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Viral hacks, self-cleaning, harsh chemicals – every option is terrible.

A funny thing about being a cleaning expert is that it’s a bit like being a doctor at a cocktail party: everyone wants to show you their proverbial mole. Usually, this is fine – in fact, it often leads to an interesting or hilarious conversation, or both. But there is one common cleaning question that I do not like to answer, that I find myself, if not outright lying about, at the very least doing some impressive fudging and fibbing to avoid answering directly.

The question is: “What do you use to clean your oven?”

The problem with oven cleaning

Rachel Hoffman, a cleaning expert and the author of Unf*ck Your Habitat, sums up the problem of oven cleaners thusly: “Either it either works and wants to kill you, or it doesn’t work all that well, but you can breathe.”

But what is it that makes cleaning an oven, in particular, so challenging? I had an inkling that stubborn oven messes had something to do with polymerisation, a chemical process in which small molecules join, forming more complex structures called polymers. In the kitchen, you know polymerisation by the more colloquial name “seasoning,” which refers the process of heating thin layers of fat to give cast iron cookware a non-stick coating. I floated this theory by Daniel Gritzer, the editorial director of Serious Eats, who has long been my go-to expert on all things cast iron, to ask if I was onto something.

“I think you’re right,” he said. “The problem is fat splatter can polymerise on the surface of the oven and, essentially, it’s like you’re seasoning the interior of your oven like you would a cast iron pan. Except that it’s not intentional.”

Fat splatter can polymerise on the surface of the oven, making it difficult to clean. Photo / Getty Images

Bikramjit Singh, a research and development manager at Reckitt, the maker of Easy-Off oven cleaner, confirms this. “After cooking, the food and grease baked and burnt into your oven turn into a hard polymer of varied hardness that’s very tough to clean.”

Leave the viral sensations to the influencers

Clever-looking hacks abound on social media, where influencers peddle the latest “must-have” cleaning agents and tools. Unfortunately, what you see online doesn’t reflect real life. “I think it gives people false expectations of how easy or how effective they are,” Hoffman says of typical CleanTok content. “Like, let’s be transparent about that.”

In 2024, I reviewed three viral cleaning products – the Pink Stuff, a highly alkaline abrasive scouring paste; the Bissell Steam Shot, a handheld steam cleaner with attachments for scrubbing and scouring; and motorised scrub brushes of various sizes that are designed to lend powerful mechanical action to tough cleaning jobs – testing them on everything from stained concrete to my oven. While each had its standout uses, all three failed spectacularly when it came to oven cleaning.

The Pink Stuff did virtually nothing to break down polymerised fats and left behind a chalky film that took ages to wipe away. The Steam Shot, which produces an impressive plume of steam that was a revelation when used on dirty grout lines, fell totally flat when it came to cleaning the oven. And the electric scrub brushes made a huge mess, leaving the oven splattered with cleaning agents that did absolutely nothing to penetrate and break down baked-on messes.

Hoffman tried a viral steam-cleaning method that calls for placing a pan of water in the oven and heating it to create steam. The idea is that the steam will loosen burned-on food, allowing you to easily wipe the oven clean once it’s cool enough to touch. It is a lovely idea, but one that, in Hoffman’s experience, doesn’t bear out in reality. “I don’t know that it was necessarily a lot more effective than just heating stuff up until it burns and then wiping it off.”

Forget baking soda and vinegar – it doesn’t work

Hoffman mentions using a baking soda paste to scour a dirty oven, which she says was “somewhat effective,” adding: “I don’t believe that the baking soda itself actually added that much cleaning power. Honestly, regular elbow grease with a scrub sponge is probably just as effective.”

Adding vinegar to the mix won’t move the needle, either. After the fun fizzing effect created when baking soda and vinegar are combined dissipates, you will be left with, essentially, a salt solution – and a salt solution will do absolutely nothing to penetrate polymerised fat. It’s why kosher salt is often recommended for scouring cast iron pans: salt will remove stuck-on food from the cooking surface without removing the pan’s layer of seasoning.

Hoffman says "regular elbow grease with a scrub sponge is probably just as effective" at cleaning as baking soda. Photo / Getty Images

So yes, you could scour away with a sponge and some baking soda in an effort to avoid harsh cleaning products, but as cleaning experts, we have something we want to say to you about that choice. “I want people to be honest about how much work the homemade ones actually take,” Hoffman says. “You’re sacrificing efficiency.” On the other hand, she points out: “And if you’re going for the commercial ones, you’re sacrificing safety.”

Don’t even think about using the self-cleaning option

Ovens with a self-cleaning function use high heat or steam to clean the interior. While in theory the clean-it-with-flame approach sounds grand, the self-cleaning function has significant drawbacks. The self-cleaning cycle, which typically takes one-and-a-half to three hours to complete and as long as six hours, produces strong, noxious fumes. It also carries the risk of costly damage to oven components, as well as of fire: heat cleaning uses temperatures of 800 to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (426-537°C) to turn residue to ash that can be wiped away. Exposure to such intense heat puts a lot of stress on the oven’s interior and electrical parts, weakening the oven’s door seals, hinges and the accuracy of its internal thermostat.

It’s also worth noting, Gritzer says, that “self-cleaning” is a misnomer. “You’re not saving yourself the clean-up if you use the oven self-cleaning cycle – you still have to deal with whatever happens,” he says. “That stuff is removable, but it still needs to be removed. It’s like one of the fundamental laws of physics: If there’s s*** in your oven, there’s gonna be s*** in your oven after the cleaning cycle.”

The experts agree: The stuff in the can is the best stuff, and we’re sorry about that

By now you’ve guessed our dirty secret: we use Easy-Off to clean our ovens. Why? “Easy-Off works,” Gritzer admits.

Unfortunately, harsh chemical cleaning agents are needed once a cooking mess in the oven has polymerised. “Your everyday household cleaning items alone just aren’t enough to tackle that hardened grease,” Singh says. “Conventional grease removal methods do not work on these types of grease, therefore requiring an alternative chemistry.”

Oven cleaners like Easy-Off typically contain sodium hydroxide, which is also known as caustic soda or lye, an alkali that can penetrate organic matter and oil-based ingredients like ethers that help to break down grease. Sodium hydroxide, in particular, is highly irritating and corrosive and can cause severe burns to any tissue that it comes in contact with, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC also warns that it can be immediately irritating to the respiratory tract if inhaled.

Despite having harsh chemical cleaning agents, oven cleaners are needed to remove the hardened grease. Photo / Thinkstock

But when faced with what Gritzer calls “a disgusting oven”, there’s almost no way around using the canned stuff.

Its corrosivity is what makes it so effective at breaking apart polymerised messes in an oven. “The exposure of fats, oils and food molecules at high temperatures cause reactions like dehydration and oxidation,” Singh says, “which results in cross-linking between those molecules. The higher the cross-linking, the more rigid it becomes and is difficult to remove by conventional grease removal processes.” The active ingredients in oven cleaners, he says, “penetrate this polymerised grease, cause saponification and make it easy to clean.”

To avoid the can, clean regularly (we’re also sorry about that)

“Here’s the truth,” Gritzer says with the deeply relatable sigh of a person who has something unpopular but totally correct to say. “The best method of cleaning an oven is to not let it get dirty in the first place. It is 100% easier if you can have a maintenance strategy versus a, um, recovery strategy.”

Routine spot cleaning, then, is the answer to avoiding the can. When something spills in the oven or after you’ve cooked a dish that produces fat splatter, like bacon or a roasted chicken, use a mild cleaner and a non-scratch scrub sponge to wipe the interior clean. This type of routine cleaning will prevent the polymerisation effect from occurring or, at the very least, will keep the worst of it at bay. But once a spill or oil has cooled and been reheated, polymerising on the surface of the oven like the coating on a cast iron skillet, you will need the can.