How To Clean The Worst Most Dirty Oven With Baking Soda & Vinegar

How to clean even the worst, most dingy, burnt, stuck-on food ovens with just a simple mixture of baking soda and vinegar!

Are you tired of dealing with a dirty, dingy oven full of grease splatter and burnt-on yuck? Well, you’re in luck because, in this post, we will show you how to clean the worst of the worst stuck-on grease in this oven tutorial without generating harsh fumes that will leave you in tears!

Today we will take on an oven with a lot of baked-on food with just two non-toxic ingredients – vinegar and baking soda! In my opinion, the oven is one of the hardest things in your house to clean. I hate doing it, and so I’m really on a quest to find the very best way to clean it the fastest, easiest way possible to get the cleanest results because who wants to spend hours cleaning an oven (not me)??

Cleaning an oven with baking soda and vinegar is a popular method for anyone who doesn’t want the strong chemicals that an oven cleaner has wafting through their entire house. So, if you want to avoid those fumes, this method is the way to go. If you’re tempted to push that self-cleaning oven setting, be warned, even it has fumes that come with it, and it will heat your house for hours. (Which may not be so bad in the winter, but even so, the stench – ugh!)

What you need To Clean Your Oven Naturally

No need to buy anything expensive; here is a list of what you can use.

• Your hand will thank you for wearing cleaning gloves if, with the vinegar and baking soda being non-toxic, they are still harsh on your hands.
• Use a dish scrubber with a scraper tip on it or any brush to help you get off as much as bake food as you can.
• Handheld vacuum cleaners are such a time saver and make your life easier
• Baking soda, of course!
• Soft yet durable microfiber cloth
• For stubborn black oven stains, cleaning pumice stones are a miracle worker.
• Scotch Brite scouring pads are super handy.
• Paper towels

How To Clean Even the Worst Dirty Oven Without Chemicals

STEP 1 Remove food particles

Remove as much stray food and filth from the oven’s bottom or sides using a dish scrubber tip or brush. If there is a lot, use a handheld vacuum to make your life simpler. Otherwise, clean the oven using paper towels (to avoid staining your cleaning cloths) or a damp cloth. It saves a lot of time because the thicker the build-up, the harder the baking soda to saturate and work on those oven stains thoroughly. 

STEP 2: Make a paste out of baking Soda and water

Make a basic paste out of the water and baking soda. Add water to a plastic bowl before adding baking Soda. Stir until the mixture has the texture of toothpaste (so it will spread). It is helpful to keep it in a box to keep it dry.

STEP 3 Spread the paste on the oven bottom, top, and sides.

Cover the oven bottom with a layer of baking soda paste. Next, dip your cloth into the bowl you used in step 2 to spread the paste over the top and sides. You can also use an old toothbrush or any other small scrubber to get in between grates on the bottom of the oven (if they exist).

STEP 4: Let it sit, preferably for a couple of hours, and wipe off.

At that point, you earned a break! Let the paste dry for a couple of hours at least. Let it sit overnight, but leaving it longer, if need be, will help more if your oven stains are horrible. With your Mr. Siga microfiber, wipe the paste off.

STEP 5: Spray with Vinegar

The next step is to spray some vinegar to help with extra cleaning action and get the residue off. It is way better than water, but if you prefer to use water if that’s all you have. You can use the same kind of white vinegar that you cook with. There is cleaning vinegar; however, it’s so strong that it has to be diluted, or you won’t breathe well. Even natural things can be potent in high concentrations; beware. You can use regular household vinegar for simplicity. You will be fascinated by this natural little science experiment while you clean. It smells like dill pickles in here, but we’re not making pickles!

STEP 6: Scrub-a-dub-dub!

Next, use a Scotch Brite scouring pad to work off that burnt-on food! It is where paper towels are handy; you don’t need to rinse; or wipe the grease out. Fold it in half and scrub it; the grease should be coming off.

STEP 7: Rinsing it off

The biggest challenge is rinsing this stuff off! You can remove your oven door if you are so inclined but consider the door’s weight and how to handle it. You can use cloths to rinse it off or paper towels. You can spare your Mr. Siga microfiber and use paper towels. Rinse the whole thing with water in a spray bottle to get this stuff off. If you spot any stains that survived, you can use a sharp razor blade on the oven glass to get any stuck-on grease or stains off. It should be wet first, too, so it glides easier. 

How do I get burnt stuff off the bottom of my oven? Tip: Use a cleaning pumice stone

If you have baked-on oven stains that are stubborn and not coming out, the best thing to use is a pumice stone. Get it wet first. Never use it dry. This is a miracle worker. Just test a small area first. I’ve never had it scratched, but there are so many different types of metal that you never know. Not the kind for feet or your body. Get the cleaning pumice stones. They even have ones with a handle, so you don’t have to touch them.

Rinse the whole thing with water and a spray bottle to get the baked-on stains off and see if any details are missed. You can also use a sharp razor blade on the oven glass to get any stuck-on grease or stains off. It should be wet first, too, so it glides easier. 

If you were dedicated to using natural but you’ve got to put in a little bit more work. I’m pretty happy overall it’s definitely not my easiest method, and I’m gonna tell you my easiest method in another video, but it is an all-natural method, and I think it’s legit, and it works pretty well.

Cleaning Your Oven With Natural Products

If you are dedicated to using natural products, there is a little more work to put in, but it is worth it. Both baking soda and white vinegar are great resources for keeping your oven clean naturally. Also, you can use a wet, very sharp razor blade to get grease off the oven glass.

For more tips and tricks, check out the rest of our blog.