using a spatula, cover the entire metal or glass surfaces of the oven with the paste.
3. Shut the oven door and leave it overnight in the cold oven. The paste will harden by morning.
4. Once the paste is hardened, use a rubber spatula and warm, wet paper towels to loosen and wipe up the baking soda and dirt.
This heavy-duty method will reveal the oven’s original, stain-free surface underneath and leave your oven sparkling clean.
The Benefits of Baking Soda
The next time your oven needs cleaning and you feel the urge to turn on its self-clean cycle, resist! Self-clean cycles often produce horrendous odors and in many cases set off your fire alarm. They work by turning up the oven’s temperature so high that the food will burn off, but that isn’t always effective – and in some cases bakes the food on even further.
Instead, reach for your orange box of ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda and know that the power of science is at your fingertips. Without harsh fumes that can make you dizzy, without caustic chemicals, and without smelling up your home or putting your oven out of commission for hours, you can have a clean oven in as little as 15 minutes. Let baking soda break down your food stains for you, and all you have to do is wipe it away.
With ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda on your side, oven cleaning isn’t the turn-up-your-nose chore it used to be. Baking soda is a true multi-purpose cleaning superhero – it can deodorize gym bags, clean coffee mugs, and even help unclog drains when combined with vinegar. Why spend a fortune on specialized cleaning products when this humble pantry staple can handle the job?
The next time your oven needs a refresh, skip the harsh chemicals and give baking soda a try. Your nose, lungs, and wallet will thank you. And who knows, you might even start looking forward to that once-dreaded oven cleaning task. With baking soda on your side, a sparkling clean oven is just 15 minutes away.
If you’re based in the Nottingham, UK area and in need of professional oven or kitchen cleaning services, be sure to check out Adam Cleaning. Their team of experts can tackle even the toughest oven grime and have your kitchen looking brand new in no time.
