All You Need Is Salt And Lemon To Clean Minor Kitchen Stains

If you're tired of using chemical cleaning agents to give your home a good sterilization and remove stains, you should turn to your pantry for some inspiration. Lemon and salt are effective natural cleaning ingredients that don't release harmful chemicals. You can use them to clean many surfaces in your kitchen, including food stain hotspots like your butcher block and countertop because they come into contact with food daily.

Why do salt and lemon work so well to clean your kitchen? "[Salt's] structure makes it mildly abrasive so it's good for cleaning stuck-on messes. It's also absorbent, so it's great for soaking up spills and removing stains," as Homes and Gardens reports. As for lemon juice, since it's acidic, it produces a charge that pulls up the molecules of a stain, making it easier to remove. A lemon-salt combo not only comes to the rescue for different cleaning tasks around the kitchen, but it also leaves behind a nice lemony scent.

To remove food stains from your butcher block, you'll need to mix together one cup of fresh lemon juice with half a cup of salt. Mix it well so that it forms a paste, then rub the paste into the stains. To allow the mixture to work, leave it on for the night while you catch up on your beauty sleep. The next day, simply remove the mixture with a damp cloth. 

You can also use another method for cleaning butcher blocks and wooden cutting boards. After sprinkling salt on the board, cut a lemon in half and use it to scrub the salt in. Allow the salt and lemon to work their magic for a few minutes, then wash the board with soapy water and dry it thoroughly before packing it away. 

It's worth noting that lemon and salt are effective at removing mild stains. However, if you're dealing with a more stubborn stain, like tomato sauce or red wine that's had time to set, you should try removing them with more powerful ingredients, such as hydrogen peroxide.

There are other items in your kitchen that can benefit from this old salt and lemon hack, too. If you've got greasy pans, put salt on them and then squeeze a lemon over the salt. Scrub the grease and let the ingredients work for a few minutes before rinsing them. The lemon's acidity removes grease, and the salt provides scrubbing action — this is why it's recommended to use semi-coarse salt. You can use the same method to remove discoloration from your stainless steel sink too, so it's really versatile. For shiny, clean wooden countertops, again, you can use the same method. However, you might want to avoid this method if you have kitchen surfaces made of marble or granite, because acidic ingredients can damage them. 

And, if your oven needs a quick clean, sprinkle salt on any splashes of food that occur during the cooking process, then use lemon and water to remove them. You'll need to fill a pan with water and lemon juice, then let it boil in the oven so the steam pulls up the dirt for you to wipe away. This cleaning hack prevents the need for chemicals, which is good because oven cleaners are bad for your health due to their toxic ingredients. Whether you mix them together in a scrub or apply them directly to dirty surfaces, lemon and salt can make your kitchen sparkle from top to bottom.