The Best Kitchen Cleaners for Sparking Clean Surfaces
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Make your kitchen shine like it’s brand new.
Food & Wine / Jaclyn Mastropasqua
If there’s one certainty about having a kitchen, it’s that it needs to be cleaned regularly. From tackling everyday spills and splashes to disinfecting, degreasing, or polishing, the task of cleaning is made easier when you have the right products at your disposal.
With spring cleaning on our minds, we’ve assembled our favorite kitchen cleaners to help you restore a shiny, grease-free glean to your most-used surfaces.
Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Multi-Surface Everyday Cleaner
Best Overall
Pros: This is a freshly scented, effective all-purpose cleaner.
Cons: It will not disinfect.
It’s tough to argue with a well-performing all-purpose cleaner. It’s just convenient to be able to clean the sink, countertops, and kitchen table without having to pull out your entire arsenal of cleaning supplies, and this everyday cleaner from Mrs. Meyer's fits the bill.
Beyond the kitchen, you can use this cleaner on floors, tile, walls, porcelain, bathroom fixtures, and more. Plus, there’s no need for artificial scents, so the fresh citrus aroma of Lemon Verbena is never overpowering nor lingering. Amazon sells it in a three-pack, so stash one in your kitchen, one in the bathroom, and keep the other on hand as a backup.
Price at time of publish: $15
Amount: 16 ounces
Scent: Citrus
Surfaces to avoid: Unsealed natural stone
Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach Original
Best Disinfectant
Pros: Kills 99.9% of viruses and bacteria.
Cons: The fumes can be intense.
For those times when you need real disinfecting power to eliminate viruses and bacteria, it’s hard to beat the power of bleach. Clorox Clean-Up spray is ideal for sinks, floors, countertops, and more — but be careful of delicate surfaces and avoid using this spray on textiles.
As you might expect from bleach, the fumes from this kitchen cleaner can be on the harsher side, so be sure to open a window if you’re doing any heavy-duty cleaning.
Price at time of publish: $21
Amount: 24 ounces
Scent: Unscented
Surfaces to avoid: Fabrics, delicate materials
Hope’s Perfect Countertop Cleaner
Best Counter Cleaner
Pros: This works great on a variety of countertop surfaces.
Cons: Not ideal for wood.
Whether you have laminate, granite, quartz, or other solid-surface countertops, Hope’s Perfect Countertop spray has you covered. This effective spray runs double-duty as a cleaner and polisher, leaving your counters with a healthy, streak-free shine.
There are no harsh chemicals, so you won’t have to worry about unpleasant odors, residues, or damage to stone sealants. Hope’s comes with a microfiber cloth when purchased on Amazon, but this spray is just as easy to use with paper towels.
Price at time of publish: $15
Amount: 22 ounces
Scent: Not specified
Surfaces to avoid: Wood
Aunt Fannie's Vinegar Floor Cleaner
Best Floor Cleaner
Pros: This concentrated cleaner lasts a long, long time.
Cons: There’s definitely a vinegar smell.
We like this all-natural floor cleaner for its effectiveness and the fact that the concentrated solution lasts a long time, making it a great value. Just a half-cup dissolves into two gallons of water, so it’s ideal for use with mop buckets, spray bottles, or filling the chamber of your favorite floor cleaning tool.
Aunt Fannie’s floor cleaner is meant for use on sealed floors — which most floors are — so use with confidence on hardwood, tile, linoleum, and more.
Price at time of publish: $14
Amount: 32 ounces
Scent: Vinegar
Surfaces to avoid: Textiles
Weiman Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish Trigger Spray
Best Stainless Steel Cleaner
Pros: Effectively cleans and polishes stainless steel surfaces.
Cons: Not for use on other surfaces.
Weiman comes in strong with an effective stainless steel cleaner and polish. Perfect for removing pesky fingerprints from your refrigerator and restoring your sink to a high shine, this stainless steel cleaner is easy to use thanks to its spray bottle — no squeezing out gloopy liquids — and wipes away clean with no streaks or residue.
This isn’t an all-purpose cleaner, though, so don’t go spraying your countertops or floors with it — save this bottle for your stainless steel appliances, trash cans, sink, and so on.
Price at time of publish: $18
Amount: 22 ounces
Scent: Not specified
Surfaces to avoid: Non-stainless steel
Rockwell Labs InVade Bio Drain Gel
Best Drain Cleaner
Pros: A drain cleaner that works and actually smells good.
Cons: It’s very thick.
Drain cleaners usually entail pouring harsh chemicals down your drain — not ideal for the environment or your drain — but this one from Rockwell Labs is gentle and pleasant-smelling to boot. The ultra-thick formula clings to every nook and cranny to eliminate caked-on gunk and stains.
This is even effective for super sticky beverage fountain drip trays, so it’s tough enough for restaurant use and is definitely capable of handling your at-home garbage disposal.
Price at time of publish: $16
Amount: 32 ounces
Scent: Orange
Surfaces to avoid: Anything that isn’t a drain
Easy-Off Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner
Best Oven Cleaner
Pros: An affordable, enduring favorite.
Cons: Don’t use this on anything besides ovens and grills.
Easy-Off has been around for ages, and that’s because it works. This oven cleaner is easy to spray into your oven or on your grill to quickly (just three minutes!) eliminate grease, grime, and those pesky little crusted-on bits.
This isn’t really an everyday cleaner, but it’s great for deep cleanings and the occasional need for spot cleaning (like when your mac and cheese bubbles over onto the oven floor). Because this is an intense cleaner, you won’t want to use it on your countertops or floors, but it’s so affordable it’s worth having a can on hand at all times.
Price at time of publish: $5
Amount: 14.5 ounces
Scent: Fresh
Surfaces to avoid: Non-oven or grill surfaces
Zep Heavy-Duty Degreaser
Best for Grease
Pros: This degreaser works well and smells nice.
Cons: Works best with time to soak.
Reach for Zep’s degreaser spray when your backsplash is due for a good scrub; this stuff will make simple work of that sticky, caked-on grease. Just spray it on, let it soak a bit (it’ll cling well enough to vertical surfaces, too), then wipe away, repeating as needed.
Most degreasers don’t smell great, but Zep has managed to impart a pleasant citrus scent into their formula that is neither cloying nor likely to overstay its welcome. We’ll happily keep a bottle of this under our kitchen sinks.
Price at time of publish: $11
Amount: 24 ounces
Scent: Citrus
Surfaces to avoid: Delicate surfaces
Frosch Natural Grapefruit Multi-Surface Spray
Best All-Natural
Pros: An all-natural cleaner that works surprisingly well.
Cons: It can leave streaks without thorough wiping.
German-made Frosch grapefruit kitchen cleaner is an effective, all-natural cleaner that genuinely smells great. This product works well as an all-purpose, multi-surface cleaner to tidy up and leave behind a fresh grapefruit scent.
It’s not as heavy-duty as a proper degreaser (which is unlikely to be all-natural!), but this will get the job done for day-to-day cleaning. Just be sure to wipe surfaces thoroughly before the Frosch spray dries, otherwise, it may leave streaks.
Price at time of publish: $20
Amount: 16.9 ounces
Scent: Grapefruit
Surfaces to avoid: Textiles
Lysol Disinfecting Wipes
Best Wipes
Pros: It doesn’t get easier to use than this.
Cons: Not the most environmentally friendly option.
Wipes may not be the most effective kitchen cleaner for all scenarios, but they sure are easy to reach to clean up small spills or quickly disinfect a surface. Lysol’s multi-surface wipes kill 99.9% of viruses and bacteria, so these are great to keep in the car, in your handbag, or take with you on the plane in addition to stashing in your kitchen.
Price at time of publish: $13
Amount: 80 wipes
Scent: Lemon and lime blossom
Surfaces to avoid: Delicate surfaces
Our Favorite
As a general-purpose kitchen cleaner, we like Mrs. Meyers All-Purpose spray for its effectiveness and gentle ingredients. For tough kitchen grease, we’ll reach for Zep Heavy Duty Citrus Degreaser.
Factors to Consider
Purpose
There are lots of different kitchen cleaners on the market, so consider what you’re actually trying to clean. All-purpose cleaners are great for a variety of surfaces, but may not be as effective for tough grease or polishing stainless steel.
Ingredients
If all-natural ingredients are important to you for health or environmental reasons, be sure to shop accordingly. Tough cleaners do tend to contain harsh chemicals (which is why they’re so effective), so read labels when in doubt.
Scent
Kitchen cleaners aren’t meant to serve as perfumes, so sometimes we just have to deal with the accompanying aromas. If you’re particularly sensitive to smells, opt for a cleaning product with a fresh, light scent like Frosch or Lemi Shine.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is all-purpose cleaner?
All-purpose cleaners are just that — cleaners that are meant to be useful on a variety of surfaces. You can use an all-purpose kitchen cleaner to wipe down your countertops, quickly clean a dingy sink, or help remove dust from your open shelves.
What’s the best way to clean countertops like granite and quartz?
A good cleaning spray that is designed for solid-surface countertops — such as Hope’s — will remove grease and grime without damaging your countertop sealant. You’ll just be left with a nice shine that helps add a tiny bit of extra protection, too.
How often should you clean your oven and sink?
Clean your oven and sink when they’re visibly dirty. Sinks are easy to quickly rinse at the end of each day, so a good scrub-down may only be necessary once every week or so. The frequency with which you clean your oven will depend on how often you use it, and for what purpose. Once a month is a good rule of thumb to at least take a peek inside your oven and assess whether it’s due for a deep clean or a quick wipe.
Our Expertise
This article was written by Summer Rylander, a food and travel journalist who has written about food, beverage, and cooking products for Food & Wine, Allrecipes, Serious Eats, and The Kitchn. She made her selections based on in-depth research and personal experience with a variety of kitchen cleaners.
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