You know the drill: It’s the dreaded witching hour, when everyone in the car has gone from happy to hungry and you’re too tired to calculate how long it takes to order a pizza versus driving home to make a frozen pizza. (Twenty minutes? Two thousand hours? I can barely do the math even after lunch.)
To save your future self a few bucks, you opt for “homemade” pizza – maybe throw in a few chicken nuggets to stop the teenage eye rolls – and stumble into the kitchen to stare into a freezing cold oven. Pooh. Is it worth waiting the extra time to preheat the oven? (And can you defrost a slice of pepperoni faster with a hairdryer?)
Short answer: Preheat your oven for the best results. Give yourself a little while you wait, because preheating guarantees evenly cooked casseroles, caramelized roasted vegetables, and crispy tater tots. If the food is precooked, there is some wiggle room for the anti-preheat cohort, but dinner may not come to the table any quicker.
Do you need to preheat your oven for frozen (or fresh) pizza?
When it comes to frozen pizza, the package instructions are designed with that in mind works in every oven across America. That means if your oven preheats quickly and mine heats up like a turtle in honey, we’ll both still start cooking at the same degree Fahrenheit temperature and get consistent results at about the same time.
While a frozen pizza could technically bake in a cold oven, this must be the case thawed before cookingand it may take a few minutes longer to get brown and bubbly. Unless your range features one of these brilliant “Pizza without preheating” buttons, you can’t go wrong with preheating your oven.
When baking a fresh pizza, you should always preheat it, as a blazing hot oven will most closely resemble a professional pizza oven.
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Chicken nuggets work better in a preheated oven
Did someone say frozen chicken nuggets? While you could start frozen Nuggets in an oven without preheating, it probably won’t do the once crispy breading any favors. To avoid the outside getting soggy and the Dino Nugget nuggets getting cold inside, preheat the oven to the recommended temperature.
Even though frozen chicken nuggets look golden brown straight out of the package, I want to completely eliminate the possibility of foodborne illness by following the package instructions. Preheating the oven and baking the nuggets to an internal temperature of 165°F makes this chicken a winner, winner, you get the idea.
Preheat for casseroles and roasts
Casseroles, roasts and roasted vegetables You don’t necessarily need a preheated oven as these types of dishes cook for much longer than, for example, a frozen pizza. However, the time I may have hoped to save by popping frozen macaroni and cheese into my cold oven is immediately swallowed up by the time it takes to heat up.
Do you have a sweet pre-cooked casserole that you pulled out of the freezer? Defrost it in the refrigerator beforehand and preheat the oven for baking. You should also preheat if you want to make a casserole chilled from the fridge.
Yes, you can probably avoid not preheating your oven for frozen, cooked foods – if you have to. But even if it feels like the longest 20 minutes of your life, preheating your oven will guarantee that Grandma’s tuna noodle casserole will taste as creamy, noodley, and potato chippy as you remember it.
