The kitchen is known as the heart of the home, and as the heart of the house, it can be full of food-related messes. Today, we will go over the cleaning process of three of the biggest food mess makers in the kitchen: the range, refrigerator, and pantry. Each of these items requires a different form of cleaning, and we’ve listed out how often you should clean and deeply clean the item and the correct process in cleaning it.
Oven and Stovetop
It’s completely normal to make messes while we cook, but how can we keep the kitchen clean more often? When you cook using your stovetop, you are bound to have oil splatter, water boiling over, and food spilling during the cooking process. The best way to keep your stovetop continually clean is to wipe down the stovetop surface after you have finished cooking after the surface has cooled, of course! If you have an electric stovetop, wiping down the surface with hot soapy water should get the job done. If you have a traditional burner stovetop there’ a little more that needs to be done. Remove the burners from their spots on the stovetop and place them aside. Lift up the stovetop itself to wipe up and get rid of the crumbs that have fallen there. Once this is done, let down the stovetop and put the burners back into their spots.
Now, we can move on to cleaning your oven. Make sure your oven is off and cool before moving forward with cleaning. Sometimes, there will be a self-cleaning option on an oven, we don’t recommend this option as, depending on how dirty the oven is, it could cause a fire. We will still to more old-fashioned methods like grabbing your rubber gloves, cleaner, and a microfiber sponge. First, remove the racks and put them aside for a moment. Equipped with your gloves and sponge, apply the cleaner of your choice and let it sit before tackling it with your trusty sponge. After giving it a good scrub, wipe off all the dirty bubbles with water, grab a dry towel and wipe away the water. For the racks, apply the same method and wipe them well before placing them back in the oven.
This should be done around every three months to avoid any potential fire hazards.
Refrigerator
When going to the grocery store, new groceries are added to the fridge some older ingredients become pushed to the back or simply sit there forgotten. The bigger question comes from how often you should clean your refrigerator. Your refrigerator should receive a good deep clean every three to four months. In between these deep cleans you should wipe down your fridge as it experiences the most food-related messes. Let’s get to the best method of cleaning your fridge! For this, you will need clean towels, hot soapy water, sealable bags, and optionally water-diluted bleach. An important tip: items that must be refrigerated cannot be outside of refrigeration for more than two hours and this can cause those items to begin developing bacteria.
As you remove items from your fridge, check the expiration dates and throw away those bad food items in the sealable bags we mentioned. Once you’ve completely emptied out your fridge, take out the shelving, drawers, and any other removable pieces from the appliance. Wash all the removed pieces of the fridge with the hot, soapy water we mentioned earlier, dry them with a clean towel, and set them aside for the moment. Take more hot, soapy water and wipe down all the surfaces in the fridge, including inside the doors and any drawers that could not be removed then dry with a towel. As an additional cleaning measure, after you’ve thoroughly cleaned all the insides of the fridge, take a gallon of water and mix in a tablespoon of bleach and clean all the surfaces again. This step is to help sanitize your fridge; you can also apply this to the removable pieces. As an extra cleanliness measure wipe down the products that were in the fridge before placing them in the newly sanitized refrigerator.
Pantry
Cleaning out a pantry usually isn’t on the cleaning list, but it should be just as important. Re-organizing your pantry every few months is great as to remove any potentially expired condiments, food items, and sweep out any food scraps that may have fallen out of their containers. This should be done at least once a year, but depending on your family lifestyle, more often may benefit you more.
RCH Professional Cleaning specializes in thorough cleaning services for homes and businesses in Southwest Missouri. We’ll visit your facility and complete a customized cleaning plan for you. Contact RCH Cleaning today or call 417-763-8365 for more information on what we do!
