I Just Discovered a Brilliant Method for Cleaning Oven Racks in Minutes

Confession: I’ve never cleaned my oven racks. I rely on the self-cleaning mode to take care of the rest of the oven, but that hasn’t done a whole lot for the baked-on residue on the racks. 

I didn’t relish the idea of cleaning the racks, either, so I sought out a way to do it in the least amount of time and effort. That’s why I was thrilled to find a trick on Apartment Therapy that was easy and used a product I already had on hand: The Pink Stuff.

Now, I already know how effective The Pink Stuff is and how it can be used on many surfaces. I’m still experimenting with it — it’s rather abrasive, after all, so you do have to be discerning. But given that oven racks can take a beating, I was more than ready to give it a try.

Here’s how I cleaned my oven rack using aluminum foil and The Pink Stuff in just a few minutes.

1. Take a sheet of aluminum foil and crunch it up into a ball.
2. Dip it into The Pink Stuff.
3. Start scrubbing the oven rack.
4. Rinse well.

Wow! Those baked-on brown spots I was sure wouldn’t budge basically disappeared before my eyes. I didn’t even have to scrub that hard — the balled-up foil and The Pink Stuff were doing the grunt work. 

The paste did keep slipping off the foil and through the rack into my sink, though, so I had to keep reapplying. The good news is that there was no product waste; my sink simply got a scrub-down when I was finished. That said, I’ll switch to a microfiber cloth next time, not only to avoid waste, but to also clean both sides of the rack at once, as well as get into tight corners. I also would consider putting on rubber gloves to spread The Pink Stuff more liberally on the rack in the hopes that it would stay put while I scrub.

I could have done a more thorough job, but I was impressed enough with my progress that I stopped after five minutes. The spots I cleaned were definitely shiny and enough evidence that The Pink Stuff worked — I would just have to work a bit longer and more meticulously to get the whole rack looking like new. I’m jealous of people with newer ovens with more streamlined racks that just have straight lines, rather than mine, which have crossbars that create tight corners perfect for cooking residue to stick around. 

Oven rack envy aside, I will go back to this task when I have more time — maybe when I actually do my spring cleaning. I also have other formulas of The Pink Stuff, including the multipurpose spray, which might be easier to dampen a microfiber cloth with to run up and down the oven rack. Either way, I won’t be dreading (or avoiding) cleaning my oven racks ever again.

Looking for the best cleaning tools to buy for your home? Take a look at the winners of the 2025 Apartment Therapy Cleaning Awards.