Thanksgiving is coming, and if you are planning to cook a Thanksgiving turkey or other dishes, now is a good time to clean your oven naturally before cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Nobody wants the house filled with smoke from a dirty oven on a holiday!

We opt for using natural cleaning products instead of the more toxic options—keeping it clean, fresh, and without fumes. Discover More about the other options available from this site.

Our cleaning product of choice is baking soda. There are two camps, one that adds vinegar and the other hydrogen peroxide to the baking soda to cut through the grime.

Here’s the best way to go about it:
Take everything out of your oven, and set it aside for cleaning.

Make a spreadable paste of baking soda and your liquid of choice (either vinegar or hydrogen peroxide) a few tablespoons for every half cup. If you remember from third-grade science, this will create a chemical reaction that fizzes. So, use a larger bowl.

Coat the entire interior of your oven with the paste avoiding the elements. You might want to use rubber gloves for this part. Use a little extra for the dirtiest areas.

Close the door, and allow the oven to sit overnight. This part is crucial.

In the mean time, you can clean your oven racks. If they don’t fit easily in the sink, we recommend putting down some old bath towels in the bottom of the tub, and scrubbing them there.

The next day, wipe out the oven with a damp rag or sponge. You can use a spatula on the really tough parts.

Put some distilled vinegar in a squirt bottle, and spray down the inside surfaces. The vinegar will react with the baking soda residue and foam up.

Do a final wipe-down with a damp cloth or sponge. Rinse and repeat until all the residue is gone.

Now, when you heat up the oven, the room won’t fill with the noxious odor of cleaning chemicals!