Cleaning Your Oven Will Be Easier If You Reach For The Salt

Cleaning the oven might just be the most loathed task in the entire household cleaning repertoire. Nevertheless, should be done every three to six months in order to keep the oven functioning properly and reduce the risk of off-flavors contaminating your food.

While many ovens come with a self-cleaning feature that locks the appliance and burns grime out with super-charged heat, this method is not the safest, and many people prefer to do the job themselves using either gentle kitchen cleansers or more natural methods like vinegar, lemon juice, or baking soda. While all these methods reduce potential exposure of food to harsh chemicals and avoid the risk of inhaling unpleasant or potentially dangerous fumes while you scrub out the oven, they also all require a cool oven in order to work safely and effectively. Frustratingly, sometimes by the time the oven cools, the worst grime has stuck onto the surface. 

If you want to save yourself the hassle of scrubbing on a hard, stuck-on mess the next time you use the oven, it's time to reach for another kitchen staple: salt. If you apply salt to a spill immediately, it will make your cleanup later much less of a hassle.

Cleaning expert Nathan Ripley told Real Simple that the best way to keep stains from getting stuck on the oven is to treat them right away using a little bit of standard table salt. As Ripley explained, "while you're baking, sometimes there might be leaks from the food you're preparing on the oven's surface. In that case, quickly open the oven and sprinkle some salt on the leak. After the oven has cooled, you'll have an easier time removing that stain."

Salt works as a cleaner because it's both abrasive and naturally absorbent. By pouring salt into a still-wet mess in the warm oven immediately after you take your food out, it can absorb some of the mess and keep it from sticking on too firmly to your oven's floor, making it easier to scrub off with water or lemon juice once the oven has cooled down. Doing these quick spot cleans will make your periodic large oven scrub-downs easier and will also help keep germs at bay since salt has mild antibacterial properties.