There are several ways how to get rid of cooking smells in your house. Read on to discover how to combat fish smells, burnt food smell, cooking oil smell, and more in your kitchen. This post is sponsored by EnviroKlenz but all opinions are my own.
My husband is the chef in our house, for which I am extremely thankful. I don’t like to cook all that much, nor have a strong desire to cook much. My husband likes it and loves to experiment and improve recipes.
It’s a total win around here!
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But neither of us loves it when something goes wrong in the kitchen, whether from me or from him, and we end up with a burn smell in our house, doubly so as it requires us to open doors and windows and wave objects by our smoke detectors so they won’t blare in our eardrums.
But, even if we don’t burn something in the kitchen, we still get cooking smells in our house, like cooking oil smell when we fry something, bringing me back to my fast food job days.
In various apartments we lived in, we even got whiffs of cooking smells from our neighbors, mostly the distinct fish smell. Neither my husband or I like fish, especially not fried fish whose smell lingers for days. ?
How to Get Rid of Cooking Smells In Your House
Our go-to method for cooking smell removal was to clean up the kitchen, open doors and windows for a while, turn on the oven vent fan, turn on fans to move air outdoors, or give in and wait until olfactory fatigue set in.
Occasionally, we’d bust out some sort of air freshener spray, but that usually just left us with an artificial flowery smell along with the cooking smells, creating a whole new sensory experience. Same was mostly true of lighting candles.
It was time to do a little more research on this common desire of how to get rid of cooking smells.
Boil Vinegar to Eliminate Cooking Smells
Option #1 to eliminate cooking smells in the house: Boil some vinegar and a little water on the stovetop in a pot.
While vinegar is a natural deodorizer, it also stinks itself, at least initially. So you have to be okay with lingering boiled vinegar smell instead of burn smell or cooking smells.
I used heated vinegar to get burn smell out of microwave.
Simmer Spices or Fruit for Cooking Smell Removal
Option #2 for cooking smell removal: Simmer spices or fruit peels in some water on stove, things like cinnamon sticks, cloves, orange or lemon peels.
The great thing about this is that it’s all natural and actually smells very good in the process. My husband has done this one on numerous occasions with decent results.
Use Natural Odor Absorbents to Remove Cooking Smells Overnight
Option #3 to remove cooking smells: Leave out a container or small bowl of natural odor absorbents like vinegar, baking soda, or coffee grounds. It will work overnight to capture those nasty cooking smells.
I also like this product as it has more neutralization capabilities than charcoal, carbon, and baking soda absorbers.
Of course, these may not be strong enough, or kitchen too large, or the kitchen burning smell too intense to work as well as you’d like. But, it’s a good natural option too.
Use an Air Purifier to Get Rid of Cooking Smells
Option #4 to get rid of cooking smells: Buy and use an air purifier in your home to help you get rid of burning smells or cooking smells in your house for good.
While not all air purifiers are made the same, and quality air purifiers are not as inexpensive as everyday kitchen staples like vinegar, baking soda, and citrus peels, they do a really great job of removing the impurities in the air, removing cooking odors, and more.
We recently got to test out the EnviroKlenz mobile air system that is able to clean ~1000 square feet of air from:
- airborne pollen
- dust
- odors
- mold
- gasses
- fragrance
- VOCs
- allergens
- bacteria
- and more
It does not release any chemicals back into your environment or work as some sort of masking smell agent (like those “air fresheners”).
Plus, this small air purifier is mobile! You can move it around your home as needed, which have greatly enjoyed doing.
We rolled our mobile air system into our bathroom to combat some strong bathroom smells, into our closet to combat some sweat smell emanating from clothes waiting to be washed (see here on how to remove sweat smell from clothes), and into our pantry to take away that trash and diaper smell.
I know this would also come in handy when we have vomit smells, urine smells, and poop smells (potty training sucks and so do diaper explosions). Just wheel this little guy where he needs to be to fight odors throughout your house.
The air has felt so clean and pure as we ran it and worked hard to remove burnt smells in our kitchen and various other cooking smells. It can be super quiet to a decent roaring white noise sound, as there are various levels, but nothing super annoying (we liked to crank it up at night).
The EnviroKlenz Mobile Air System even has a 30-day, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee if you don’t love it, as well as a 5-year mechanical warranty.
Plus, you can use code FAGANS15 to save 15% off your order and get free shipping on orders $75+.
I really think the best to way to get rid of cooking smells in your home is likely a combination of many of the various methods above. It will depend on what the specific smell is and what you have on hand to combat it.
Of course, it always helps to close doors before you cook to contain the smells as much as possible to just the kitchen, as well as change your HFAC air filters regularly (and use high quality ones), clean up the kitchen quickly after cooking, including the stove top and counters, and all pots and pans, and be sure to take out the trash, especially if you’re dealing with burned food smells.
It is also wise to wash any stinky kitchen towels, clothes, or other surfaces if they absorbed a lot of the smell too.
Also be sure to check out these other great posts for more help cleaning in the kitchen:
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