Have you started the Carnivore diet and discovered that your kitchen is now coated in grease constantly?
This was a huge eye opener for me when I discovered it.
From the top of the cupboards to the countertops, the rangehood, the stove top, even the knife block and the floor can become greasy.
To keep your kitchen grease-free, you need to adopt a proactive approach and take some preventive measures.
In this blog article, we will be sharing our ten favorite tips to help you keep your kitchen free of grease buildup. Whether you are a busy home cook or a professional chef, these tips will help you maintain a clean and hygienic kitchen.
So if you’re tired of struggling with stubborn grease stains and looking for effective solutions, read on to learn more
How To Stop Grease Build Up In The Kitchen
All good sayings stick around for a reason, and in this case, an ounce of prevention is definitely worth a pound of cure.
The easiest way to keep a kitchen grease free is to prevent it from getting greasy in the first place.
TIP 1: Use the stove top for cooking as little as possible
The kitchen becomes greasy when using the stovetop for cooking. Cooking a steak or some ground beef in a cast-iron pan will shower grease everywhere.
So, the best way to keep the kitchen grease-free is to use the stove top as little as possible. There are several other options for cooking that require much less clean-up.
TIP 2: Cook outside as often as possible
If you have a barbecue, use it as often as possible. Let’s be honest, meat always tastes better off the barbecue than off the stove.
This reduces cleaning in two ways. One – no grease in the kitchen, and two – less cooking dishes to be washed. Better tasting food and less cleaning? That’s a win-win.
TIP 3: Use an air-fryer
Air-fryers have gained in popularity lately, due to their so-called benefit of “reducing the amount of fat in cooking”. We know that’s just a marketing ploy and we don’t care about reducing fat (except for seed oils, we definitely care about reducing those, but I digress).
Air-fryers cook in a fraction of the time and will contain all the grease inside. This will need to be cleaned, but it’s up to you how often you clean it. And it is certainly easier to clean an air-fryer regularly than it is to degrease ceilings, walls, curtains and blinds after months of build-up.
This Cuisinart air-fryer is our favorite for cooking meat.
TIP 4: Use an oven
This isn’t a replacement for the stove, because there’s not much you can cook on the stove that would taste better cooked in the oven. The point of using the oven is not to cook stove items in it, but rather to make plans to eat more items that are suited for the oven. This can include larger roasts, or items that are best cooked low and slow.
The same rationale applies to the oven as the air-fryer, in that it contains grease rather than splattering everywhere. The oven is not as easy to clean as the air-fryer, but it does not need to be cleaned as often. Once a year is usually sufficient for a well-used oven.
TIP 5: Meal plan by cooking method
Sometimes the stove top is the best or the easiest method for cooking meat. When this is the case, try to use the stove-top on consecutive days. Then, plan your cleaning around that.
For example, if I have ground beef for breakfast on Monday and Tuesday, I will try to have a stove-top appropriate dinner as well on those days. On Wednesday, I will do the weekly cleaning of the floors and the rangehood, because I know the rest of the week I will not be using the stovetop as often.
TIP 6: Use a splatter screen
Where the stovetop is required, use one of these bad boys to prevent all the grease from spraying and splashing everywhere.
It is much easier to wash a splatter screen than wipe down an entire kitchen.
Is it 100% effective? No, but it reduces the amount of grease that is required to be wiped up.
We like this 4 pack of splatter screens to use across a variety of different sized pans
TIP 7: Cover the tops of the cupboards
If there is any space between the ceiling and the tops of your cupboards, grease (and dust) will accumulate.
The best thing to do for this is to place newspapers down on top of the cupboards, and the newspapers will catch all the grease. I like 2 layers of newspaper, as this prevents any grease from soaking through to the cupboards.
Replace the newspapers monthly. The newspaper can either be thrown out or used to light a fire for the barbecue. We use this Weber, which requires wood and/or charcoal instead of gas. A little greasy newspaper goes a long way to helping light the fire.
TIP 8: Batch cook
Batch cooking and meal-prepping can mean less overall cooking. Less cooking means fewer opportunities for grease to spread and build up.
Cooking steak on the stove?
Cook an extra steak and eat it sliced cold the next day.
Cooking ground beef on the stove?
Cook extra and warm it gently the next day with a bit of water or broth in a pot (obviously this still uses the stove, but this doesn’t cause grease splatter).
Cooking on the barbecue?
Cook extra steak or cook some burger patties that can be eaten straight out of the fridge
How To Clean Grease Build Up In The Kitchen
Prevention will only take you so far though.
Unless you cook exclusively outside, you are going to have to degrease and clean your kitchen at some point.
After prevention, the best way to keep your kitchen grease-free is to clean regularly.
TIP 9: Use a cleaning schedule
Make a weekly schedule that works for you for cleaning and degreasing items in your kitchen.
We commit to fully cleaning the kitchen on a Sunday night after dinner. The idea behind this is to make sure that when we wake up on Monday morning to make coffee, we are starting the week on the right foot.
So Sunday night, the dishes get washed, the stove and range-hood get wiped, the counters are completely cleared, sprayed and wiped and the floors swept or vacuumed and mopped.
Additionally, I have a monthly schedule. This is 4 different tasks that occur monthly and I add one of them each week to the weekly schedule.
These tasks include deep cleaning the floors, spraying/wiping the cupboards, changing the newspapers on top of the cupboards and wiping down any appliances that are kept on the kitchen counter that attract grease. At our house, this is the knife block, the kettle, the coffee machine and the water filter.
Sample weekly cleaning schedule below:
Week 1
- Wash dishes
- Clean floors
- Clean counters
- Change newspapers
Week 2
- Wash dishes
- Clean floors
- Clean counters
- Wipe appliances
Week 3
- Wash dishes
- Clean floors
- Clean counters
- Deep clean/ scrub floors
Week 4
- Wash dishes
- Clean floors
- Clean counters
- Wipe cupboards
TIP 10: Use dishwashing soap
Make a weekly schedule that works for you for cleaning and degreasing items in your kitchen.
We commit to fully cleaning the kitchen on a Sunday night after dinner. The idea behind this is to make sure that when we wake up on Monday morning to make coffee, we are starting the week on the right foot.
So Sunday night, the dishes get washed, the stove and range-hood get wiped, the counters are completely cleared, sprayed and wiped and the floors swept or vacuumed and mopped.
Additionally, I have a monthly schedule. This is 4 different tasks that occur monthly and I add one of them each week to the weekly schedule.
These tasks include deep cleaning the floors, spraying/wiping the cupboards, changing the newspapers on top of the cupboards and wiping down any appliances that are kept on the kitchen counter that attract grease. At our house, this is the knife block, the kettle, the coffee machine and the water filter.
