10 Kitchen Cleaning Tips And Tricks CLEAN 10X FASTER

I've got some of the actual best kitchen cleaning hacks for you today. If there is one room that I am highly skilled at cleaning, it's the kitchen. Some of these are about killing bacteria, smells, dealing with grease, kitchen clutter. If you put all of these together, you're going to have the cleanest kitchen in the neighborhood. I'm going to take you through my own kitchen and show you what I do. And I came up with this video idea because there's this tool on YouTube. And they can show you what people are looking for. And it looks like a lot of people are looking for the best kitchen cleaning hacks and tips. So that's what I'm going to give you. Number one is the smell. Because when your kitchen doesn't smell the best, a lot of people assume it's the trash. And this happens. Sometimes you could have the cleanest kitchen. It doesn't smell the cleanest. I'm going to tell you why. And I figured this out. It's actually your drain. It is 99.9% of the time your drain. I try to clean mine once a week. Sometimes if I'm cooking a lot, I do have to clean it a little bit more. But when I tell you, once I clean that drain, my kitchen smells fresh. And I'm going to show you what I do. Now, if you have a garbage disposal, this is what I do. And this is what you're going to need to do. You are going to use some liquid dish soap. And you are going to fill that disposal with some ice. You're going to put that liquid dish soap inside. Then you're going to run some cool water. And you're going to turn on that garbage disposal. You're going to see some brown gunk come up. That's perfectly fine. That's fantastic, actually. And then what I do is I will take an old toothbrush. The key is being an old toothbrush. And you're going to use some baking soda. And, again, some liquid dish soap. And you're going to clean those rubber flaps. Some of them are removable. Mine are not. Whatever kind you have, those flaps are causing a lot of your problem. So you're going to clean them. And once you get those rubber flaps clean, your drain is going to smell amazing. So let's talk about the kitchen sponge. Now, personally, I only ever buy the natural sponges. I like to get the cellulose sponges. My husband, however, went shopping and he got some of these plastic ones. I'm not really delighted about that. But they're not returnable, so I have to use these. Kitchen sponges are notoriously dirty. And there has been so much conflicting advice out there on how to clean them and what to do. I, personally, am not going to be changing my sponge every week. I try to use mine for at least five weeks. The CDC does recommend changing it every two weeks for what that's worth. One study, which I will link, showed densities as high as 45 billion bacteria per square centimeter in some kitchen sponges. Basically, what that says is some parts of your sponge is dirtier than your toilet. So what to do? Back in the day, people used to tell you to put it in the microwave or your dishwasher. But don't do that. Now they know that that actually makes it worse. Instead, you're going to boil a pot of water. Just boil a pot of water on your stove and drop your sponge in. Leave it in there for five to seven minutes. Then, after that, fish it out with some tongs. When it cools, you can squeeze it out, let it air dry, and you're going to have a fantastic bacteria-free sponge. The next tip is about your dishwasher, if you have one. So many years ago, I noticed that my dishwasher wasn't working as well. And I went online to see what to do, and I realized that you really need to be cleaning your dishwasher for it to run in tip-top condition. And honestly, if you have a dishwasher, you want it to run in good condition. Because why do you want to clean your dishes after you get them out of the dishwasher or before you put them in the dishwasher, right? You just want to load them and not think about it. So there's a few things you can do to keep your dishwasher clean. And the first one is super simple. You are simply, when you run your next load of dishes, you're going to take a cup, fill it with vinegar, and put it on the top rack, run your dishes as usual. If you want an even deeper clean, I actually get one of those dishwasher cleaner packets, or they have these tablets. And the key here is, though, you use this tablet, but the important thing that you need to do is once you use the tablet, then you open up your dishwasher and you let it air dry. The reason a lot of dishwashers smell, it's constantly wet. It's constantly full of moisture. So you leave it open and you let it air dry. It's going to take a while. It's going to be annoying. You're going to have to leave it open for eight hours or so, but you're going to love it. And don't forget, you also need to remove the filter, scrub that every year or so. Just small things like that are going to go a long way in keeping your dishwasher clean and your kitchen clean. Another reason why your kitchen feels dirty, maybe even after you've cleaned it, is because of the things that you're touching all the time in your kitchen. And these are things that you touch and your kids touch, and you don't even think about cleaning them that often. And I'm talking about your refrigerator handles, your cabinet pulls, your oven knobs, your light switches. Very easy. Once or twice a week, just take some hot, soapy water with a rag and go over those hot spots. You'll actually be very surprised how much dirt and grime is on these surfaces. I mean, if you think about it, I'm touching my refrigerator handle probably 30 times a day, so obviously it's going to be dirty. When you do this, your kitchen is going to instantly feel cleaner, and it's just such a tiny little effort. Okay, the next one, we've been talking a bit about smells, but I'm going to tell you, don't use air fresheners. If you watch my channel, you know that I think these are very unhealthy for you. You certainly don't want to be breathing in these synthetic chemicals all day. Instead, simmer a pot of vinegar. Now, I have to tell you, I was very skeptical about this as well. But according to lifehacker.com, and according to me because I've tested this, you can absorb odors in your kitchen by doing this. So what you're going to do is you're going to fill a pot, put it on your stove, give it a little simmer. It's going to smell like vinegar, but don't worry because that doesn't last. That will go away. It won't smell like anything, and it will get rid of the odors. It's magic. Another thing, I like to make my own cleaners. And a lot of times our cabinets will get greasy, or even the underside of cabinets will get greasy if it's near the stove or your backsplash. What you're going to do, instead of just spraying some regular cleaner on it, which kind of makes it worse in my opinion, just take a spray bottle and fill it up with some hot water. Add a couple pumps of liquid dish soap and do that because the hot water will actually melt that grease right off. You will be using like 70% less elbow grease if you go this route. Let's talk cutting boards. A lot of you are still using those plastic cutting boards. I prefer the wood ones. I don't want to be eating microplastics. I also heard the titanium ones are good or the glass ones. But the tip here is when you clean your cutting boards, don't store them down and don't stack them. Instead, all you want to do is store them upright. This will give some airflow. It will prevent all the things that I see your comments on. A lot of you are worried about bacteria on your cutting boards. If you're stacking them, that could happen. Laying them flat also traps that moisture, which again contributes to bacteria growth. Just store them upright. It's going to make a big difference. I do think it's going to save you space as well. Air fryer baskets. Let's talk about this. I know a lot of people use air fryers. I just think they are so difficult to clean. I see your comments and I'm with you. Here is the method that I found works the best. I actually like Dawn Power Wash. If you have that, you can use it. If you don't have that, that's fine. You can just use a little bit of water and some liquid dish soap. What you're going to do is you're going to put either the Dawn Power Wash or you're going to add some water and dish soap directly into the air fryer basket. You're going to let it coat the sides. Then you're going to use a very, very soft toothbrush to scrub it. You want to make sure that it's a soft thing that you're using because these air fryers, a lot of them have coatings on them and you don't want to scratch them. You can also add some baking soda. You can put a little splash of hydrogen peroxide and use that to scrub. It's going to work really well, but the key, I'm going to tell you this. Unfortunately, you need to try and clean your air fryer basket every time you use it because what happens if you use it once and then you put it away and you think, oh, it doesn't look that dirty and then you use it again? What happens is the oil that had cooked before is going to cook again and it's going to turn into this very dark, sticky, terrible thing. That you're going to need to use the paste to clean. It's basically this solidified, sticky substance. It's terrible. If you know, you know. So try to clean it every time you use it. If you don't, if you don't want to, go ahead and use the paste method that I shared. It works really well. Okay, let's move on. This is number nine. Another thing to keep your kitchen clean, and this isn't really a hack. I'm just going to tell you, keep your counters clear of clutter. I know you've heard this before. I have to put it in here, though, because I by far think you could have a really dirty kitchen, but if there's nothing on your counters and it just looks empty, it actually looks clean. You could also have a really clean kitchen, but if you've got a lot of clutter, it's never going to look clean. So that's just my little tip. Okay, the next one is counter cleaning by section. Sometimes it's overwhelming to clean our whole kitchen. Who wants to spend the day cleaning your kitchen, right? Instead of wiping your whole kitchen, all you're going to do is you're going to choose one counter section per day. So if you have three counter sections, okay, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, done. If you have five counter sections, Monday through Friday, you're done. Just choose that one section and do it, because it's not going to feel difficult. It's a very small space, but it's going to go a long way, and it's going to make your kitchen feel very clean if you can at least do the one section per day. Okay, guys, those are my 10 best kitchen cleaning tips and tricks. I think putting these together and doing them is going to go a long way in keeping your kitchen clean. And kitchens, I mean, they're one of the most used rooms in our home, right? So they're not easy to keep clean. But with these hacks, I think this is going to be very helpful. If you want to keep watching, I've done a lot of videos on kitchen cleaning. Of course, I'm going to link them up here. Don't forget to subscribe. I would love to see you here on my channel, and I hope you have a great day. I'll see you next time.