Easy Methods to Clean Your Oven and Grill

Oven and grill cleaning can often be the most loathsome chores in your kitchen. If you found yourself here, you probably want to find the best way to clean your oven and grill. It’s an enclosed space that majority of us use occasionally, and close.

Once the door is closed, we don’t spend much time, if any time, thinking about the dirt we left behind. Unlike our dishes, the oven is a space not meant for cleaning after we’re done eating. This is very much one of our most neglected appliances in the kitchen. For this reason, it becomes the most difficult task on our cleaning schedule, when we eventually decide to clean it.

Here is how to tackle your most dreaded cleaning task; follow this step by step cleaning guide:

Methods to clean your oven

How to clean your oven with baking soda and vinegar

This is one of the most preferred natural cleaning methods. The products used to create the recipe are easily found in your kitchen. It is easy to create it and very effective in removing dirt.

What you’ll need:

• Baking soda
• White vinegar
• Bowl
• Sponge
• Gloves

To protect your hands, wear cleaning gloves.

Pour a cup or 1.5 cup of baking soda, depending on how grimy your oven is, into the bowl. Add enough white vinegar to create a paste that’s slightly thicker than toothpaste. Before you apply this mixture, brush out any food droppings. Then, dip your sponge into the mixture and coat the interior of your oven, including the door, with the mixture. Apply the paste generously to areas with more grease and build-up.

Pour a cup of vinegar into the bowl – by now you used all the paste, so the bowl should be empty. Dip the sponge in and start scrubbing away the dirt.

If your oven is in a bad condition, with a lot of build-up and difficult to remove grime, we suggest you let the paste rest for overnight before you start scrubbing it off. In this case, as the paste settles hard on the surface, you may want to place your vinegar in a spray bottle and use it to melt the paste. Then start scrubbing. Racks are best washed under the sink as it’s a lot easier to handle them there.

Wipe off the paste with a cloth dipped in hot water, until you remove all traces of the paste. Once you have your oven interior clean, wipe the outside and dry your oven with a clean cloth.

Baking soda and lemon

You can also create the above recipe with lemon instead of vinegar. The steps are the same; you just substitute the vinegar for lemon. Lemon and vinegar are both highly acidic, which makes them the best natural cleaning agents.

What you will need:

• Lemon
• Baking soda
• A bowl
• Sponge
• Cleaning gloves

Commercial oven cleaning products

If you opt for commercial oven cleaning products, we suggest you take the necessary steps to protect yourself from the harmful chemicals they contain. These include methylene chloride, which can cause harm to the heart, liver, eyes and skin, petroleum distillates, which can irritate the nose, throat, lungs and skin, and other chemicals such as ethylene glycol which can have similar harmful effects.

Strictly follow the cleaning product’s guideline. Make sure you wear gloves, protective eyewear and clothing. Allow plenty of ventilation, before and after the cleaning is done.

Before you start spraying your cleaning agent, lay an old cloth or newspaper down and brush out dried bits of food that collected at the bottom and any build-ups that can be brushed off. Then spray the inside of your oven. Once the entire surface is cover by the spray, let the cleaning product set for 30 minutes before you start scrubbing and wiping it off.

Take out the racks and wipe them under the sink. Once the grease is wiped off, rinse them under tap water and dry them with a clean cloth. Then wipe the interior of the oven, using a cloth soaked in warm, soapy water. Ensure the soapy water is squeezed out, before using the cloth.

Once you completely wipe off the cleaning agent with the water-soaked cloth – this will help to remove some of the chemicals and the smell from your oven – dry it with clean cloth.

How to clean your grill

This method will work to clean your grill, whether it’s positioned above your oven, often separated (double oven), or it’s a separate appliance. Just like the oven part of your cooker, overtime it will accumulate grease and splatters. As well as bits of food debris and crumbs. Brush these out from the trays and the bottom where they are collected before you begin to clean.

And before you clean, turn your grill on to about 100 C for about 15 minutes. This will loosen up stubborn grease. Let the grill cool down. Then use one of the above suggested methods of cleaning.

For the baking soda method, use 1 cup of baking soda – as your grill is much smaller than the oven – to create the paste. Rub this paste all over the inside of the grill, including the racks. You can start scrubbing it off with vinegar immediately or let rest for a few hours before spraying in vinegar and wiping of the dirt.

Then follow steps in the previous methods to rinse it and wipe it dry.

Cleaning your grill with hot water and washing up liquid

If your grill is not too greasy or dirty, you can just use hot water and washing up liquid to easily clean it.

What you will need:

• Hot water
• Bowl
• Washing up liquid
• Sponge
• And, of course, your cleaning gloves

Get a bowl and pour hot kettle water, and then squeeze in some washing up liquid. Then grab a sponge, dip it in the water and start scrubbing the inside. It is better to take out the racks and scrub them under the sink.

How often should you clean your oven and grill?

You give your oven and grill a regular cleaning, once every couple of weeks, or at least once a month, you will avoid the need for hard scrubbing. If after cooking you see food splattered everywhere, wipe it off once your oven cools down. If you let it stay on, it will get cooked on the next time you use the oven or grill and it will produce a burning smell. It will also be a lot more difficult to remove it.

To maintain a clean oven and grill, and to avoid the loathsome job of cleaning a super grimy oven, it’s best to give it a regular cleaning at least once a month and whenever you notice a spillage/splatter.

If oven/grill cleaning is the worst chore, then get professionals to do it

We understand how frustrating it can be to spend hours cleaning an oven or grill. But what if there are professionals who do this regularly – and learnt all the tricks – and can handle this difficult task without a sweat?

Our eMoppers (aka cleaners) are these professionals. We have recently added this service to the cleaning they can provide in your home after we tested their skills. And they’re pretty amazing. Hire them to battle your grime and grease!

We even have a discount code that saves you £5 when you book. Here’s the code you need to use: OVENGRILL5. It’s valid until 22/01/2021.