How To Clean Grubby Oven Knobs And Make Them Shine

Cleaning your kitchen is important, and there are parts of it you really shouldn't forget about, both for aesthetic reasons (a clean kitchen looks nicer) and for health reasons (a dirty kitchen is way more likely to pose health risks). You need to degrease your surfaces, wash your sinks, and thoroughly clean your dishwashers (especially the doors) — all of these are important for your health and safety.

But, there's another aspect to kitchen cleaning you need to remember to do, and it's such a simple one you might be totally forgetting about it: the knobs on your appliances, and particularly on your oven. They're a part of your kitchen that hides in plain it's easy to overlook them. But they also most definitely need to be cleaned. As far as how to clean them, the answer comes down to one of the most classic and readily-available cleaning substances: vinegar.

It's not surprising vinegar is getting involved here; there are two cleaning substances that show up everywhere when you're looking for advice about non-toxic solutions for kitchen or even grill cleaning, and those are baking soda and vinegar. There's a reason for that: Both of them actually work far, far better (often in conjunction) than you would most likely expect.

But, when it comes to oven knobs, you're just dealing with vinegar — both for the knobs themselves and the place where they sit on the oven. Remove the knobs and drop them into a bowl of white vinegar to soak for around 5 minutes. Then spray some of that same vinegar onto the side of the oven where the knobs were and let that sit for about a full minute. Using a sponge or microfiber cloth, wipe away what remains on the oven, then wash the knobs themselves in some water and dish soap, making sure to let them air dry fully before you put them back on. That's it — that's the whole process.

As far as why you should be going out of your way to do this, well, oven knobs are actually one of the biggest potential safety hazards in the entire kitchen. This starts to make sense when you stop and think about it: You're touching them pretty frequently, and you're probably not washing your hands after every time you do so. This means cross-contamination is a big problem (for what it's worth, it's also an issue with microwave keypads for the same reason, so clean those too).

It can be difficult to keep up with every sanitization technique you should be doing as you work in the kitchen — no judgment! — but there's a reason why the first day at culinary school entails an exorbitant amount of time on handwashing. And, it's likely you're (very understandably) too busy to clean the knobs while you're trying to slap together a family meal, or in between meetings, or satisfy those pangs as quickly as possible, so that's why it's important to come in after the fact and do things like wash your oven knobs from time to time.