Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

Since I was successful with making my own laundry detergent, I decided to try making dishwasher detergent. I almost always buy the little packets of Cascade. I admit, I am not a couponer. It takes an enormous amount of time and quite frankly, most of what I buy doesn't have coupons. I've also found that when I use coupons I buy things I wouldn't normally and most of that isn't healthy or necessary so it certainly doesn't save me money.  The Cascade I buy isn't cheap. So, I searched through many recipes and this is what I came up with.

1 cup of Borax

1 cup of Washing Soda

1/2 cup Kosher salt

1/2 cup Lemi-Shine (I found this at Wal Mart in the dishwasher soap section)

Mix the ingredients together, put them in a container, with the lid off for 24 hours. Leaving the lid off supposedly helps keep the detergent from clumping. Mine clumps a little but nothing you can't handle.  Store in the container with the lid closed.

Use a heaping tablespoon of detergent with each load.


Fill your rinsing agent section with white vinegar for a cheap alternative to Jet Dry.

We've been using this as our dishwasher detergent for over a month. It's worked very well and it's great to know I'm saving money, (I figure this method costs about 25% of what I was spending on Jet Dri and Cascade)!