Getting Rid Of Kitchen Odors Naturally

There are many things in your kitchen that can cause odors. From microwaves, to refrigerators, to garbage cans, to cutting boards, to garbage disposals, odor can be anywhere. If after cooking in your kitchen you still have odors of the food you just cooked, we have some crafty and natural methods to rid the odorous smell. All of our odor removal methods use completely natural items to combat smells. All of these methods involve common household items that you can use to stop bad odors in your kitchen naturally.

Cutting Boards: After cutting onions or other smelly food items on your cutting board, the smell remains. This smell can stick on your cutting boards whether the material is wood or plastic. To completely and naturally kill these odors: Wet the cutting board and sprinkle salt on the cutting board. Let the salt sit for a few minutes so it can penetrate. Once the salt has penetrated, rub the salt into the cutting board with a warm cloth. The salt grinding against the surface of your cutting board naturally rubs away the odors. To finish, simply rinse the cutting board and let sit to air dry.

Salt removes nasty odors from cutting boards

Garbage Disposals: Garbage disposers will begin to smell over time. Nasty food items can stick and build-up in the disposal and this can lead to strong odors. A best way to remove the odor from your garbage disposal is simple: Turn on the garbage disposal while running water into the sink, add in a large amount of ice cubes (directly into the disposer) to help remove any odor build-up on the disposal cutter blades. Once the ice is cut up and you can hear the disposal running normally again, throw in half of a lemon or lime. This works by the ice cubes cleaning the blades and the lemon or lime adds citrus oil to the inside of the disposer therefore leaving it clean and fresh.

Lemons removes bad odors from garbage disposals

Refrigerators/Freezers: If you have cleaned out your refrigerator with sudsy water and bad odors remain, try these simple tips to kill the odor: Put either ground coffee, imitation vanilla extract, or activated charcoal in an open container and leave in the refrigerator or freezer. These items help to absorb odors and will pull the bad smell from your fridge. If the odor remains, remove everything out of the refrigerator and clean with soapy water. Once clean and empty, use either ground coffee, imitation vanilla extract, or activated charcoal (cat litter can work too) to pull the last remaining odors out of the refrigerator. If possible let the fridge run empty for a day or 2 with one of the natural odor killers we mentioned.

Activated charcoal is a great odor remover for refrigerators

Microwave Ovens: Remove the odors from your microwave using a simple natural cleaning solution. Use a homemade solution of one cup of warm water and one tablespoon of baking soda. Mix the solution together and using a warm cloth, wipe the complete inside of the microwave. After you have cleaned every corner, wipe dry with paper towels or a dry dish cloth. To make the microwave smell even more fresh, you can mix 3 parts water to 1 part lemon juice in a microwave safe bowl. Place the bowl in the microwave and nuke it for 5 minutes. Let the dish cool when done. Remove dish and wipe down the inside of the microwave once again to remove any excess moisture.

A baking soda cleaning solution can remove odors in your microwave

Garbage Cans: Garbage cans can hold the worst odor from anywhere in the kitchen. To reduce the bad smells that come from your garbage can, be sure to empty it on a regular basis. If you throw away onions, fish, or other stinky things in your kitchen garbage can, it is best to throw the garbage bag away as soon as possible. When odors do remain in the trash can, add some Borax or baking soda to the bottom of the garbage can before you replace the garbage bag. Adding Borax or baking soda can help to absorb odors and prevent the growth of mold and bacteria.

Borax in the bottom of your kitchen garbage can will stop mold growth

Plastic Food Storage Container Odors: To remove odors from plastic food containers that once held stinky items, add balled up newspapers into them. Put the top on the container and let sit for 24 hours. After 24 hours remove the top and throw the newspaper away. The smell should be completely removed from the container. This works as the newspaper acts as an absorber and actually pulls the bad odor from the container leaving it smelling fresh.

Balled up newspaper removes odors from plastic food containers

Odor In Complete Home After Cooking: When odor has penetrated rooms in your home after cooking, the bad smell can linger for days. A great way to combat this is completely avoid commercial air freshener and cleaner sprays. These sprays do not remove the bad smells, they simply mask it. To truly remove the odor from your kitchen and rooms, boil spices to fill your home with freshness. Put cinnamon and cloves into a piece of cheesecloth and tie the cheesecloth closed. Put the spice bag in boiling water and let the spices simmer until the odor from your kitchen or home is gone.

Boiling cinnamon will remove odors in your kitchen and home

Prevent Odors While Cooking (cooking odor removal): An easy way to actually stop bad odors when you are cooking smelly foods is to use vinegar. While you are cooking onions, garlic or other smelly food items, boil a cup of vinegar in a separate pan or pot. By doing this you are actually neutralizing the odors therefore preventing the smell from stinking up your complete home.

Boiling vinegar while cooking smelly foods helps neutralize odors

Do you know of another natural product that can remove kitchen odors just as good as the ones above? Please leave a comment below to assist our other readers.