Clean Your Dirty Microwave With a Lemon

We’ve been on quite the home improvement kick, as tends to happen when you’ve been stuck inside for months. Last week we explored whether you can clean an oven with a lemon (spoiler: you cannot), but today we’re cleaning the science oven, aka the microwave! Will a lemon do the trick this time?

It will! Using a lemon to clean a microwave is an old standby, in fact. Just slice a lemon in half, squeeze the juice into ½ cup of water, drop the lemon halves in and microwave three minutes. Then let sit five minutes and wipe down the machine. The steam will loosen dried-on filth, and the lemon will leave a fresh scent.

However we’re not stopping there! You could repeat this method, but instead of using a microwave-safe cup, you can put the lemon and water directly onto a pile of paper towels. After nuking for three minutes, just use the paper towels themselves to wipe everything down — that way you don’t need to clean the cup or a reusable cleaning cloth.

If the gunk still isn’t budging, scrape it with an old credit card or a Magic Eraser (generic name: Melamine foam).

For all these tips and more, including how to de-grease the glass microwave door, check out the video above.