It’s happened to you: You pull a giant sheet pan out from the oven after it has beeped its last timer alert and then raise the lid, only to discover a melted mess of crumpled foil. Your roast has slipped down onto the pan’s surface, but that doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong in the cooking process. More likely, you just picked the wrong kind of aluminum to do the job. Because while most home cooks (and newish caterers) know what a disposable baking pan looks like, very few realize they aren’t all built the same. Knowing physical limitations of the foil can make the difference between a great meal and a kitchen disaster.
Pans come in different sizes and capacities. Here’s a chart (above) with some details on those aspects, but here’s the big thing: how much metal are we talking about? The gauge is the most important part of a pan. For example, light pans bends easily; they’re great for cookies or side dishes. But put your hefty protein in a light-gauge pan and that sucker will buckle. That’s simple physics, something that trips up a lot of home cook. Flexibility comes at the cost of structure, whereas heftiness require some stiffness.
How to Choose the Right Baking Pan
A full sheet pan might say it hold ten quarts, but you never want to fill it to the brim. You don’t want to fill your sheet pan all the way to the top. Why? First, if you do, there’s nowhere else for your food to go when you gently tip the pan a few degrees in order to carry it from the table to the counter. Second, it gives you some wiggle room for expansion (ie: steam) and transport. With an inch of breathing space above your food, you won’t have to worry about making any messes on the ground.
Intuition also lets us down when we estimate size of servings. For example, many people think they can fit more on a half-sheet pan then is really possible. If you are planning for 20 guests, a half-sheet of casserole might only provide 8 portion. To help with portion control, this infographic provides a handy formula in terms of cups or quarts per person so you don’t have to guess at how many servings there will be. Calculate the volume, divide by the serving size, and then trim that number down to account for the fact that nobody eats with a spreadsheet. Voila! Accurate portions.
The depth of your pans matter more than you think if they are stacked together in a fridge or steam table. A quick cooking item like roast vegetables, or cookies, fits better into shallower pans; they cook faster since the heat moves through the metal. But something with lots of height (like deep-dish lasagna), or even just soup, require more vertical room. If you try to put that deep dish in a shallow pan, it will overflow. On the flip side, putting a simple salad into a deep pan wastes precious heat energy and space. Match type of food to the depth of the pan, rather than simply matching the overall volume.
When you cater, you need lids that fit your pans. Why? Lids hold in moisture of the foods. They keep items warm. And most importantly, they don’t allow grease to spill into other foods. But here’s where it gets tricky. Lids come in sizes. What size is your pan? The answer is not what the width of the inside measures. The outer rim determines the size. So if you buy a lid by its internal width, it won’t fit. Know this especially at a buffet line. You want those foods to stay hot.
Bare aluminum reacts to acidic food. Marinades made off citrus, tomato sauce, or vinegar all react with the metal and pit it if they stay in contact for too long. Use glass or a lined pan when marinating anything, especially chicken, that will be left overnight. The reaction isn’t just cosmetic. It changes the taste of the food. And this is true no matter what kind of party you have planned. It’s just one more part of how chemistry works.
And then there’s recycling. After the party, wash off the pans and toss them in your recycling bin. You’re finishing the circle by recycling aluminum that can be recycled forever. But first, you should of made it to the end of the meal without incident. The foil does what you expect it to do when you know its limitations.
Always have some breathing room on top. Use a deep pan for soup, a shallow one for breads, and thick metal for heavy loads. Respect the material and choose the appropriate pan. The food stays in place so when you open the lid, nothing has moved.
