The Easy Trick To Speeding Up Your Oven's Preheat

When you're pressed for time — which for many people is just about every day — the last thing you want to have to do is wait that extra 15 or 20 minutes for your oven to preheat, especially if in the midst of the chaos, you forgot to turn on the oven ahead of time. However, preheating is an important cooking step, and one that should not be skipped in most cases (except for those dishes that don't actually need it), both for quality and texture reasons (such as for biscuits, baguettes, and even pizza crust), as well as safety (such as dishes with raw meat like chicken).

Luckily there's an easy trick that can speed up the time it takes for your oven to preheat to the right temperature. All you have to do is turn your broiler on for three to five minutes before setting the oven to your target temperature.

Although this trick does make a difference when it comes to gas ovens, causing them to preheat faster, it isn't always as effective when it comes to electric ovens. That said, tests of the method have proven it successful, with one particular reviewer sharing that after running the broiler prior to preheating, their oven reached its set temperature over 10 minutes faster than it would've without the broiler involved.

Turning on the broiler can get your oven hot almost immediately, which helps it heat the entire appliance faster. But, to be sure that the trick works successfully, you should test out the trick on your own oven before cooking or baking anything where precise temperatures are important. And, use a separate oven thermometer set away from the broiler to be sure that your oven has truly reached the correct temperature for your needs.