Cooking a homemade meal fills the home with mouthwatering aromas. But once you’re done eating and your hunger is satiated, you won’t want those cooking odors to stick around any longer.
Eliminating cooking odors isn’t easy, as they tend to stick to the surfaces of your house in the form of grease splatter, and oils that make their way through the air.
Fortunately, there are many great ways to avoid, reduce, and eliminate household cooking odors so that you don’t have to wake up each morning still smelling last night’s fish dinner.
Know thy enemy
The worst culprits of cooking odor are the ones that make their way into your vents, onto your stovetop, and stick to any surfaces within reach. We’re talking about cooking grease and oils. The best way to manage these odors is to try to limit their ability to spread across your house. When frying on your stovetop, cook with the cover of the pan slightly ajar or purchase a splatter screen. This will greatly reduce the amount of grease that spreads across your kitchen.
Enjoy the outdoors
The grill isn’t just for steaks. If you have a meal that’s likely to leave lingering odors in your home, take it outside to cook on a nice day. You can often buy grill-friendly fry pans and other accessories that will expand the number of meals you can cook outdoors.
Prioritize cleaning
The best chance you have at reducing cooking odors is to clean them up as soon as you’re done eating. Make an agreement that whoever does dishes for the night will also be in charge of wiping down the surfaces of your kitchen.
Open up the windows and turn on your exhaust fan while cleaning too, this will help sweep away the stale, humid air in your kitchen that is likely to settle in the house.
Proper dish management
It can be tempting to leave the dirty dishes in the sink or dishwasher for the next day, but if you do you’re giving cooking odors a free pass to hang around for another night. What’s worse, some odors worsen over time, such as pans that were used for cooking meats.
Odor neutralizers
Some odor neutralizers are more sensational than effective. One common myth is that an open box of baking soda will neutralize odors. While baking soda can be mixed to form a useful cleaning solution (and therefore reducing odors), it doesn’t do much to eliminate odors on its own.
Instead, try cleaning with neutralizing agents. Citrus and vinegar scented cleaners are easy to make, inexpensive, and don’t contain any dangerous chemicals.
Another option would be to use odor neutralizing air fresheners, fabric fresheners, and candles. If you have furniture that tends to attract cooking odors, you can spray them lightly with a fabric freshener or wipe them down with dryer sheets.
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