We Tried the Viral Oven-Cleaning Hack That Uses Just 1 Ingredient—Here’s What Happened

Confession: It’s been a while since I’ve cleaned my oven. While I’m not averse to a little elbow grease or learning about new oven-cleaning hacks, I’d much rather scrub my stovetop than get on my hands and knees to give my oven a good cleaning.

I’ve used Easy-Off oven cleaner (fume-free formula for the win!) with great success, but there’s still some scrubbing and wiping involved. It doesn’t help that I’m always afraid of missing a spot while cleaning my oven, which would mean leaving a chemical-based cleaning product near my Thanksgiving pies.

I’m on a clean-ingredient kick when it comes to household products—clean cleaning, if you will—so I regularly scroll TikTok for tips and tricks that don’t require harsh chemicals. I found a natural oven cleaner hack so easy to pull off that I almost wouldn’t mind if the technique failed to work. But it totally delivered.

Intrigued? Keep scrolling.

Get Reader’s Digest’s Read Up newsletter for more cleaning, humor, travel, tech and fun facts all week long.

What is this popular TikTok oven-cleaning hack?

TikTok, or rather #CleanTok, is chock-full of tidying-up tips. And this oven-cleaning hack—which heats lemon and water to make your appliance sparkle—is a particularly smart shortcut.

@yagmuronerr this just saved my life 🤝🏼 natural oven cleaning hack 🍋 i will also clean my airfryer& microwave with this way #cleaninghacks #cleaninghack #cleaninghacksforyou #cleaninghacksthatwork #cleaninghacks101 #cleaningasmr #cleaningtips #cleaningszn #cleantok #cleaningtiktok #cleaninghacks #cleanfreshhype #cleanwithmemotivation #cleanmotivation #cleaningmotivation #torontocontentcreator #torontocontentcreators #torontotiktok #submarine #titanic ♬ Ultimate life hacks – Kelly – The Life Bath

It’s OK. You can admit that you want a cleaner house without all the work. Who wouldn’t want to get through their much-dreaded chores faster? That’s why I did the “hard” work for you by testing out how to clean an oven with a lemon.

Well, it’s slightly more complicated than that, but not much. Before I get into it, let’s take a look at why lemons are such cleaning superstars.

What are the benefits of using lemon as an oven cleaner?

Lemons certainly have a nice smell, but that’s not the only reason you’ll find them in cleaning products. Logan Taylor, founder of Dazzle Cleaning, says it’s the fruit’s citric acid that makes it so powerful in cleaning.

Indeed, citric acid is a superhero when it comes to all sorts of cleaning. It’s gentler than bleach, but it can still fight stains. It can remove hard water stains and mineral deposits too. It’ll clean dishes, windows and entire bathrooms, and it works as a fabric softener in the laundry. It might not have the neutralizing power of baking soda, but it can still remove odors. “You can chop a lemon into quarters and throw it in your refrigerator, and if you have lingering bad smells in there, it will usually get rid of it,” says Taylor.

And for our purposes, it can also clean an oven. Allegedly.

Taylor says he regularly watches TikTok for cleaning tips, but he admits he was “very skeptical” of the lemon hack for the oven. He does note, however, that heating lemon water in the microwave works; the citric acid hitting the steam from the water helps clean a messy microwave.

But when he suggested to his cleaning staff—who already use natural cleaning methods for just about everything—that they use a natural cleaning method for ovens, he says, “we about had a revolt.” Easy-Off remains his team’s preferred method of cleaning ovens because it’s quicker and easier to cut through grease.

Call me stubborn, but I still wanted to make TikTok’s oven-cleaning hack work. So I gave it a try.

How to clean your oven with lemon

Was the person who coined the phrase “easy peasy, lemon squeezy” referring to oven-cleaning hacks? Probably not, but it is truly that easy to set up. Here’s how to use it on your own oven:

Step 1: Preheat the oven

Barbara Bellesi Zito for Reader's Digest

Turn on the oven, and set it to 400 degrees.

Step 2: Cut up a lemon

Barbara Bellesi Zito for Reader's Digest

Cut your lemon into large, circular slices, not quarters. I used 1½ lemons because I already had part of one in the fridge, but I would have used a single lemon otherwise.

Step 3: Pour water into an oven-safe container

I grabbed a square Pyrex dish that I normally reserve for baking brownies and filled it up about three-quarters of the way with water.

Step 4: Add the lemons to the water

I squeezed some juice into the water and swooshed it around. Then, I added the lemon slices and watched them float on the water. If I had cut them into quarters, they would have sunk to the bottom—I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing, but like a good cleaning student, I was following my TikTok teacher exactly.

Step 5: Bake it

Barbara Bellesi Zito for Reader's Digest

The lemon water had to bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, so it went onto a rack positioned in the middle of the oven. I’m a bit clumsy, so I sloshed a bit of water along the way. I took my gaffe as a warning to let the lemon water cool down completely before handling it later.

Step 6: Let it all cool

I turned off the oven after 20 minutes and waited for the hot lemonade, as I was now calling it, to cool completely. Well, that’s not exactly true—I actually walked my dog, cleaned the rest of my kitchen and popped a meal in the slow cooker while the lemon water cooled because it does take a while.

If I were in a rush to clean the oven, I might have left the oven door partially open or very carefully removed the dish to let it cool on a heat-safe trivet. But I remembered what Taylor said about the citric acid in the steam doing the hard work. I figured the more I let the steamy lemonade do its thing, the easier it would be to clean the oven.

Step 7: Clean the oven

Barbara Bellesi Zito for Reader's Digest

Now comes the “fun” part: the actual cleaning. I dipped a microfiber cloth into the lemon water—it still had a hint of warmth to it—and started with the oven door. I noticed that residue came off the edge of the door fairly well, and the cloth did come away dirty when I wiped the glass. But I quickly saw that I would need to scrub more intensely or use a degreaser to get more grit off its surface.

Barbara Bellesi Zito for Reader's Digest

Given the scrubbing I was already doing on the oven door, I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning the rest of the oven. So imagine my surprise when, with one swipe of the cloth on the bottom of the stove, the surface was clean.

Was it a fluke? No! I dunked the cloth into the lemon water once more, then wiped down the entire bottom of the stove. It looked brand-new. The oven-cleaning hacked worked just as well on the sides of the stove. Amazing!

Barbara Bellesi Zito for Reader's Digest

Did I really just clean the entire interior of my oven in less than five minutes? Yes, I sure did. I had been prepared to wrench my back from scrubbing at a weird angle, but there was no need to scrub the inside of the oven. It made me feel much better about having to go back and clean the oven door with a chemical oven cleaner, like fume-free Easy-Off.

Does it work?

Hooray for TikTok hacks that actually work in real life! While this natural oven cleaner had only meh results for the oven door, the inside of my oven is completely clean. For that reason alone, I’d consider this technique a win.

Even better? There was the lightest scent of lemon lingering in the air—much better than the fumes that come when using stronger commercial products.

Will this work on really dirty ovens?

To be fair, my oven wasn’t that bad, except for the glass oven door, which needed more TLC. But given how easily the rest of the oven cleaned up, I would recommend that you at least give this oven-cleaning hack a try before resorting to heavier methods. Just as it removed some grime from my door’s glass, the steam from the lemon water will likely go to work on your oven door, making the second round of cleaning easier for you.

How often should you clean your oven?

The good news is that unless you’re running a catering service out of your home, cleaning the oven doesn’t have to be on your weekly task list—maybe not even your monthly cleaning schedule.

“Doing it every three to four months is a great idea, but definitely after the holidays,” Taylor says. If you’re hosting Thanksgiving this year, add lemons to your shopping list so you’re ready to go when the leftovers are gone.

Since I usually have lemons on hand, I plan to repeat this hack maybe once every month as maintenance. I have a feeling that once I’m able to remove that baked-on crud on the door, this lemon-water hack will be even more effective going forward.

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. For this piece on oven-cleaning hacks, Barbara Bellesi Zito tapped her longtime experience as a journalist who covers home topics including cleaning. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Source:

• Logan Taylor, founder of Dazzle Cleaning Company; phone interview, Nov. 18, 2024

JJ Gouin/getty images

Using a Self-Cleaning Oven Feature

Reader's Digest

How to Clean Oven Racks

Reader's Digest

How to Clean a Gas Stovetop