Baked on messes are the worst to clean out of an oven. But toxic oven cleaners can leave residue that can fill your lungs or even bake into your food.
There is a natural and thrifty way to handle a grimy oven. You can make a paste of baking soda and water that does all the dirty work for you. Here is how one self-described “lazy cleaner” gets the job done.
Make sure you checkout some of our other favorite uses for baking soda:
What is the best use of baking soda in your home?
Photo courtesy of Annie B. Bond.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I mix baking soda with water to make a paste, smear on shower/tub walls and let sit. Then rinse off ten mins later! Water spots be gone!
Thank you! I soooo need this one!
I actually do, lol. I’m just weird like that, lol.
I found this articles awhile ago – same concept but spray it on all over the oven when it is cool, cook as usual and repeatedly do it until it starts look better, it all ‘collects’ at the bottom and can be cleaned out. It is doing a wonderful job on ours. The grease is a bit harder to deal with though…
http://www.websiterepairguy.com/articles/household_tips/clean_oven.html
Also, anyone have suggestions for cleaning the TRAYS? My baking trays are a disaster, my husband once cleaned some with oven cleaner and they TASTED of oven cleaner after many, many washings, disgusting!!
Do you mean trays like cookie sheets? I’ve heard that tea tree oil works wonders on grimy cookie sheets. Still need a bit of elbow grease, but supposedly they come out shiny and new looking.
It’s been a LONG time since you left this post, but maybe it will still help. 
Thanks! I was baking sweet potatoes the other day, and totally forgot to put a cookie sheet underneath them. Of course they dripped all over the bottom of the oven, leaving lovely black marks. I scrubbed with an SOS pad, then put down baking soda and scrubbed some more, all to no avail. Still black round spots everywhere. Then I remembered reading this post (about an easy non toxic oven cleaner) and headed right for my computer to see if I could find it again.
Here it is! I’ve got it sitting in my oven as we speak… so hopefully it will power through my yucky mess.