Tough grime and grease can be a nightmare to remove from your appliances, but if they’re not cleaned thoroughly, they could lead to faulty machines. Air fryers are no different, and one cleaning fan shares how she gets her appliance looking as good as new.
Home hacks TikToker Carolina touted two kitchen staples to do the job: baking soda and washing up liquid. An air fryer comes with a cooking chamber, a heating element and a fan. The heating element generates the heat and the fan circulates the hot air around the cooking chamber, making sure the hot air reaches all sides of the food, cooking it thoroughly and evenly.
Carolina wrote in the caption: “Giving my air fryer a proper clean — with just a few simple steps and not much effort. It works so well and leaves everything looking fresh again!”
How to clean an air fryer
Take out the air fryer basket. Add a liberal amount of baking soda to target grease build-up.
Follow with a good amount of washing up liquid. Pour in some boiling water to help loosen the dirt.
Leave the solution to soak. Once soaked, pour away the dirty water, then rinse the rest away with some more water.
Baking soda is a good choice for cleaning as it breaks through grime with its naturally abrasive texture. This abrasiveness can help loosen dirt and food residue, making it easier to scrub away.
Vanguard Cleaning also noted that due to its alkaline chemical properties, it can help to deodorise and absorb bad smells left lingering by food in the air fryer.
Dr Oetker explained the reason baking soda is so good at banishing unwanted odours: “Most nasty smells in the air contain some sort of acid. As an alkali, baking soda reacts with those acids and neutralises them.”
Adding washing up liquid to the mix will increase the number of surfactants, molecules which reduce the surface tensions between two substances. Surfactants will help any water and oil to mix.
Baking soda and washing up liquid will help to remove stains and unwanted grime by surrounding and lifting grease and dirt particles from the affected area of the air fryer.