A Guide to Seriously Deep Cleaning Your Kitchen

The kitchen is the room in which you prepare your favorite dishes, meals are shared, and dishwashing occurs, so it's no wonder that cleaning this space can feel like a daunting task. To make everyday maintenance easier, an occasional deep cleaning is necessary, especially in those tough-to-reach areas. With some Earth-friendly formulas and elbow grease, your entire space will shine again in no time.

Kitchen cabinets are one of the first things people notice upon entering the room, and with such a prominent display comes the need for a thorough scrub. Whether they're covered in a coat of dust or a film of grease, we know exactly what you need to do in order to make them look as good as they did the day they were installed. The next spot to pay extra attention to? Your oven. Prone to baked-on stains and charred remnants of previous recipes, it requires a deep clean every few weeks. Don't skip the inside! Be sure to wash the racks separately with soap and water for a thorough cleanse.

When's the last time you gave your fridge a good once over? The refrigerator deserves a serious wash at least twice a year, including a full soak of the inside bins. A stainless-steel exterior should be wiped down with a homemade solution and microfiber cloth.

One of the most frequented areas is your entire kitchen is the sink, including the garbage disposal if you have one. As a place to scrub everything from fresh produce to pots and pans, the sink often gets overlooked—it's where everything goes to get clean, so many assume it needs no care itself. But with food scraps and a build-up of grime, cleaning the sink and disposal is an absolute must. We're recommending techniques for getting both back in sparkling order.

After you clean your cabinets, appliances, and the sink, there's one more spot to tackle: the kitchen floor. The technique you use to clean it will depend on what it's made of, but we're showing you how to give both hardwood and tile surfaces a good wash. Ready to get cleaning? Our best advice is just ahead.

All you need to give your kitchen cabinets a serious deep clean is Castile soap, a microfiber cloth, and a little elbow grease. If your cabinet doors are greasy, wipe them down with a solution of one-part vinegar to two parts water.

You might think a spot where regular washing occurs wouldn't need such a heavy cleaning, but food scraps and grime can leave your kitchen sink looking anything but new. Clean the sink itself with baking soda and lime. For the disposal, try a vinegar-soaked loaf of bread stuffed in the canister. We recommend letting it sit for 15 minutes, then turning on the disposal and flushing it with cold water before following up with frozen citrus rinds.

The oven is prone to baked-on messes and burnt remnants of meals gone by. That's why it's important to scrub this appliance every few weeks and to be sure that it gets a deep clean immediately after spills happen. Don't forget the inside! The oven racks need to be cleaned separately, while the oven itself can be wiped down with a homemade paste.

One of the biggest projects to tackle during your kitchen deep clean is the refrigerator. As a home to perishable foods, it's often prone to spills, leaks, and rings left behind from containers. For a serious clean, we recommend removing everything inside and giving the bins a good soak with baking soda and water. For a stainless-steel exterior, mix one-parts vinegar to two-parts water and wipe down with a microfiber cloth.

Get your kitchen floor looking shiny in no time. We recommend cleaning this easily dirtied surface weekly. The cleaning techniques you use will depend on the material of your floors: for hardwood, sweep or vacuum before mopping; for tile, mop with warm water and all-purpose cleaner.