Spring Cleaning Tips and Tricks: Kitchen Edition

cleaning with lemons — Fresh lemons are super for cleaning your kitchen and leaving it smelling fresh. Jens Rother/Shutterstock

There's really nothing quite as satisfying as throwing your kitchen windows open on the first decent spring day. It not only lets the fresh air in, but it also flushes out those lingering, stale cooking and food odors — you know, the ones that have been trapped inside for all of winter.

A day with fresh air circulating is the perfect time for spring cleaning, especially scrubbing the kitchen free of the grease and grime that's built up, perhaps since Thanksgiving. Maybe even Halloween. No shame here.

But where to even start? Everybody knows that you should scrub under the kitchen sink (it gets really gross under there) and clean the oven of burnt-on-foods, but we've got a few extra-credit cleaning tips that will set your kitchen up for a fresh spring and summer.

Cleaning With Lemons

When life gives you lemons, use them to clean the kitchen. The acid in lemons is ideal for removing rust stains in the sink, rubbing down the dishwasher and just making the entire place smell fresh and clean. To remove odors from a garbage disposal, cut up a lemon, toss it in and grind it up. Check out tons of ways to use lemons to clean almost anything in the kitchen.

Washing the Dishwasher

If it's been a while since you've disinfected your dishwasher (yes, you need to clean your dishwasher!), lemons might not cut it. The good news it's not hard to get one of the most-used appliances spick-and-span, and a good cleaning might even make your dishwasher more efficient. We've got instructions for how to clean your dishwasher inside and out, including the filter.

cleaning dishwasher — Those dirty dishes will come out a lot cleaner if your dishwasher is clean, too.
Jasmin Merdan/Getty Images

Eliminating Kitchen Grease

A lot of us are cooking at home more, which likely means we have more grease stuck to the stovetop — and the rest of the kitchen. We've rounded up five ways to remove those stubborn grease spots using things you probably already have at home, including baking soda and vinegar.

dirty stovetop — Nothing says "gross" like stuck-on grease, and cleaning it anywhere in your kitchen is a tough job.
travelarium.ph/Shutterstock

Cleaning Cast Iron

Cast iron has a reputation for being finicky, but it's really not. It does require a little more work than cleaning your average nonstick skillet, but once you know how to maintain it, keeping it in great shape will be simple. Even if yours has burnt-on food or rust, we've got tips to clean up your cast iron and keep it in top shape.

Wash Your Reusable Shopping Bags

When was the last time you washed your shopping bags? Did you know they could be havens for germs? But they can be washed regularly — even the ones made of recycled plastic — and washing prevents mold and bacteria growth. Here's how to wash your shopping bags to keep them in their best shape.

wash shopping bags — Reusable shopping bags need to be washed frequently because you transport raw meat and other foods that can carry bacteria.
Sean Locke Photography/Shutterstock

Do one of these chores each week, and in a little over a month you'll have a sparkling house that smells spring clean. Or, do them all in one day and bask in the glory of a thorough spring cleaning job well done.