It’s that time of year again! My oven starts getting heavy use in fall – I’m roasting chickens, baking casseroles, whipping up muffins and biscuits, baking the occasional cake or pie, and roasting veggies. My oven can get pretty dirty, and this natural oven cleaner recipe does a great job of removing grease and burnt on food.
It can also be used on racks as well as the cooktops – even ceramic ones. During the summer I hardly ever clean my oven, but during fall and winter it might be every week. Keeping your oven in good shape makes things easier in the long run, but if your oven is dirtier than you’d care to admit, this cleaner will be your new BFF.
I’ve made a few different versions of this, but this is my favorite. Baking soda and water works, but doesn’t always cut the grease. Baking soda with soap also works, but adding salt gives it more scouring power.
The cleaner should sit on the oven for a while to dissolve the grease and burnt-on food. That’s when it works best, but if you’re in a hurry, you can use a little elbow grease to scrub the oven clean. Be gentle on oven glass. It’s not likely, but it may scratch if you scrub too vigorously. Some instructions say to heat the oven, but I find that it works just as well without heat (and I don’t care for the smell of baked on baking soda!). 🙂
How to clean the oven
Step 1
Start with a cool oven. Remove oven racks. (Racks can be cleaned with the same paste. I place them in the bathtub and let them sit before scrubbing.)
Step 2
Mix ingredients together to form a thick, spreadable paste. All you need is baking soda, coarse salt, liquid dish soap, and a sponge. (The warm water comes later!) The paste should be thick like frosting. You want it to stick to the oven walls and not run into a puddle.
Step 3
Apply a thick layer of the paste all over the interior of the oven. Let the paste sit on the oven for several hours, preferably overnight.
Step 4
Dip a sponge or brush in warm water and squeeze out excess water. Wipe down the oven walls, ceiling and floor, scrubbing if needed and watch the grease and grime disappear. Rinse and repeat until clean.
Step 5
Spritz oven with a little distilled white vinegar to help remove any residue from the paste and wipe dry.
Step 6
If the oven is particularly dirty with a lot of burnt-on grease, you may need to do this twice, or do touch-ups in spots. Generally this should work the first time though. Now your oven is ready for a fresh batch of cookies!
Thank you so much for this! I’ve been avoiding my oven because it needs a clean and I couldn’t psych myself up to use the oven cleaner spray. (also: just general procrastination).
I love your natural cleaning diys!!
I totally need a book with all your recipes and photos! It’ll be so helpful just to flip it through <3
Baking soda is absolutely great for oven cleaning! Remember guys, you can use an abrasive pad inside the oven and so long as the inside of your oven is made of enamel it will not scratch it!
This is a good post. A lot of us find oven cleaning difficult, so this is a good enlightenment to many. Cleaning is easy if we have the knowledge/ tips to make it easier. Check: http://gleem.co.uk/blog/page/2/ for ideas.
Great ideas!
Why is your preference to spray vinegar versus mixing with ingredients?
Maybe this works on modern ovens, but on my vintage gas oven it was a total disaster. The paste baked on with the heat from the pilot lights, chipping/soaking off the paste made a mess of myself and the kitchen, and the oven was hardly any cleaner than when I started. A complete frustration and waste of time.
So does regular oven cleaner and it is full of toxins. I’d rather have fumes that won’t harm me,than the crap from the oven cleaner.
What are the ratios for your oven cleaner with salt, vinegar & baking soda?
This is useless without the measurements!!!!!
very informative and intersting for those who are interested in blogging field.
Why is there not in an ingredient list? Do the amounts/proportion of each ingredient not matter? I see it is dish soap, baking soda and salt, maybe a bit of water. I was just hoping for some amounts of each. Thanks!
Rinsing out the oven is the most difficult part. Any suggestions/
This sounded great in theory but I’ve literally been rinsing and scrubbing my oven for an hour and I cannot get rid of the soap, it’s a total disaster. He more water I add the more activated the soap becomes … I need a power washer to get this thing free is soap residue
This did not work for me. It did help with the grease but not the baked on crap. It was super messy to remove and quite difficult. I ended up soaking a half towel and used that to remove the paste but no scrubbing was happening at that point. I just wanted to remove the paste! There has to be a better way!
Worst idea ever. This did absolutely nothing to clean the oven (grease still all over the place), was an absolute mess to clean up, and now everything I cook for the next month is going to taste like Dawn.
0/10 do not recommend. Please save yourself the headache!
Don’t know where the ingredients list is but it seems like a pretty unhelpful post without it.
So do a cup of baking soda 2 table spoon of coarse salt 2 table spoon of dish soap and mix add soap if its not spreadable keep adding a tablespoon of dish soap till you reach the right consistency
Sounded good in theory but no ratios…. or replies since last year with people asking the same. disappointing
Worst idea ever! I had to guess at the ratios of ingredients, spread it on and left it 24 hours, still only got the superficial grime off and didn’t touch the baked on fats. I guess if you only baked cakes it would work. Also, biggest mess to clean. I’ve been working on it for a couple of hours WITH a metal scrubber and still have a couple more hours to go to get all the residue and soap out (I’m guessing at the remaining two hours, could be more). If you really have baked on gunk, skip this solution.
“So do a cup of baking soda 2 table spoon of coarse salt 2 table spoon of dish soap and mix add soap if its not spreadable keep adding a tablespoon of dish soap till you reach the right consistency”
Love this webpage. I was seeking a non toxic method of cleaning my oven that was better than my own method. I found that plain salt in the bottom of the oven helped absorb grease drippings from meatloaf and lasagna. I use aluminum foil on the bottom to catch grease drippings from meatloaf and spills from baked chicken and other meats and cheeses. The salt touching the oven metal or aluminum foil caused no odors and did not burn. I had not thought to try coarse salt so now I will try coarse salt. I use Dawn dishwashing liquid. So far over decades of use, Dawn is the best for cleaning grease without leaving a perfume smell or slimy feeling. Two tablespoons might be too much for an oven. I recommend experimenting on a cookie sheet or other pan before spreading all over an oven. Here’s why: Salt is a water softener that makes those soap suds more foamy. You could try the detergent used in dishwashers or other low to no foam soap. Dawn has to be used where there is plenty of water to wash it off because the salt will make Dawn foamy like a Lucille Ball comedy tv show where too much bread dough pours out of an oven. Think too much dish soap in the dishwasher and you get the idea of how liquid soap performs in softened water. I recommend testing your favorite soap with the ingredients proportions above then alter your proportions before spreading in your oven. Thank you to the poster above and the article author for the great tip. I sprayed oven cleaner in my oven after 4 months of healing from a double ankle fracture to begin catching up on cleaning. My dear family helped me so much during surgery and recovery that I decided to clean the oven myself. The fumes from the oven cleaner were overwhelming. On a cold day I had to open windows and doors plus turn on a ventilator because the fumes spread. A chemical mask should be worn. I can’t believe I’ve been using that toxic stuff all these decades. My throat is still irritated I am now on a mission to find a non toxic method to deep clean a heavily soiled oven. Cheers,
works well thanks, just used ratios from . comments!