Oven cleaners: How to clean an oven
- Simple tips that can make cleaning your oven easier
- Ways to prevent dirt building up in your oven
- Tools to help make cleaning an oven quicker
No one likes cleaning the oven, but unfortunately it's a necessary job. However, with these tips and tricks you can hopefully make the task as pleasant as possible.
Clean an oven little and often
Prevention is better than cure when it comes to oven cleaning. It’s much better to give your oven a light clean once a month rather than attack it with a vengeance once a year. You should also clean spills as soon as the oven has cooled down to avoid them being baked on next time the oven is used and therefore harder to remove.
See our full review of the best oven cleaners for Which? recommendations of the Best Buy oven cleaners that really work.
Oven cleaning tips
• Each time you’ve finished cooking, turn on the grill element for about a minute to burn off any fat clinging to it, then turn it off and close the oven door.
• Invest in a Teflon-coated oven liner to fit along the base of your oven to catch drips and clean this regularly. Make sure you read instructions to check the maximum temperature that can be used on Teflon-coated cookware, it's usually around 260°C.
• Don’t be afraid to use scouring pads or even wire wool on enamel surfaces as they’re very tough.
• Soak your trays and racks in boiling water for around 30 minutes before scrubbing. We recommend buying a container large enough to make the job of cleaning easier.
• For cleaning your oven door, use a hob scraper. It will help if you wet the glass with soapy water and heat it to about 100°C first.
• There are some very clever ovens on the market these days. Those with catalytic liners have rough surfaces inside the oven that catch, absorb and break down food spills, which are then burned away during normal cooking, making your oven walls easier to keep clean.
Pyrolytic ovens have a setting which can burn off dirt and grease at up to about 500°C. They take around two hours, and for safety the oven door will lock while the cycle is running. All you do is sweep out the ash afterwards.
For more information on self-cleaning ovens see our oven reviews area.
- Make cleaning the oven easier using a Which? Best Buy oven cleaner
- Reviewed and rated: more of the best kitchen cleaning products
- Find out how to clean in an eco-friendly way with our green cleaning guide
