Today we are talking about how to clean the microwave and, as always, how to spend as little time as possible doing it. The hard thing about this year long challenge that I did not take into account is that I would be showing you just how bad things get around here, sometimes on purpose so I have a good before and ofter photo but that is not always the case.
Microwave safe bowl or cup
1 Cup water
Either lemons/lemon juice, vinegar or baking soda
Rag or sponge
Cleaning gloves {optional}
Microwave
In the microwave safe dish, I used a glass measuring cup, add one cup water and about 3-4 Tbls lemon juice {or fresh lemon wedges}. You could substitute this will a cup of vinegar or 3-4 Tbls baking soda.
Place it in the microwave for 3-5 minutes, this will depend on the strength of your microwave but it needs to be long enough that the water will boil. Mine was set for 5 minutes because we had a couple of things overflow and it has been a while since the last deep clean. As the water boils the steam mixture will attach onto the grease and gunk and loosen it right up. The acid in the lemon juice or vinegar will also help to disinfect.
Now to simply wipe out the microwave and watch in amazement as EVERYTHING comes right off. Remember, you just boiled the water, even after sitting for a few minutes it is still going to be super hot, so use caution. Use the rag or sponge and get it wet using the water mixture that just came out of the microwave to wipe down the inside. At the very end I wiped it down with just warm water to get any excuse lemon juice residue off.
That is it, it is really that easy. This time I used lemon juice and it worked GREAT! Seriously from start to finish, getting everything out and cleaning out the rag and sponge, it took me 15 minutes and NO SCRUBBING was involved. Go ahead and make a mess in your microwave so you can try out this cleaning tip and see how easy it is for yourself.
I did not want to deal with the fumes from boiling the vinegar like I did when I cleaned the drip pans and I need some more baking soda but when I get around to testing these other two options out, I will let you know.