Many dread the task of cleaning the oven; it’s often a laborious chore that can lead to hours of scrubbing, only to be left with a greasy interior despite all the elbow grease. Grease is notoriously stubborn, frequently baked onto oven surfaces during cooking.
When neglected, these residues harden and become tacky, making them a challenge to eliminate. Nonetheless, there’s an easy way to make your oven sparkle if you use the correct product, no need for harsh chemicals or weak homemade mixtures.
Many online sources promote white vinegar and baking soda for tackling stains, but they’re unlikely to cut through the grease due to the mild nature of the solution. Instead, experts at The Kind Store recommend natural soda crystals as a powerful degreaser, reports the Express.
Their advice is clear: “Concentrated soda crystals are a multi-purpose cleaning agent and an effective environmentally friendly alternative to other high-street toxic cleaning products. The powder is soluble in water and it cleans, removes odours, saponifies grease and neutralises acids.”
Owing to their high alkalinity, soda crystals excel at dissolving acidic grease, charred food remnants, and typical oven blemishes. By interacting with the fatty acids found in grease, soda crystals facilitate softening and dislodging these deposits, allowing for simple clean up without extensive scrubbing.
Baking soda does have a mild alkaline composition, so it has some capacity to tackle grease, but it requires substantial effort and its effectiveness is diminished when combined with the acidity of white vinegar. Soda crystals are a budget-friendly and safe method for cleaning your oven. These can be found in the cleaning section of most supermarkets, including Tesco and Asda, for a mere £2.
Here’s how to use soda crystals to clean an oven
Firstly, mix 200g of soda crystals with 500 ml of warm water in a basin. Alternatively, you could mix the solution in an empty spray bottle for easier application.
For particularly stubborn grease stains, create a thick paste by mixing the soda crystals with less water, and then apply this mixture onto the oven.
Use a cloth to spread the solution on your oven surfaces and let it sit for at least 10 minutes – though you can leave it up to an hour if needed. This allows the soda crystals time to break down the acidic stains and loosen them.
After the waiting period, use a sponge to wipe away the grease stains, which should now come off easily.
Rinse the oven with water and a clean cloth to remove any residue from the soda crystals, ensuring it is completely dry before turning the oven back on.
Your oven should now be gleaming clean and free from grease, all without the need for an expensive chemical cleaner.