How to Clean Your Kitchen Appliances in Under an Hour

How to Clean Your Kitchen Appliances in Under an Hour

This is a great method for deep cleaning all your appliances quickly, seasonally, spring cleaning (are you doing my spring cleaning challenge?), or just a cleaning whim. Feel free to split it up and do one appliance at a time, but the magic in the method is that you can thoroughly deep clean ALL your kitchen appliances quickly.

Ready? Make sure you have about an hour to dedicate to this job – it’s frustrating to be mid-project and have to stop.

GATHER a couple cleaning supplies – castile soap or dish soap, white vinegar, a scrub brush or old toothbrush, all-purpose, non-toxic cleaner, microfiber cloths, and bar mop towels or cleaning rags.

FILL your kitchen sink with hot, soapy water.

OVEN – If you have a self-cleaning oven, you can run that option, but because it’s a smelly job it is best done after a quick clean up of food on the interior and with the windows open. If you don’t have this option or don’t want to stink up the house, heavily spray a non-toxic degreaser or all-purpose cleaner in the interior of the oven and shut the door, letting the cleaner work on the grease. Once you’ve treated your oven, you’ll want to clean the stove top – here’s how to clean a glass stove top and a gas stove top.

MICROWAVE – take out the glass plate in your microwave and put it in your sink. Spray the interior of your microwave with non-toxic, all-purpose cleaner OR put a bowl of water and lemon/lemon juice in the microwave and run it until the water boils (3-5 minutes). Let the cleaner or steam do its job. Here’s a post with the full instructions for this method.

DISHWASHER – do this after you have run the dishwasher and its ‘clean’ and empty. Remove the racks, spray the edges with cleaner and wipe clean. Check the trap at the bottom for any food or blockages and clean out the filter if your dishwasher has one. Put a cup or two of white vinegar in the bottom of the dishwasher and run a normal wash cycle. Here’s a post with very specific instructions on how to clean your dishwasher if you’re interested.

REFRIGERATOR – throw away anything old or expired, take the rest of the contents out of the refrigerator and take out all removable drawers and shelves. Put the drawers and shelves in the soapy sink and let them soak.

• Mix up 1 teaspoon of dish soap (or my favorite, Dr. Bronner’s Citrus Orange castile soap), 1 teaspoon baking soda, and about 4-6 cups of warm water.
• Wipe down the shelves with a well rung out microfiber cloth, bar mop or dish cloth. Repeat until all shelves and drawers have been wiped clean. Dry if necessary.

FINISH UP – go back and wipe and dry the microwave tray and the refrigerator drawers and shelves. Wipe the interior of your oven after the self-cleaning cycle has completed OR if you used an all-purpose cleaner, you can use a non-toxic scrubbing cleaner or baking soda to clean and polish.

SPRAY and WIPE the fronts of your appliances – I like to use microfiber window/glass cloths on my stainless steel appliances for a streak-free shine. Here’s a post with more details on my favorite method.

That’s it! In an hour of active time (if you run the self-clean option on your oven and run your dishwasher, it will take a little longer, but that’s time that you aren’t doing any cleaning), your appliances will be spring cleaned!

Have you purchased my new book, Simply Clean? It’s complete with quick cleaning checklists and guides and it will change the way you clean in the best possible way!

Original article and pictures take www.cleanmama.net site