What’s the best way to clean an oven?

Oven-cleaning method to prevent fire risk

The oven-cleaning guidance focuses on a simple safety goal: remove baked-on grease so it can’t accumulate and potentially ignite. Instead of letting grime build up until it’s hard to scrub, the approach is to break the cycle early and clean thoroughly enough that residue doesn’t remain as a thick, flammable layer.

The core idea

When grease is baked onto surfaces, it becomes stubborn and more resistant to normal wiping. The safest move is to tackle it before it turns into a heavy, charred crust. That’s what the advice is aimed at: don’t let baked-on grease “win,” because it increases the chance of smoke or worse during preheating.

A practical checklist

• Target the grease spots rather than doing only a quick wipe-down.
• Use a cleaning approach that actually lifts residue, not just surface dust.
• Rinse/wipe until no slippery film remains, since leftover cleaner and grease can both affect odors and performance.

Why this matters for cooking

An oven that’s clean of grease tends to heat more consistently and produces fewer lingering flavors or smells. Most importantly, the guidance is explicitly about reducing the odds of the oven catching fire during cooking cycles.

If you’re cleaning after holiday baking—when spills and splatter are common—consider doing a deeper clean than you normally would. The goal is to leave the oven ready for future cooking without a layer of old grease that could be reactivated by heat.