The ultimate kitchen-cleaning plan (no matter the mess) 

The kitchen is where life happens. It’s where date-night meals are made and where midnight ice-cream raids are rumbled. It’s where drinks are spilled, and the best conversations happen. 

And whilst cleaning your whole kitchen might sound daunting, love (and our kitchen cleaning tips) makes it bearable. 

1. Gather your kitchen-cleaning supplies

Before you dive into the kitchen cleaning, make sure you’ve got everything you need. Gather your cleaning fluids, mops, brushes and kitchen paper together, clear your countertops and fill a sink with hot, soapy water for soaking anything that needs it. This is also a good time to spray your oven and hob with cleaner and leave it to work while you get on with other jobs.

2. Start high

One of our favourite kitchen-cleaning tips is to start high and work down. Wiping and dusting the higher cabinets will knock dust and dirt onto the countertops, but you’re going to be cleaning them later, so it’ll just be extra satisfying when you get to that part. Start off dusting and then use a multi-purpose cleaner to wipe down the cabinets and remove any exploding cola can residue or month-old cake-mix fingerprints. 

3. How to clean the kitchen cupboards

Empty the contents onto the kitchen table and ask your housemate/partner/kids to wipe it down (especially sticky jars that seem to have more chocolate spread on them than in them) with moistened kitchen paper. Meanwhile, you can get to work wiping the cupboard shelves free of rogue gravy granules or dried oregano. 

4. Clean out the fridge

Next, it’s time to clean your fridge. Throw away any food that looks like it’s about to grow legs, but save those vegetables, they make great compost! In fact, there might be a few questionable-looking foods in your fridge that your compost pile will love. Some foods, however, are not suitable for composting. Read our handy guide on what can and can’t be composted to brush up on your composting skills and turn that waste into something positive!

Now, empty the remaining contents onto the kitchen table (you guessed it, anyone helping can wipe these too!). Meanwhile, use kitchen roll to wipe down the sides, top, bottom, doors, shelves and drawers, ensuring that you remove any sticky globs of marmalade or spoiled drops of milk, before replacing the clean fridge contents. 

Oh, and did you know you know Plenty kitchen roll sheets are now certified compostable,* too? That's right, instead of throwing your Plenty Original away after use, add them to your compost pile and turn waste into something positive. They’re compostable sheets for compostable messes! But be sure to only compost them if you haven’t used chemical cleaning products with them. Instead, why not try making your very own natural cleaning solution?

Want to know more about Plenty’s compostable kitchen roll sheets? Check out the answers to your frequently asked questions.

5. How to clean the kitchen surfaces

Once you know how to clean kitchen surfaces, it becomes very easy and quick. Just make sure you’ve got a cleaner that suits your worktop surfaces (you can test it on a small area first), spray it on and use a piece of wet kitchen paper in circular motions to remove the any dirt, including the tea stains that escape the tea bag between the mug and the bin. 

6. Clean lower cabinets 

Now it’s time to clean the lower cabinets. Just follow the same process as the upper cabinets and sweep all debris out onto the floor, ready for the big sweep. 

7. Finish your hob and oven

Now that the cabinets, fridge and surfaces are clean, your kitchen cleaning is almost finished – all that’s left is to finish off cleaning the oven and hob. The cleaner should have completed most of the work for you, but a little extra scrubbing on that burnt-on cheese should get the rest sparkling. 

8. Drain the sink

Almost done! Before you clean the floor, you should empty the sink and give it a good scrub. Give the taps and bowl (if you have one) a polish too.

9. Sweep the floor

Finally, it’s time for the big sweep. Sweep or vacuum up all the debris that has been collected during the kitchen-cleaning process and then use an appropriate floor cleaner to finish the job.  

Kitchen cleaning: how often?

The above plan details a full clean – but if you do each bit at different times, you’ll always have a clean kitchen. Why not try: 

• Daily. Wiping counter tops, scrubbing the sink and sweeping the floor
• Weekly. Clearing out the fridge, (snacking will probably help that effort out a bit), cleaning the floor, polishing the sink and scrubbing the hob
• Monthly. Oven cleaning, wiping cabinets and complete cleaning of the fridge

The kitchen is bound to get messy because it’s where everything happens. With good cleaning tips and Plenty kitchen paper even an egg rolling off the countertop and going ‘SPLAT’ on the floor is no big deal to clean up. Enjoy!

*Plenty kitchen towels are certified as home and industrially compostable according to NF T 50-800 and EN14995.