With regards to How to Clean Toaster Oven Tray, The most challenging task in the kitchen is to keep your kitchen appliances super clean and tidy. And this is where most of us need help.
Today we are addressing one such issue. And that is how to clean the toaster oven tray. The accumulated burnt or greasy food on the toaster oven trays often becomes super sticky and stubborn to remove. It may also hinder the cooking experience and even the meal’s taste. This means you have to put in some extra effort to clean them up!
So in this article, we are going to talk about:
- Kinds of dirt that can get stuck on your toaster oven tray
- Quick and effective ways to clean the toaster oven tray
- Some hacks and tips for cleaning toaster oven tray
Without any further ado, let’s dig in…
Kinds Of Dirt That Can Get Stuck on Your Toaster Oven Tray
After all the broiling, baking, roasting, and defrosting done in a toaster oven, it is not surprising that your toaster oven tray gets greasy and dirty. Some of the cooking specks of dirt on the toaster oven tray that you may experience are:
- Crumbles – This usually comes from foods that are easily broken apart. For instance, bread, crackers, cooked bacon, dry cheeses, etc.
- Food Grease – It’s a thin greasy layer that develops over time after some meals are cooked on the same tray again and again, without cleaning it.
- Burnt Food – Baking of various meals in the toaster oven often leads to food burn, which causes the residual of food burnt to get stuck on the tray.
The first one is obviously the easiest one to clean. You can just simply dump the crumbs in the bin, use any mild soap with a sponge to wash it in the sink, and let it dry for reuse. This is the basic cleaning for any toaster oven tray – often used for daily light cleaning.
However, the other two are difficult to remove and time-consuming, but not impossible to clean. It requires more effort and some homemade cleaning agents. But you can make your toaster oven tray super clean with the correct cleaning method.
Quick And Effective Ways to Clean the Toaster Oven Tray
Before jumping into cleaning, you must perform some necessary steps to clean your toaster oven tray to ensure safety, which is:
- You must unplug your toaster oven from any electric appliances before removing its tray.
- Read the user manual’s instructions, if available with the product.
- Then, remove the tray from your toaster oven carefully.
- Damp all the dry food residual in the bin before applying any cleaning agents. It helps in reducing your time and efforts for cleaning the tray.
- If the tray is too hot, cool it down under the tap water in the sink.
Now, moving on to the cleaning methods, we’ll talk about three cleaning methods. It involves the use of the following ingredients:
- Cooking salt
- Baking soda paste
- White vinegar with sugar
In the following section, we’ll tell you how to prepare these quick solutions and use each of them to clean your toaster oven tray in a cinch!
Cooking Salt
One of the quickest and easiest cleaning methods for the toaster oven tray is to use cooking salt – readily available in almost any household.
This cleaning technique requires immediate sprinkles of salt on any food residual before it solidifies on the tray. That is, you must sprinkle the salt on any food bubbles, spills, or splatter on the tray before it dries and becomes a solid substance. Because that can potentially get stuck on the tray harder.
Other than that, you can also get the added benefit of eliminating any odors on the tray. As salt absorbs those chemicals or residuals and removes their odors from the tray in the most harmless way.
Baking Soda Paste
The second method for cleaning the stubborn food residuals on your toaster oven tray is mixing baking soda with water. It is commonly used to remove the tough stains on the kitchen appliances in any household. It breaks up the cooking dirt that is stuck on any surface. And for the toaster oven trays, it does the same job quite effectively.
Here is what you need to do:
- Mix the baking soda with water in a ratio of two to one.
- Stir the baking soda with water in a bowl until a paste is formed
- Apply to your toaster oven tray with any soft brush.
- Keep the paste applied overnight or potentially at least four to five hours.
- Then, wipe clean with a cloth.
Remember, you must mix the right amount of baking soda and water. Moreover, you have to apply the paste directly to the food stains of the tray and keep it for a few hours to achieve better cleaning results.
White Vinegar with Sugar
For the third cleaning method for the toaster oven tray, you can use white vinegar with sugar. The white vinegar holds the acidic properties that eliminate the dirt and kill bacteria from any surface. That’s why most households use it as a powerful cleaner. And mixing the white vinegar with sugar further enhances its property to clean any dirt on the surface.
So, when it comes to cleaning the toaster oven tray using white vinegar and sugar, it performs as an effective cleaning agent. But just like in the previous method, you have to properly prepare the solution of white vinegar with sugar. Then, gently scrub the stained area of the tray after letting the solution rest for an hour.
You can make the solution of white vinegar with sugar and clean the tray by performing the following easy steps:
- Mix the white vinegar with sugar in a ratio of one cup to two tablespoons in a jug, bottle, or bowl. That means, for every cup of white vinegar, add two tablespoons of sugar.
- Pour it on your toaster oven tray while it is still hot.
- Keep the applied solution for at least one hour.
- Then, gently scrub it with a dry and clean cloth.
But be careful not to scrub aggressively. Otherwise, it might damage your toaster oven tray instead of cleaning it.
Some Hacks and Tips for Cleaning Toaster Oven Tray
To help you out with the advance cleaning of the toaster oven tray, just follow the quick hacks and tips that are mentioned here:
- Sprinkle baking soda over the tray surface and put it in the shallow bath of white distilled vinegar. Let it sit for at least 15 minutes to an hour. Then, rinse and dry the tray.
- Use a butter knife to scrape the grease layer stuck on the oven tray. Once you have most of it removed, you can continue with the usual cleaning.
- Do the daily light cleaning after each use of the tray. Because the food grease becomes harder to remove over time.
Concluding Remarks
Cleaning the toaster oven tray can be tedious if you are not cleaning it regularly. Plus, you must clean the tray for better cooking and food experience. Not to forget that it also makes the tray durable and healthy. So, putting up a little effort to clean the toaster oven tray will give you a long-term benefit without worrying about dirt and grime!