How to Clean Your Oven

It’s certainly not the most exciting of household tasks, but cleaning your oven is an essential part of kitchen maintenance, protecting the longevity of your oven, increasing it’s efficiency, and keeping kitchen germs and dirt at bay. If you’re wondering how to clean a dirty oven in the most effective way possible, just follow our simple ‘how to’ guide below.

To remove grease and grime from oven racks and doors, use Cif Cream – it is designed to power through tough dirt, without the need for scrubbing.

The Best Way to Clean an Oven

If you want to minimize the amount of time and energy you have to spend on cleaning your oven, make sure you’re well prepared before you start:

1. Put on rubber gloves and protect your clothes with an apron.

2. Open windows to make sure your kitchen is ventilated.

3. Turn the oven off at the wall.

4. Consult the oven’s operating manual for cleaning instructions.

5. Read the instruction labels on any products you’re going to use.

6. Fill your sink, big bucket, or bath with hot soapy water (see below).

7. Make sure you have a sponge scrubber, a microfiber cloth, some kitchen towel, and a spoon or blunt blade to hand.

8. Be ready to overlap stages of the process: scrub one part while another is soaking – this will speed up the whole task.

Cleaning Your Oven: A Step-By-Step Process

Step 1: Remove the oven shelves and the metal rings around gas hobs and plunge them into the soapy water to soak (the bath is a good solution for oversized shelving).

Step 2: Tackle the oven interior by scraping off any crusted-on food with the blunt blade, then, spray on a commercial oven cleaner or apply a cream cleanser that will stick to the sides of the oven and door (and not run down to pool in the bottom). Make sure you don’t get your chosen product on seals, the fan, or the grill element as this could cause your oven damage.

Step 3: While you’re waiting for these products to do their magic, you’ll need to know how to clean the oven hob:

1. Use the blunt blade or spoon to scrape off any crusted on food and wipe away the residue with the microfiber cloth or kitchen towel. Most ceramic hobs are supplied with a specialist scraper designed to minimize damage to the surface.

2. Next, apply a thick cleaning product like Cif to the surface of the hob and rub it in to remove residual dirt and grease. It’s best to use a specialist cleaner on ceramic hobs to avoid damage.

3. Use clean water and the microfiber cloth to rinse the hob surface.

4. Buff to a shine with the kitchen towels.

Step 4: Now the hob is clean, here’s how to clean an oven interior:

1. Use a clean wet cloth to wipe down the insides of the oven and door, being careful to avoid the seals, fan, and grill element.

2. If any crusted-on food remains, reapply your chosen product and then repeat the above process until you are completely satisfied. You may need to scrub the interior of the oven, to get it totally clean.

Step 5: If one of your oven cleaning questions is: ‘How do I clean my oven grill?’ ­– the answer’s simple – you don’t! When the element is turned on, it burns off all residual fat and food. There’s nothing more you need to do.

Step 6: How to clean oven shelves:

Remove the shelves and any gas hob rings from the soapy water and scrub all surfaces with the cream cleanser and scrubber.

1. Rinse in cold water.

2. Repeat the process if necessary.

3. Allow to air dry and then return the parts to the oven.

Step 7. Finally, use Cif and the microfiber cloth to give the front of the oven a quick wipe down. Your oven should now be clean and ready to use.

• Prepare your oven and your cleaning supplies.

• Soak removable parts of the oven in hot soapy water.

• Clean the hob and the interior before replacing cleaned removable parts inside.

Do you want to learn which household cleaning tasks cause the most stress?  Then read our Heated Household data analysis.