The following post is sponsored by EASY-OFF® Oven Cleaners. I was compensated for this post; however all opinions are my own. Read my full disclosure policy or contact me with any questions.
If you’re anything like me, your kitchen (and specifically your oven) have probably been getting a workout the last few weeks.
I almost always do significantly more cooking and baking around the holiday season than any other time of year. This year was probably even “worse” than normal as I didn’t do much baking at all over the summer due to being somewhat nauseous for most of the summer 🙂
So ever since I started to feel a little more lively in mid-September, my kitchen hasn’t had much of a break. Yes, Dave is thrilled!
As many of you know, we completely renovated our kitchen last summer, which resulted in a brand new range that I absolutely love.
BOTH ovens were so shiny, clean, and new — however, that didn’t last long.
I can vividly remember my first big spill.
I was making Sweet N’ Sour Pork in a roasting pan (not a slow cooker) and as I pulled the pan out of the oven, Nora started walking my way. I tried to quickly pull the pan out in order to shut the door before she got too close. But in the process, I moved the pan a little too rapidly, and all the juices (a.k.a grease) sloshed out onto the bottom of the oven.
Of course, I was just pulling out the pork to test it — I still had to put it back in the oven for another 30-40 minutes… which meant all that juice and grease was FULLY baked on by the time the meat finished cooking.
If only I had known about the EASY-OFF® Oven Cleaners back then.
It was summer at the time, so I didn’t feel like running the lengthy self-cleaning cycle and heating up our entire kitchen. So instead, I spent a good hour (or more) scrubbing and picking at all the gunk on the bottom of our oven. Not cool!
To be perfectly honest, I never ended up getting all of it out, but just lived with it figuring no one has a perfectly clean oven.
However, when I was recently asked to review the new EASY-OFF® Oven Cleaners, I immediately wondered if they would even be able to remove that super stuck-on grime from months ago.
Wouldn’t you know… it worked!
With just a quick spray of EASY-OFF®, the gunk and grime completely wiped clean with a damp cloth — NO elbow grease or scrubbing required. Honestly!
I was super skeptical that a simple aerosol spray would be powerful enough to clean my oven (especially since the junk had been stuck to the bottom for a long time) but I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by how quick and easy the wiping up process was.
The whole process took me MAYBE 10 minutes of hands-on time (plus 2 hours of waiting after I sprayed the cleaner in the oven).
Looks as good as new — just in time for more holiday baking 🙂
I’m officially a fan of the EASY-OFF® Oven Cleaners — mainly because they work (imagine that!) However, there are a bunch of other reasons I’d highly recommend these oven cleaners for all you holiday chefs out there (or anyone else who might need to give their oven a little TLC).
A Few More Reasons I’m Loving EASY-OFF:
1. It’s Fume Free:
Obviously, this one is a biggie for me with being pregnant and having a toddler around. I like that it’s not smelly at all. In fact, it had almost no smell — except for a hint of lemon (which I love).
2. It’s Safe for Self-Cleaning Ovens:
When I was originally asked to write this review, I didn’t think I could do it because most of the other oven cleaning products I’ve seen in the past were NOT safe for self-cleaning ovens. However, when I realized that EASY-OFF® was perfectly safe for self-cleaning ovens, I was super excited.
Finally, something I can clean my oven with when I don’t want to spend ALL day waiting for the self-cleaning feature to run and heat up our entire kitchen!
3. It’s Great for Heavy-Duty AND Every-Day Cleaning:
So this is another awesome feature that I haven’t seen in other oven cleaners. Not only can I use EASY-OFF® for my big “after the holidays kitchen clean-up”, I can also use it any day of the year for minor spills, or even to clean the exterior of my stainless steel oven and stove-top.
This means I need fewer cleaning products cluttering up the area under my sink… and I don’t need to worry which product to use for certain spills. EASY-OFF® can handle them all!
4. It’s Frugal and Readily Available:
I hate spending money on expensive cleaning products. Period. Even if they work, it just bugs me that I need to spend so much extra money just to keep my home clean.
So I was thrilled to see that a full 14.5 ounce can of EASY-OFF® Fume Free Oven Cleaner was only $3.99 at my local grocery store. It’s also available at Amazon.com!
5. It’s Fast and Easy:
I’m saving the best for last! After spending all week preparing a Thanksgiving feast (or even after spending 20 minutes throwing some cookies in the oven) the last thing I want to do is spend several more hours cleaning up the kitchen.
Can anyone relate?
With EASY-OFF®, all you need to do is spray the cleaner into a cooled oven, wait a few minutes, then wipe out the residue with a damp cloth. There’s no scratching, picking, scrubbing, or hovering over your oven for hours and hours. Just spray and wipe away!
With a super busy toddler, a baby on the way, a husband who just started basketball season, and a LONG list of holiday baking and freezer cooking I want to accomplish, I don’t have extra time to spend cleaning my oven.
Thankfully, with EASY-OFF® Oven Cleaners I can enjoy the holidays (and my family) without worrying about cleaning up after!
Don’t Fear The Cleanup!
Get EASY-OFF® Heavy Duty and Fume Free aerosol oven cleaners.
What is your messiest oven mess to date?
Amber says
Hi Andrea,
I overfilled my chicken pot pie (your recipe…delish!) and it ran out in my oven last week. I bought the fume-free easy off and cleaned my self-cleaning oven with it this weekend and it worked amazing! The cleaning was on sale at Home Depot for 3.29$ I was very impressed with how little smell there was and how good it worked! I don’t think I will bother wasting the time and energy to use the self-clean cycle in the future!
Thank you again for your always practical advice!
Amber 🙂
Andrea says
Well, sorry the chicken pot pie overflowed — but glad you got it all cleaned up without much effort 🙂 And thanks for the heads-up about the cheaper price at Home Depot!
Leanne Heern says
I did this challenge, too… my oven was way more yukky than yours! it worked great and I loved the NO FUME!
thank you for the recommendation!
Andrea says
Awesome, so glad it worked for you Leanne. Thanks for sharing and enjoy your clean oven!
Lea says
If you want a non-commercial alternative here’s what we do:
I remove by hand (usually with a plastic or wooden spatula) any chunks off the bottom of the oven. Then I sprinkle baking soda on the bottom of the oven. Then I place very damp paper towels (not dripping but very damp) on the bottom of the oven over the baking soda. Last I turn the light on and leave it overnight (do NOT turn on the oven itself!). In the morning, usually everything wipes off no matter how icky it is. Remember, whatever is burnt on the bottom is just whatever you had in your baking dishes and can be cleaned just like you clean your dishes – sometimes they take soaking and scrubbing.
My oven usually has to get pretty darn bad before I clean it (WAY worse than your photo Andrea), so I have found this works for just about everything – including over-boiled pies!
Happy cleaning and happy thanksgiving to everyone.
Lea
Sue says
I’ll be using this caustic produc on my oven tomorrow night after a trip to the grocery store. My timer is no longer working and a replacement is not available. I keep hoping we can find one and in the mentime my oven is lookn so bad. I hat for guests to see me remove food from it. I didn’t want to use oven cleaner because of the remote possibility that we’ll find a timer from a used oven we can swap out. Now, I’m forgetting that and will et the Easy Off for self-cleaning ovens tomorrow! Thank you!
dt says
I’ve been around long enough to remember the days before self-cleaning ovens. Easy Off was the only choice and everyone dreaded cleaning their ovens, It was some of the most caustic chemicals you’d ever have to use and it was dreaded by anyone needing to get the oven clean. A clean oven was a requirement for getting a security deposit returned. If it still cleans the oven with that kind of strength it still has to be toxic. Please don’t use this while you are pregnant. I’ve had my self-cleaning oven for more than 10 years and it is still running great, but I don’t use the cleaning feature that often. I think it would be difficult to make such a strong endorsement for a product that’s only been used once. Please don’t cave to the advertisers or it will be a be hard to take this blog seriously. And it has been filled with helpful information.
Rebecca, says
No offense Sue, but my oven would laugh at vinegar and baking soda. As long as I don’t stick my head in the oven while it’s working or lick the can, I’m sure I won’t have to call poison control. Just because someone chooses to use things that are designed to make life easier doesn’t mean she is uneducated and doesn’t care about the earth.
Andrea – thanks for the post and the pictures. I’m going to go get some of that poison tomorrow!
Sue says
No offense, Rebecca, but I hope readers of this blog will listen to those who have the credentials rather than those who trivialize the danger of the ingredients these products contain that may make our lives easier in the short term, but certainly not in the long term.
For those readers who do care to find out more about this product the link to the company’s MSDS is http://www.rbnainfo.com/MSDS//US/US%20-%20EASY-OFF%20Fume%20Free%20Max%20Oven%20Cleaner%20Aerosol%20-%20English%20(May%202013).pdf
The pH of this product is 12.5 which makes it highly corrosive.
Rebecca says
Of course it’s corrosive, it’s meant to clean an oven, not moisturize your face. And if I listened to everyone who has some sort of credentials and followed what they say, I’d never go outside or eat anything processed or let my kids touch a door handle for fear of something bad happening. It’s annoying when so called experts scare people into not using their common sense.
Sue says
As a former Certified Specialist in Poison Information for the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital Regional Poison Center, and as an RN and someone who is concerned about long term affects of chemicals on our health and our planet, I strongly recommend you NOT use strong chemicals to clean with. The same results can be easily obtained using natural products such as vinegar and baking soda.
Check out the Environmental Working Group’s Hall of Shame:
http://static.ewg.org/reports/2012/cleaners_hallofshame/cleaners_hallofshame.pdf
You’ll find Easy Off on this list as well as some products that might surprise you like Simple Green. I can attest that exposures to the products listed resulted in some of the worst cases we followed at the Poison Center.
I encourage you to educate yourselves about the dangers of chemicals and to find alternatives in your pantry.
Your health and the health of our planet depends on it!
Colette says
“The same results can be easily obtained using natural products such as vinegar and baking soda.” ??? I’m sorry, that’s simply NOT TRUE! I understand concerns about using products with chemicals that can be or are dangerous. But, like anything else, common sense plays a role in using them too. I have tried every “natural” recipe I have found, and no matter what it’s for, it never works as good as the “chemical” it replaces. I guess everyone needs to judge for themselves if the risk is worth it for them. I will continue to use Easy Off, it works, and I am careful.
Kristen says
FYI, I just checked an online coupon database and there should be a $0.75 coupon in the 11/17 Smart Source coupon insert, if anyone has that and wants to look for it 🙂
Chalyse Meiklejohn says
We just bought a new house 2 weeks ago and the oven was nasty. I have yet to clean it… but I will be buying this product to try! Thanks!
Andrea says
Yay for a new house! I was SOOOOO surprised how well this cleaner worked — I definitely think it will help solve your nasty oven problem!
Kristen says
I think maybe the price has gone up on Amazon 😉 But I will look at Target the next time I’m there. There is some grime that doesn’t come off even using the self-cleaning feature of my oven. And now that I know it’s not good for the oven I’ll try to avoid using that feature!!
Andrea says
Yikes, the price did go up since last week! I just changed the link to more pricing options — thanks 🙂
Chris says
I’m so glad to hear this. For some reason, I thought since I had an oven with a self-cleaning cycle, I thought that was the only way to clean my oven. AND they say if you use that cycle too often, your oven doesn’t last as long, so I have been trying to limit it to maybe two times a year.
Andrea says
Me too Chris — I had no idea I could use simple sprays to clean a self-cleaning oven. This cleaner has changed the way I will clean my oven from now on!! Hope it works for you too 🙂
Jen says
I keep a silicone mat (found on Amazon) in the bottom of the oven so that any spills land on the mat and I just have to pull that out and clean it. I use this exact product to clean the mat AND my oven between big cleanings!
Organize 365 says
Wow! I just cleaned BOTH my ovens the last 2 days! What a great post timing!
🙂
Lisa
Deni says
This post comes at the perfect time, as it’s on my to-do list. Mine is really messy and I dreaded using the self-cleaning method, which I will never do again thanks to one of your followers comments. Thank you so much, I will pick up a can today!
Andrea says
Well the Easy-Off is lots cheaper than needing to replace your entire oven — so I hope you have as much success with it as I did 🙂
Happy oven cleaning!
Susan says
I love this post. We had to buy a new oven last year, and I was convinced it had been the self-cleaning that had broken it. The salesman at the appliance store confirmed my suspicions. He said he would never recommend a self-cleaning oven to anyone… they take years off the appliance and are extremely hard on them. BUT. It’s hard to find a nice oven WITHOUT a self-cleaning feature. And then even if you say you won’t use that feature, difficult to find a cleaning method that is safe on a self-cleaning oven. So thank you for highlighting this!
Candace says
We had the same experience. Our broiler never worked again after running the self cleaning cycle. So glad to see this post!
Andrea says
WOW — I NEVER knew this! Thanks for sharing Susan!
Our oven has a self-cleaning feature but I’ve never used it yet. I’m thinking I’ll just stick to using the EASY-OFF from now on!
Kathy Jonkman says
Yes – Our oven broke after I used the self cleaning feature….20 some years ago. I have not used that feature since and don’t ever plan to.
Diana from SC says
What about the oven coils? Does the spray damage them or do you just clean them, too? Thanks for the information. Just love you blog spot.
Andrea says
Thanks Diana!
I sprayed the coils too (not sure there’s a way to avoid them) and they wiped up really nicely.