There’s this one for cutting boards, that one for fridge cleaner, another one for countertops, yet another one for sinks…you get the idea. I’ve been looking for a way to cut down on the amount of cleaners I use in my kitchen and recently discovered hydrogen peroxide. What’s even more amazing is that hydrogen peroxide is just plain water and oxygen when it’s all said and done.
So it’s non-toxic, non-abrasive, doesn’t leave behind any nasty residue or stink and is gentle enough to be used on food-contact surfaces. The standard 3 percent hydrogen peroxide that you use on cuts and scrapes can be had for about a buck at any drugstore. Spray bottle it up and you’ve got a kitchen cleaner that can do the job of half of the other products under your sink.
Here are 21 uses for hydrogen peroxide in the kitchen (and a few things you should NEVER use it on).
1. CUTTING BOARDS AFTER RAW MEAT
After washing my cutting board with hot soapy water, I spray it down with straight (3 percent) hydrogen peroxide and let it sit for about five minutes before rinsing and air drying (standing on edge). This works on both wood and plastic cutting boards, but is especially helpful on wood since the peroxide will lift any pink hue from raw beef or chicken.
The soap takes care of food particles and grease, but the peroxide helps sanitize the board. I have separate cutting boards for raw meat and everything else, and sanitize my raw meat board each and every time, because this is one kitchen chore I don’t skip.
2. SPONGES AND DISHCLOTHS
When dishcloths and sponges start to smell sour, bacteria are the likely culprit. After all, sponges and dishcloths are often stored in the warmest, wettest place in the house, the kitchen sink.
I dunk the sponge or dishcloth in a bowl of hydrogen peroxide and let it soak for 10 minutes. I then wring it out, rinse it and allow it to dry completely before using it again.
I clean my dishcloths on the same day as my sponge, generally while I’m waiting for the dishes to drain after dinner.
This process will give your dishcloths and sponges an extra week or two before they need to be tossed (if they still smell after soaking, toss them).
3. COUNTERTOPS
For laminate, quartz, tile or solid surface counters, I spray with hydrogen peroxide, let it sit for a few minutes, and then wipe with a clean cloth. If you’re planning on putting food directly on your counter top (think rolling out dough), follow up with a rinse using a damp cloth.
I like using hydrogen peroxide because it doesn’t leave behind a residue like other all-purpose cleaners do, and it won’t impart any flavor (hello, bread baking). If your counter tops are natural stone, think marble or granite, test a hidden area (like under your coffee maker) first. Depending on the type of stone and the sealer used, hydrogen peroxide can lighten the finish over time.
4. THE KITCHEN SINK
I also use hydrogen peroxide to clean my sink. Sprinkle some baking soda on the sink and give it a good scrubbing. Rinse that off, spray hydrogen peroxide in the sink and let it sit while you clean the rest of your kitchen counters. Rinse it off and your sink is clean.
The sink is one of the dirtiest areas in the kitchen. It collects everything, including the juices from the meat you washed, the water from the vegetables you washed, dishwater, etc.
The dirty areas are usually the actual sink basin, the rim where your sink meets the counter and around the drain. This hydrogen peroxide trick really brightens a stainless steel sink and helps take away the grayish color that dishwater leaves behind in white porcelain sinks.
5. REFRIGERATOR SHELVES AND DRAWERS
Spritz hydrogen peroxide on refrigerator shelves and drawers (including the shelves/bins on the doors), wait a few minutes, then wipe clean and dry. I like to clean out one shelf/drawer at a time when I unload the groceries and that way everything gets cleaned over the course of the month.
I especially like to clean out the produce drawers since they always seem to have some kind of mysterious moisture and lettuce bits that create an other worldly substance.
Also good for any drippy messes from bottles/jars (which is why the shelves in the doors are important to clean out too).
This is the one I procrastinate the longest on but always feel the best after doing.
6. FRESH PRODUCE
When I want to give produce an extra thorough cleaning (especially items I’ll eat the skin of, since anything I’m going to peel I just rinse), I’ll add 1/4 cup of hydrogen peroxide to a bowl of cold water, and soak hardy produce (apples, cucumbers, peppers, etc.) for a few minutes.
The peroxide will help remove wax, dirt and some surface bacteria.
After soaking, it’s important to rinse produce thoroughly under running tap water before consuming or storing, and I dry it off afterward. More delicate produce (berries, greens, etc.) just gets a quick rinse in my house.
7. PLASTIC STORAGE CONTAINERS
Plastic containers with curry or tomato stains (which the dishwasher will not budge): rub a paste of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide on the stain and leave for an hour before washing. This will remove stains without scratching the plastic.
Odorous containers: add hydrogen peroxide to containers and leave overnight.
I’m not expecting plastic containers to return to crystal clear; slightly stained containers are my go-to containers for storing leftovers in the fridge and the really stained ones are perfect for packing up food to take home.
8. LUNCH BOXES AND COOLERS
Before storing my coolers in the garage for the winter, and again come spring before heading out on our first excursion, I give the interiors a good once-over with a hydrogen peroxide dipped cloth, making sure to get into all the corners and crevices and pay particular attention to the gasket around the lid. Then I let them air-dry with the lids propped open.
Same goes for any smelly lunch boxes. (Any enclosed, poorly ventilated space that gets warm, like a lunch box, will develop funk if you’re not careful, but damp enclosed spaces, like a cooler you’ve stowed before making sure it’s bone dry after a picnic, will develop funk faster still.)
9. THE DISHWASHER
The rubber gasket around the dishwasher door is another area I clean with peroxide. This is where black spots form, and I just wipe it down with a peroxide-soaked cloth.
Did you know that your dishwasher doesn’t clean itself? All that food gunk has to go somewhere, right? Well, it collects in the filter and around the door seal, and over time starts to smell really nasty.
I run a hot cycle with a cup of peroxide on the bottom of my empty dishwasher once a month. The filter still has to be removed and rinsed, but at least I don’t have to scrub everything else down by hand.
10. GARBAGE CANS AND RECYCLING BINS
On trash day, after emptying out my can I spray the inside with hydrogen peroxide. I let it sit for about ten minutes and then rinse it out. I also wipe down the lid and rim of my trash can.
This is a great time to clean it because it’s already outside (or at least at the sink) and emptied out. I wouldn’t remember to do it any other time.
Even though I line my trash can, stuff finds its way into the bottom. The rim is always gross because each new bag rubs up against it.
11. HANDLES, KNOBS AND THE FAUCET
Hydrogen peroxide also comes in handy after handling raw meat. I’ll grab a rag, spray it down with peroxide and wipe down all the handles in my kitchen, such as the refrigerator, oven door, the faucet, the buttons on the microwave, knobs on the cabinets by the sink, etc. It’s surprising how often I’ve reached for raw chicken or onions and then touched something without thinking. It only takes a minute.
12. STAINED COFFEE MUGS AND TEA CUPS
Hydrogen peroxide cleans mugs. When the one I use all the time gets brown on the inside I clean all of them. They are always dirtier than I think they are. Just add a little baking soda and some hydrogen peroxide to make a paste.
Rub it around the inside with your fingers or a rag. Rinse out. The hydrogen peroxide takes care of tea and coffee stains in less than a minute that even the dishwasher doesn’t remove.
13. WOODEN SPOONS AND UTENSILS
When a wooden spoon or spatula has accumulated a hundred pots’ worth of chili (or whatever else you stirred it into), give it a good dunking in a shallow dish of peroxide for a few minutes. Remove, rinse, and stand to dry. If your spoons seem parched afterward, buff them with a bit of mineral oil.
Dark spoons aren’t dirty spoons, they’re seasoned spoons. I don’t toss my spoons for being dark, only when they get fuzzy. Darkness is just the record of a spoon’s history, soaking in peroxide is a quick way to freshen up a spoon without soaking it in water for hours (which can cause the wood to split).
14. THE CAN OPENER
This blade and gear mechanism on my can opener reeks of neglect. I set it wide open and spritz it with hydrogen peroxide. After it soaks for a bit I give it a good scrubbing with an old toothbrush. Then I rinse and dry really well to avoid rust.
I keep my can opener tucked away in a drawer so I completely forgot about it for years. But when I open a can I always place it in the dish drying rack. Especially if I’m opening anything with tomato.
The can opener blade actually comes in contact with the inside of every can I open. And this little gadget seldom, if ever, gets cleaned. Take a good look at yours and I’m sure it will make your list of yucky places too.
15. BLENDER AND FOOD PROCESSOR GASKETS
I know this is going to sound weird, but clean your blender gasket. I remove the gasket (rubber piece that seals your blender or food processor), and soak it in hydrogen peroxide for about ten minutes. I rinse it off, let it dry, and then put it back on the blender. It’s a place that food can get trapped in (like smoothie residue) and not a lot of people think to take it apart and clean it.
If your gasket is starting to get black spots, that’s mold. Either clean it thoroughly with the method I just described or consider replacing your gasket. I clean mine the 1st of the month so that’s when I remember to do it.
16. GROUT ON THE BACKSPLASH AND FLOOR
Kitchen grout gets dingy quickly from all of the splashing around the sink and the grease from cooking at the stove. It creeps up on you so gradually you don’t even notice the color change until one day you decide to try this tip. Mix baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to form a thick paste and rub it into the grout lines.
Let it sit for about ten minutes, then scrub with an old toothbrush and rinse. The grout will look almost white again. I thought the color of the grout around my stove was just “normal” until I treated just one line and saw what a difference it made.
17. BAKED ON GRIME ON SHEET PANS
I used to try to get my baking sheets to look new again. Now I just try to get them to be usable pans again. When I roast veggies or bacon on my baking sheets, I get a brown sticky film that doesn’t scrub off with soap and steel wool damages my pans.
I sprinkle my sheets with baking soda then spray them down with hydrogen peroxide until the baking soda is just damp. I let them sit for at least two hours (I usually do it overnight). I scrape off the gunk with a plastic scraper or wipe it off with a damp rag.
Then I wash them like I always do. They’re not new again, but they’re pans again.
18. GLASS BAKING DISHES
I use this baking soda and peroxide paste on my casserole dish to get the baked-on crud off of the sides. Let it sit on there for an hour, then use a non scratch pad to get all the crud off. Especially helpful if you have a glass casserole dish, because I have one that I use a lot, and no matter what I do (short of soaking it for hours and hours in hot water), I always have that ring around the top where the sauce boiled over and baked onto the rim.
Soaking helps loosen it up some, but this paste actually seems to help lift it off. It doesn’t get rid of that ring completely (yet), but it sure takes care of most of it, and that’s good enough.
19. REUSABLE WATER BOTTLES AND LIDS
I clean all of our bottles once a week with hydrogen peroxide. Just fill with hydrogen peroxide, put lid back on, shake it up, and let sit for about 10 minutes. Dump out the hydrogen peroxide, unscrew lid as much as possible, wash, and air dry (leaving unscrewed as much as possible).
It’s the lids that are the trouble. There’s always some dampness in the lids, and if you screw them right back on, you create a warm, dark, damp environment. Bacteria, mold, and other critters love that environment, especially in the straw/spout/rubber gasket portion of the lid.
20. THE DISH RACK AND DRYING MAT
I spray the dish rack with peroxide every time I empty it, let it sit for a while, then rinse it off.
The drainer tray always has a little bit of water in it and never completely dries, so it grows a black or pink film on it which then gets transferred to the bottoms of your “clean” dishes.
You can do this to a silicone drying mat too, just wipe it down with peroxide. If you have a fabric one, toss it in the wash.
21. THE MICROWAVE
Microwave splatter gets baked on to the inside of the microwave and it’s almost impossible to get off. But if you heat up a bowl of water in the microwave for a couple of minutes, the steam loosens up all that grunge so it’s easy to clean out your microwave with hydrogen peroxide.
Spritz the inside of the microwave and the door vents with hydrogen peroxide and let it sit for a few minutes before wiping clean with a damp sponge or rag.
The vents and the door of your microwave get covered in a layer of grease and gunk that nobody cleans, ever. And if you just wipe them down with a damp rag, they won’t be very clean. But if you give them a good spraying of hydrogen peroxide, all of that nasty stuff comes right off, and your microwave will smell fresh and clean (not like hydrogen peroxide) when you’re done.
WHAT NOT TO CLEAN WITH HYDROGEN PEROXIDE
Don’t use hydrogen peroxide to clean aluminum, copper or cast iron, as it will cause staining (aluminum and copper) or rust (cast iron) that can’t be removed. Always test on a small area first, especially with colored grout and natural stone countertops, as hydrogen peroxide can lighten both. Never combine vinegar and hydrogen peroxide in the same spray bottle.
The combination of the two ingredients creates peracetic acid, which can irritate the lungs and skin. You can use hydrogen peroxide and vinegar to clean the same item, but use one product at a time and rinse in between.
WHAT DO YOU MIX WITH HYDROGEN PEROXIDE FOR CLEANING?
Peroxide works great on its own for most of the applications on this list. If you’re using peroxide as a stain remover, I’d recommend mixing it with baking soda to make a thick paste. For grease on countertops and stovetops, I’d recommend mixing peroxide with a squirt of dish soap in a spray bottle.
WHY DOES THE BOTTLE HAVE TO BE BROWN?
Hydrogen peroxide is great for disinfecting but it has a tendency to degrade when exposed to light (which is why it’s sold in that dark brown bottle). If you pour it into a spray bottle and keep it on the counter, I guarantee in a few weeks it will be nothing but water.
My suggestion would be to pick up a couple of the smaller hydrogen peroxide bottles, attach a spray top and store them in a cabinet (away from sunlight). By using the smaller bottles, you’ll be guaranteed to use it up before it loses its potency.
DOES HYDROGEN PEROXIDE DISINFECT?
A 3 percent solution of hydrogen peroxide will kill most common varieties of bacteria, viruses and mold on hard surfaces, if you let it sit for at least a few minutes. It doesn’t disinfect as quickly as bleach does, so give it time to do its job.
For everything on this list, it’s important to first wash dishes and other items with soap and water to remove food and grease before using hydrogen peroxide to kill germs.