Why You Should Be Scrubbing Your Oven With A Dishwasher Tablet

Ovens are covered in baked-on grease that can be tough to clean off. With ordinary oven cleaners, there is a lot of elbow grease needed, and sometimes not all the baked-on food can be cleaned off effectively. However, Tik Tok users have found a hack to easily clean their ovens using regular dishwasher tablets. Tik Tok user Little Suburban Farmhouse showed how easily she was able to clean the baked-on grease from the glass on her oven door.

Dishwasher tablets work so well because they are made of concentrated dishwasher detergent and have an abrasive surface, according to Taste of Home. Since dishwasher tablets are made to cut through grease on dishes, they can easily do the same in an oven. The tablets work best on glass oven doors since they are hard enough to scrub off stains but soft enough to not scratch the glass. They are also good at getting burnt on grease off oven racks and trays.

To clean your oven all you need is a dishwasher tablet, a bowl of water, a sponge, and some clean cloths. You will also need to make sure that you have pressed powder dishwasher tablets rather than gel pods since the ease in this hack comes from the tablet being abrasive. Also, if your tablet has a plastic film around it, this should be removed in advance.

There are two ways to use a dishwasher tablet to clean an oven. Little Suburban Farmhouse shows how to use just the tablet without a sponge. For this method, dip the tablet in a bowl of water, making sure it doesn't soak up enough water to crumble. Then lay the tablet flat and rub it all over your oven door in circular motions, using the palm of your hand to hold the tablet. If it starts drying out dip the tablet back in the bowl of water. After, rinse the door with clean water and dry it with a cloth or a paper towel. 

The second method of using a dishwasher tablet to clean an oven comes from Tik Tok user Kandy Arci, who commented on Little Suburban Farmhouse's video. They suggest that the dishwasher tablet could also be dissolved in a bowl of water. By creating a paste with the tablet and water it can be easier to use on oven racks. This is where the sponge comes in to help get in all the corners and around the thin wires. If you are having a tough time cleaning the racks the sponge could be swapped out for a steel wool pad.

Real Homes also recommends other methods similar to using dishwasher tablets. Their eco-friendly version is to use white vinegar and baking soda. The two ingredients can be mixed together to make a paste similar to the dishwasher tablet paste. Then use a sponge to scrub at the baked-on stains with the paste.