10 Easy Tips for Cleaning Your Microwave, Stovetop and Oven

How to Clean Your Microwave Floor and Turntable

To remove cooked-on spills from the floor or turntable of a microwave, make a paste of 2 parts baking soda to 1 part water and apply it to the hardened goop. After 5-6 minutes, wipe up the baking soda with a wet sponge or cloth and remove any residue with a paper towel.

Microwave Cleaning Shortcut

The quickest way to clean a microwave oven is to throw a handful of wet paper towels inside and run it on High for 3-5 minutes. You don’t need a science lesson to know that the steam from the towels will soften the grime. Once the towels cool down, use them to wipe the oven’s interior.

How to Clean Baked-on Stovetop Grates

If your stovetop grates are cast iron, and something has baked onto them, wipe them with non-toxic oven cleaner, and place them in your oven the next time you self-clean it. Remove and wipe clean.

Salt a Grease Spill While Cooking

If grease spills over in your oven while you’re roasting meat, sprinkle ordinary table salt over the grease before it has a chance to bake on. Close the oven door and let the cooking continue. By cleanup time, the spill will have transformed itself into an easily removed pile of ash.

How to Clean Oven Broiler Pans

Broiler pans with burned-on food are a major pain in the neck to clean. To make the job less of a chore, heat the pan and sprinkle laundry detergent over the affected area. Cover the detergent with wet paper towels, wait 15 minutes, remove the towels, and you’ll see how much easier it is to scrape and scrub the gunk off.

How to Make an Oven Rack Glide Smoothly

When you clean your oven racks, don’t forget to clean the oven wall ridges they slide in and out on. Scrub with soap-filled steel wool pads, rinse off the soap and dry the ridges, then wipe them with vegetable oil to keep the racks gliding smoothly.

How to Keep Your Stove’s Sides Spotless

If you have crumbs, spills, and stains sticking to the sides of your stove, pick up inexpensive T-shaped plastic gaskets from a home improvement store. Slipping them between your freestanding stove and the adjacent countertops will keep goo and gunk from sticking to the stove’s sides. When gaskets get soiled (and boy, will they get soiled), simply remove them, wash them, and reinstall them.

How to Clean Dirty Oven Racks

A typical way to wash a dirty oven rack is to submerge it in soapy water in the bathtub to loosen the grime – but who wants to clean a greasy tub afterward? Instead, put the oven rack in a large, heavy-duty plastic trash bag and add ⅓ cup dishwashing liquid, 1 cup white vinegar, and enough hot water to almost fill the bag. Seal the bag and place it in a bathtub full of warm water for an hour. Then remove the rack from the bag and scrub, rinse, and air-dry.

How to Clean the Inside Walls of Your Microwave

The easiest way to melt the nasty gunk that accumulates on the walls of your microwave is to fill a heatproof glass bowl with water, nuke on High for 2 minutes, don’t open the door for another 2 minutes, and then wipe with a soft rag. The steam will have reconstituted the icky, caked-on muck, making it a cinch to wipe off.

How to Clean Range Hood Exhaust Filters

Once a month, take the exhaust filter off the range hood above your stove and spray it all over with WD-40. After an hour, scrub with a toothbrush and then put it in the dishwasher for a final cleaning.

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