• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Hello Nest

The Art of Making a Home

  • Green Cleaning
    • Air Fresheners
    • Bathroom
    • Bedroom
    • Kitchen
    • Laundry
  • Natural Living
    • Homemade Recipes
    • Essential Oils
    • Plants & Flowers
    • Zero Waste
    • Organizing & Simplifying
  • DIY & Decor
    • Candle Projects
    • Holiday Projects
    • Sewing Projects
  • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
  • Nav Social Menu

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube

How To Make Your Own Natural Oven Cleaner (No Toxic Fumes!)

613 · May 19, 2020 · Lindsey Johnson · 27 Comments

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.

How To Make Your Own Natural Oven Cleaner (No Toxic Fumes!)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.)

Natural Oven Cleaner

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.

Apply cleaning paste to oven

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.

How to clean oven naturally

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.

Finish oven cleaning by spraying it down with white vinegar

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!

8 votes

Print

DIY Non-Toxic Oven Cleaner

The best natural oven cleaner recipe - no toxic fumes!

Ingredients

  • Baking Soda
  • Coarse Salt
  • Dish Soap

Instructions

  1. Make a paste out of the soap, baking soda, and salt, adding a little water, if needed.
  2. Apply to the interior of the oven and let sit for several hours, preferably overnight.
  3. Dip a sponge or scrubbing brush into the warm water and wash the interior clean.
  4. Spray interior with some distilled white vinegar to rinse away any excess paste residue.

613

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Kitchen best way to clean oven, how to clean the oven, natural oven cleaner, natural oven cleaner recipe, non toxic oven cleaner

More Posts from Kitchen

  • How to orgaHow to organize your fridge - HelloNest.conize your fridge - HelloNest.co

    Guide to Refrigerator Storage (Graphic)

  • 9 Essential Ways To Get Your Kitchen Ready for Thanksgiving - HelloNest.co

    9 Essential Ways To Get Your Kitchen Ready for Thanksgiving

  • Homemade Vinegar Cleaner

    DIY Vinegar + Peroxide All-Purpose Cleaner

  • DIY Refrigerator Deodorizer Tabs Made with Essential Oils

  • A Simple 4-Ingredient Produce Wash You Can Make at Home

  • How To Clean Your Stainless Steel Sink

    How To Clean Your Stainless Steel Sink


Reader Interactions

Comments

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  1. Lori says

    September 25, 2014 at 10:12 am

    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).

    Reply
  2. alyce says

    September 27, 2014 at 5:31 pm

    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

    Reply
  3. Oven Cleaning says

    November 16, 2015 at 12:30 pm

    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!

    Reply
  4. Gleem says

    May 21, 2016 at 8:09 am

    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.

    Reply
  5. Claudia says

    June 28, 2016 at 8:21 am

    Great ideas!

    Reply
  6. Paula Wise says

    November 13, 2016 at 6:56 pm

    Why is your preference to spray vinegar versus mixing with ingredients?

    Reply
  7. Simon says

    December 24, 2016 at 10:30 am

    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.

    Reply
    • Jay says

      May 7, 2018 at 9:00 pm

      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.

      Reply
  8. Cindi says

    August 8, 2018 at 4:38 pm

    What are the ratios for your oven cleaner with salt, vinegar & baking soda?

    Reply
    • Carol Hunt says

      September 3, 2018 at 2:59 pm

      This is useless without the measurements!!!!!

      Reply
  9. Oven Repair says

    August 16, 2018 at 4:53 am

    very informative and intersting for those who are interested in blogging field.

    Reply
  10. Kate says

    September 25, 2018 at 4:00 pm

    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!

    Reply
  11. Edie Goodall says

    October 30, 2018 at 8:00 pm

    Rinsing out the oven is the most difficult part. Any suggestions/

    Reply
  12. Charlotte says

    October 31, 2018 at 9:33 am

    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

    Reply
  13. Maria Blasko says

    November 22, 2018 at 4:25 pm

    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!

    Reply
  14. Lauren says

    December 23, 2018 at 3:57 pm

    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!

    Reply
  15. DanJM says

    December 26, 2018 at 4:07 pm

    Don’t know where the ingredients list is but it seems like a pretty unhelpful post without it.

    Reply
    • Kylasandra says

      February 8, 2019 at 4:19 pm

      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

      Reply
  16. Nikki Collier says

    February 2, 2019 at 9:14 am

    Sounded good in theory but no ratios…. or replies since last year with people asking the same. disappointing

    Reply
  17. Beth Cito says

    February 20, 2019 at 9:17 am

    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.

    Reply
  18. Jacqueline Tarleton says

    March 1, 2019 at 8:55 am

    “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,

    Reply
  19. victoria says

    March 12, 2019 at 1:35 am

    works well thanks, just used ratios from . comments!

    Reply
  20. Jane Wilson says

    April 24, 2019 at 2:32 am

    Thanks for sharing the recipe, your oven cleaning method seems to be very precise and efficient. I use almost the same ingredients, but I usually go with the lazy way of cleaning an oven – I just spread baking soda, spray with vinegar on top of it, leave it to fizz overnight, and then just wipe everything away in the morning. Works like a charm.

    Reply
  21. kkh says

    April 29, 2019 at 10:50 am

    As with any good recipe, the AMOUNTS of each ingredient is imperative for the desired outcome. You did not provide proportions. Will you please?

    Reply
  22. Sandra Fischer says

    May 1, 2019 at 5:25 pm

    Is this doable with a gas oven that has open ports in the bottom?

    Reply
  23. Stevie Reed says

    February 24, 2020 at 6:02 am

    What is the self life on these products ?

    Reply
  24. Janice says

    May 7, 2020 at 5:55 pm

    I like using natural ingredients for cleaning ovens and around the house

    Reply

Primary Sidebar

Get updates + more!

Get the exclusive content you crave straight to your inbox.

Featured DIY

10 DIY Natural Bathroom Cleaners You Can Make Yourself - Hello Glow

10 DIY Natural Bathroom Cleaners You Can Make Yourself

Green Tea, Lemongrass + Ginger Liquid Hand Soap

17 household uses for vinegar - Hello Nest

17 Household Uses For Vinegar

How to orgaHow to organize your fridge - HelloNest.conize your fridge - HelloNest.co

Guide to Refrigerator Storage (Graphic)

DIY Palo Santo Smudge Spray + 5 More Ways To Cleanse Negative Energy

More

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Hello Glow
  • Hello Veggie

Copyright © 2021 · Seasoned Pro

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.