No one wants their garbage disposal to smell. It makes being in your kitchen miserable. To keep your disposal clean and smelling great, I’ve included my top 2 methods I use to cleaning my own disposal.

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Before we purchased our townhome and still lived in an apartment, I started to notice our garbage disposal would start to stink on a regular basis. I tried a few different methods to get rid of the smell, but it only seemed to last a day or two. After trial and error, I finally found the method that worked the best for my own home.

I’ve included my own process for cleaning my garbage disposal, which requires minimal work, doesn’t cost much and keeps my disposal smelling great. For those who prefer to use items at home, I’ve included a natural way to clean your disposal, which still works great (just will require a little more time).

I swear by the Glisten Garbage Disposal Cleaner. The reasons why this is my favorite way to clean my garbage disposal is it doesn’t include bleach, it’s not expensive (less than $4 for a pack of 4) and it’s easy to use. The last thing I need is a process that takes too much time because I know I’m not likely to keep up with it. I use it once a week, sometimes every other week, depending on how much food I’ve put in my disposal for that given week.

To use, it’s simple. You run warm water in your disposal and keep it turned on for about a minute. This will help you make sure that all the food still in your disposal gets cleared out. Once your disposal is clean, you want to turn off the disposal. Minimize your water to about a pencil size stream. With the water still running, place one of the Glisten packets in the disposal. Keep the water going and turn on the disposal. You’ll start to see blue foam. I generally leave the disposal running until the foam is no longer coming up and I can tell the packet has been dissolved. Once most of the foam has gone back into the disposal, you can use warm weather to rinse the rest of the foam away. Not only does it clean your disposal, but it’s also satisfying to watch. It takes me less than 5 minutes to complete.

Another method I’ve had success with includes using baking soda and vinegar. The only reason this isn’t my preferred method is it takes longer than the method I shared above. For me personally, I prefer the methods that work well and take the least amount of time due to my schedule.

To clean your garbage disposal with baking soda and vinegar, you want to still start by making sure that all the food is cleared in your disposal by running it for a minute with warm water running. Once it’s run for about a minute, you can shut it off and turn off the water. Pour 1/2 cup of baking soda in your disposal. For this method to work the best, I recommend allowing it to sit for about an hour. Once the baking soda has been sitting in the disposal close to an hour, pour a cup of vinegar in the disposal. If you’re looking for a deeper clean, you can let it sit for 10 minutes. If not, once it’s done fizzing, you can go ahead and rinse the disposal to finish off the cleaning.

If you’re in between regular cleanings for your disposal and want to freshen it up after using it (without going through the whole cleaning process), these lemon pods work great. I generally use a combination of both the Glisten Garbage Disposal Cleaner and then the lemon pods in between uses.

Let me know in the comments which method you’ve tried out!