The Part Of Your Kitchen You Should Probably Start Cleaning More

The kitchen is a home's central hub. In fact, Together Magazine reports that the kitchen is the most popular room to be posted on Instagram, noting it's been tagged in 42,770,213 posts. The kitchen is where you pour your kids a bowl of cereal before sending them off to school, bake your favorite homemade Christmas cookies to give away, and it's where you make, bake, and sometimes even burn the food you are preparing for a family meal. That's why keeping it clean is so essential. 

Let's face it: The kitchen can get dirty rather quickly. Dishes piled in the sink, crumbs and food remnants on the countertops, spills on the floor — these are all part of the perils of cooking in the kitchen. So how do you manage and stay on top of it all? Life is busy. We love foolproof ways to safely clean your blender and tips for cleaning out the pantry and the fridge before a move. According to PBS, Julia Childs was a fan of the "clean as you go" method to keep the kitchen spotless and ready for the next use. We definitely love this philosophy, but it doesn't necessarily take into account parts of the kitchen that might need a little more TLC. This includes one part of the room that you should probably start cleaning more often.

While you might be meticulous about cleaning your stovetop and wiping down the oven after each use, according to The Kitchn, the hood or fan vent above your stove is a grease and food splatter magnet. All the lovely sauces you make, the grease from the chicken and bacon you fry, and the pork and fish you might sear somehow finds their way to the panels of your hood vent. Epicurious explains that the hood is to help keep that air above your stove smoke-free, and in so doing, it often pulls up all the other particles, including grease, into the filter. Without regular cleaning, the panels can wind up being a greasy dusty mess. The Kitchn warns that you could end up starting a kitchen fire.

But don't panic. Epicurious shares that there is an easy solution, and it's not the dishwasher. In fact, the food site recommends not using this small appliance for the job. Instead, it suggests simply removing the filter panels (which pop right out) and place them in a sink of water that is hot and full of soap. The Kitchn states from here, you need to scrub and rinse. Once you've cleaned the filter, let it air dry before popping it back into place. However, if you still find the filters greasy after washing, Epicurious states that you can spray the filters with a degreaser and wipe them down.