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5 Homemade Remedies for a Better Smelling Kitchen

This article is written by a student writer from the Spoon University at UIUC chapter.

Don’t you just love coming home to an awful smelling kitchen? Yeah, me neither. I also really don’t like when that funky smell from dinner sticks around for far too long.  

To get rid of that potent smell, you could start by taking out the trash, cleaning out some old food from the fridge and making sure you don’t have any dirty dishes out. Although that may help, none of that will be necessary.

You don’t need Febreze to mask that weird smell either. Just try one of these simple homemade remedies instead to get rid of the awful smell. Depending on what you have lying around in your kitchen, you can determine which method to try.

1. Orange Peals and Cinnamon

Smelling Kitchen juice apple
Angela Kerndl

Simmer some orange peals and cinnamon in a small pot of water for a few hours. Keep over low heat otherwise you may have a burnt smelling kitchen, which may or may not be better than the original smell. The first time I tried this I ended up with a pot of charred oranges because I forgot to turn the stove down, oops.  

2. Lemon, Baking Soda and Water 

Smelling Kitchen sweet
Angela Kerndl

Mix together a bit of lemon juice, baking soda and water. Scrub your kitchen counters and fridge with this and you’ll get that nice fresh, citrus smell.  

3. Coffee Grounds

Smelling Kitchen cereal condiment
Angela Kerndl

Place a plate or bowl of coffee grounds in your refrigerator to neutralize the odors. This one works best with fresh coffee grounds. If you don’t have coffee, you can also leave some baking soda open in your fridge to help deodorize your kitchen.   

4. Lemon

Smelling Kitchen lemonade citron
Angela Kerndl

Most of the time that nasty smell in your kitchen is probably coming from the sink. If you have a garbage disposal in your sink, you can throw some lemon or orange peals down the drain along with water. You could also just throw half a lemon down the drain and that works just the same.  

5. Cotton Balls and Vanilla

Smelling Kitchen sweet chicken
Angela Kerndl

Soak a handful of cotton balls in vanilla extract and let them sit in a small cup or bowl in your fridge. This will help absorb the smell of some old food you have in there.   

My kitchen smells weird 99 percent of the time so I am grateful for these homemade remedies. Thankfully, they’re all super simple and are sure to give your kitchen that nice, clean smell you need.

Angela is a broadcast journalism student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She recently spent six months eating her way through Mexico. She looks forward to spending another six months studying abroad, this time in Hong Kong. She is currently training for her first ever marathon and hopes to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She loves spending time cooking while listening to NPR. You can follow her on instagram @angelakerndl and @hangry.angela!...also, her spirit animal is Haruki Murakami.