Toaster Ovens Are a Pain to Clean. Here’s the Easy Way

Everyone who buys a complicated modern countertop oven is quickly beset with a dilemma: how to clean a toaster oven with nonstick coatings and breakable parts, and lord knows what else. The modern multifeature accessory oven is beset by odd crannies and frangible heating elements. If you convect or air fry a chicken, the grease will fly off in all directions in a fine and oily mist and land, ickily, on the oven walls.

Let all this go unchecked, and your oven will either look bad, smell bad, or both. I test toaster ovens and air fryers for a living, so I’ve had to clean many variations of oven. And I’ve made at least one costly mistake along the way, by absent-mindedly thinking it was a good idea to clean grease droppings off a quartz heating element with my thumbnail. (Don’t do this. You’ll break it, and despair.)

But don’t worry. And don’t resort to harsh chemicals that’ll damage your oven or make your food weird. Here’s some step-by-step, practical advice about how to keep your toaster oven clean— and advice on how to clean it when all seems lost.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Clean Often, and Soon

The simplest advice is the one that will save you from ever needing more advice in the future: Clean your oven after every meal that contains fat, oil, butter, and/or dairy. Even if it’s just a little damp-cloth wipe-down and even if the oven doesn’t look dirty. If you don’t bake yesterday’s grease into the sides of the oven and glass door, you’ve already won the war of the future. It’s like Ender’s Game.

Anyway, here’s a quick step-by-step for daily cleaning, following the good advice of toaster oven makers Breville, Cuisinart, and Panasonic.

Step-by-Step Instructions on Cleaning a Toaster Oven

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Wait for your oven to cool: Eat your dinner first. Was it good? That’s exciting. Don’t try to clean a hot pan and oven; it’ll hurt, and there’s no reason for it. After dinner, go survey the damage.

Remove racks and trays, including but especially the crumb tray beneath the heating element: Did you know there is a removable crumb tray? There is. Feel under the oven, pull out the crumb tray. How’s it look? Knock off the debris, wipe it down with a damp rag, or wash it in the sink if needed.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

But also pull out the other racks. Grease tends to drip or fly around in unexpected ways, especially if your oven has a convection or air fryer fan. Soak your racks and pans in the sink if needed. Use basic dish soap and water. Scrub, using a non-abrasive pad or rag till the bad stuff’s gone. Dry your racks on a drying rack.

Also, lightly wipe down the oven with a damp cloth each time: Unless you had a mishap or you waited far too long to clean, you probably don’t need anything more interesting on your oven door and sides than a quick swipe with a damp sponge or dishcloth. Pay special attention to the interior glass on the oven door, and wipe down the sides and back. Avoid fragile heating elements, lest you brick your oven.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Use dish soap on your oven if needed: Ideally, don’t use anything more harsh than dish soap for everyday cleaning. I tend to like Dawn Platinum Plus Powerwash ($17, 4-pack) in particular as a daily degreaser. Breville and Cuisinart both caution against spraying into the oven itself. Spray into the dishcloth instead, then wipe. Anyway, Dawn is the stuff the Marine Mammal Center has used for like 50 years to clean up baby seals caught in an oil spill, because it’s gentle and it degreases like a champ. Like many people, I consider myself as delicate as a baby seal. Wipe off the soap with a water-wet rag, then wait for the oven to dry before turning it on again.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Use gentle substances in general: Don’t use steel wool unless you like scratching your oven stuff. And no matter what well-meaning people online tell you, don’t use vinegar every time you wash. Vinegar is an effective degreaser because it’s acid. Acid is harsh on lots of things, not just grease, and over time you can damage the surface of your oven. You probably don’t need a vinegar bath every time you make cheese toast.

How to Clean a Really Dirty Oven

OK, so you went and did it. You were tired, or you didn’t care. You spent weeks perfecting your meatloaf recipe, and now your toaster oven is as spotted as an old banana. Or maybe you got a dirty oven from your cousin, and it’s all your cousin’s fault. Either way, the oven’s dirty and it feels ruined.

Take heart: It’s probably not ruined. It’s just dirty. The main thing it requires is more grease, specifically from your elbows. Here are some hacks to make the process easier.

Pull out racks and grills, soak them, and scrub them: This works on dishes, it works on baking pans and grills. Some people like to use dishwasher pods to soak the pans. Normal dish soap also works. Scrub with a nonabrasive pad.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Add vinegar to dish soap for extra degreasing: Need a meaner substance? You don’t want to use it all the time, but vinegar does help degrease a pan or an oven when simple elbow grease won’t do. And while it’s a little harsher than basic dish soap, it won’t do a lot of harm when reserved for the occasional power clean.

The steam method: Before cleaning your oven, try heating up a tray with a layer of water in it. As water evaporates, the steam will help loosen up a bit of the gunk for easy cleaning.

Use gentle degreasers and magic erasers: Try simple dish soap first. But if your oven glass or sides are really greased up, and dish soap won’t do, you may need something a little stronger. But you still don’t want to use truly abrasive substances. Try a more gentle degreaser like Krud Kutter ($11). Breville’s spokespeople have also been pretty vocal about their love for Mr. Clean Magic Erase ($12) wipes.

Some don’ts: Don’t use bleach or ammonia, it’s harsh and toxic and you eat the food in that oven. Don’t use steel wool or other abrasive pads. Don’t use heavy-duty degreasers or overnight cleaners like Easy-Off, which may not be suitable for the materials on your toaster oven. Many toaster ovens, including Breville, have nonstick coatings for easy cleaning: You’d rather not chemically peel off this nonstick coating.

How to Clean Toaster Oven Heating Elements

My feeling is, avoid doing so. Run it on high, burn off what you can. Avoid your heating elements the way you avoid downed power lines. They’re fragile, a thin tube of quartz glass that’ll break at minor pressure. And on many ovens they’re quite difficult and expensive to replace. Messing this up is an easy way to not have an oven, and I know this from experience.

But if you must: Don’t use cleaning agents. Don’t use baking soda. Don’t use anything but the gentlest whisper of a water-damp sponge or cloth, run softly along the length of the heating element. Don’t apply pressure. Also, make sure the heating element is dry again before you turn it back on, if you’ve gotten it wet. This is all advice from Breville, whose heating element I nonetheless broke while trying to be gentle.

Actually, have you tried prayer?

As a Last Resort, Accept the Things You Cannot Change

But if you own a toaster oven for longer than a year, no matter what you do, you will almost certainly accumulate at least one grease spot or discoloration that has just become a part of your oven. Maybe it’s on the aluminized steel of your crumb tray, now permanently discolored with a stain from burnt butter. Maybe it’s some spatter up by the heating elements. Maybe it’s that permanent dark spot on the glass of your oven door, beauty-marked by something unknown.

You’ve tried everything, but it’s just there. It’s part of your life now. Well: Forgive yourself. Life shows up on you sometimes. I still have a small but visible scar on my hand from a skateboard accident on my babysitter’s driveway when I was 8, and a jagged remnant on my elbow from that time I got mugged in Chicago. I try to believe it gives me character. Your oven, too, may now have character.