Ok, so I'm a little embarrassed about this post. Because this is gross. And not something I can blame on the kids. Although, my husband is a big part of this as well, so it's really not just me. Really.
Here is a picture of our microwave. Yep, that's splattered food that we didn't clean off right away. This is how everyone's microwave looks, right?!
Ew. Anyway, I have found an easier way to clean the microwave. I've been doing it for years, but just recently learned that not everyone knows this trick, so I thought I would share. Anyway, the best way to clean your microwave is to clean up the splatter right away so the food doesn't have time to dry out on the sides of your microwave. Making it impossible to clean and tedious scrubbing. But that doesn't happen often enough around here since I am usually rushing to get everything on the table at the same time. So here's my trick....put a glass of water in the dirty microwave like pictured below.
Ok, so it's more work than just putting a glass in the microwave. Obviously it doesn't clean itself. But, you put a glass (I always use glass because of the BPA crap in plastics) of water in and turn it on high for a couple minutes. I always do 2-3 minutes and then let it sit in there for a few more minutes. Be careful removing the glass because it gets hot and can burn your hands! The steam from the water you just microwaved will turn the dried out food into "hydrated food" that will just wipe right off. No scrubbing necessary. I remove the glass turn table from the bottom and wash that in the sink with soap, but everything else just gets a quick wipe down. The "after" photo is below.
Like I said, no scrubbing involved. It's easy peasy. Now only if I could do it more often so the microwave doesn't get as gross as the first photo!