How to Steam Clean Your Oven: A Step-by-Step Guide

By
Jeneva Aaron
Jeneva is the founder and CEO of thehousewire.com where she provides honest and objective reviews on home and cleaning products. She is a cleaning enthusiast. She got inspired to build her own cleaning blog when she realized how cleaning can make an impact on our lives and how a cleaner home can affect a person's mood.
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Updated May 21, 2023

Scrub-free cleaning

How to Steam Clean Your Oven: A Step-by-Step Guide

Are you tired of scrubbing your oven with corrosive chemicals to remove grease and food residue build-up? Not only does this lead to nasty caustic fumes, but it also takes a lot of hard work.

Steam cleaning your oven can offer you an easy alternative for removing the grime and gunk without the extra effort.

We’ll show you how you can steam clean your oven even if it doesn’t have a steam or self-cleaning feature. Follow this guide to keep your oven clean and pristine in three easy steps!

How To Steam Clean An Oven

How to Steam Clean Your Oven

This method doesn’t involve using a steam cleaner. Instead, it involves using steam to clean the old-fashioned way, without a steam cleaning function in your oven.

The reason is that steam cleaning creates hot vapor that dissolves any food particles or residues inside of your oven. The heat from the steam will loosen dirt and food residue from everyday spills.

This makes it easy to wipe the loose debris clean without needing to scrub or use harsh chemicals.

Warning

However, a lot of oven brands don’t recommend using a steam cleaner to clean your oven.

This can cause moisture to build up inside of the interior. And this could damage your oven or void your warranty.

Plus, the steam from a steam cleaner could also damage the electrical components and cause a short circuit. And this could be dangerous or cause an injury.

What You’ll Need

 

Steam Oven Cleaning Step By Step

1. Remove Grease and Soils With Baking Soda

Steam cleaning is intended to clean only light food residue or small spills using water and a low cleaning temperature. So, the first step is to wipe away grease and build-up from the interior of your oven.

Many manufacturers recommend avoiding traditional oven cleaners, strong detergents, steel wool, or metal scouring pads. They can damage or scratch the interior of some oven models.

Instead, use a mixture of water and mild soap or white vinegar to wipe away any residue.

You can also use baking soda as an eco-friendly and effective cleaning solution. This is great for removing greasy food residue.

To do this:

  • Mix baking soda and water together to form a paste.
  • Apply the paste to your oven.
  • Then, wipe it off using white vinegar. The vinegar will react with the baking soda and dissolve it.
  • Lastly, rinse off the vinegar solution from your oven with water and dry it with a soft cloth.

2. Pour Water In The Oven & Light the Oven

Next, pour one cup of clean water into the bottom of your oven.

You can also pour water into an oven-safe bowl or oven-safe pot, like a casserole dish. Place the oven safe dish, pot, or bowl filled with water inside of your oven.

Keep In Mind

Some manufacturers suggest adding dishwashing liquid to the water. Or, you can add lemon slices to help to remove odors from your oven.

Make sure you remove both the dirty oven racks and side racks from your oven. And make sure there is no aluminum foil inside of your oven when you steam clean.

To clean the sides of your oven, you can use a spray bottle with a mixture of water and dishwashing liquid. Spray this all over the sides.

Then, close your oven doors and set the temperature to 175°F (80°C) for 30 minutes.

3. Turn the Oven Off and Wipe Water Away

After 30 minutes, turn your hot oven off and let the oven cool.

By this point, most of the water will have evaporated. So you can wipe the interior of your cool oven with a clean cloth or paper towel.

You can also use a damp cloth or sponge to wipe away any tarnish marks, stubborn spots, or remaining soil.

Lastly, switch the fan function on for 10 minutes at 160°C to completely dry your oven. This will ensure there are no nasty odors left over after cleaning.

FAQ

Keep these details in mind before you steam clean your oven.

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Can I Still Use a Handheld Steam Cleaner on My Oven?

No, we don’t recommend using a handheld or any other type of steam cleaner inside your oven. As we mentioned above, this is against the advice of oven manufacturers and could cause damage or lead to injury.

However, you can use the handheld steam cleaner to clean your oven doors.

To do this:

  • Fill the water tank on your handheld steam cleaner with water.
  • Attach the brass brush attachment to your steamer and turn it on to the highest setting. Then, scrub the inside of your oven door in back and forth motions.
  • And wipe off any remaining grime with a clean microfibre cloth or sponge.

If you do want to use the steamer to clean the interior of your oven, make sure you keep it away from the heat element. If the steam cleaning unit is too close to the heat element it could cause an electric shock or damage the unit.

And keep in mind that using a steamer to clean the interior of your oven is at your own risk. And it could void the manufacturer’s warranty.

You can watch this video to find out more about steam cleaning an oven.


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Is Steam Clean Better Than a Self-Clean Oven?

When it comes to cleaning efficiency, steam cleaning is not better than a self-clean oven.

The steam cleaning process cleans your oven at a lower temperature and in a shorter amount of time than a self-cleaning cycle. So it’s not as effective for oven cleaning as self pyrolytic cleaning.

The steam-cleaning option is faster than using a self-cleaning cycle, and only takes around 30-minutes.

However, it’s not an effective method for handling a lot of grease or stubborn stains. It’s more suitable for light oven cleaning and minor food spills.

So, if you have a lot of grease or grime to clean, you should consider using a self-cleaning cycle. But, for cleaning minor food spills, steam cleaning is a great option.

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