This Ingenious, Customizable Kitchen Tool Makes Sheet-Pan Cooking (and Cleanup) a Breeze
I’m a huge fan of any recipe that can be cooked on a sheet pan. Being able to cook a protein and vegetables at the same time (and on the same pan) consistently helps me get dinner ready in less time — and with less effort. Plus, I like that while my food roasts in the oven I can clean up my prep station and have fewer dishes to deal with when we’re done eating. No wonder our editors have so many beloved sheet-pan recipes, favorite sheet pans, and even a guide for turning any dinner into a sheet-pan dinner.
However, my one gripe about sheet-pan cooking is the cleanup. My sink isn’t big enough for even my smallest sheet pan to lie down flat, and I don’t enjoy the game of trying to avoid spraying water all over the counter when I wash it. As a result, I try to clean them less often by covering my sheet pans in aluminum foil when cooking, but that’s not the best solution. A much better (and less wasteful) one is this set of oven-safe sheet pan trays that gives you the versatility of a sheet pan with much easier cleanup.
Each tray is made of silicone and can hang out in your oven at up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit for as long as it takes your food to become crispy (or beyond crispy, if that’s how you like it). You can also pop them in the microwave to cook or reheat dishes, and when you’re done, they go right in the dishwasher. If you don’t have a dishwasher, they’re still more manageable to clean in your sink than a large sheet pan. Essentially, you can treat Cheat Sheets like a modular sheet-pan system: Each one is a separate cooking vessel that works on its own, but together, they fit neatly onto a half sheet pan to create an entire meal.
One of the biggest advantages these mini sheet pans offer is the ability to prep and cook things in the same container. You can fill all four trays with different ingredients — one with broccoli florets, one with potatoes, one with carrots, and one with salmon filets — and keep them refrigerated until you’re ready to cook. Then, you can choose to either put them all in the oven at the same time or put them in at staggered intervals to account for different cook times. Traditional sheet-pan cooking also lets you add ingredients at different times, but only these trays give you the option to keep foods separate, which comes in handy with meats that give off a lot of moisture or dishes with different flavors that you don’t want to mix.
I could definitely see myself using these to get a head start on weeknight dinners by cutting up extra veggies one evening and tossing them in a tray to roast the next. But, they would really help out when I’m making a big dinner with lots of dishes by letting me finish most of my prep work a day ahead and have things ready to pop into the oven as soon as it’s heated. And, if I want to, say, simmer a chicken breast in a few San Marzano tomatoes, I can do that on the same pan where I’m crisping up broccolini without tomato juices running everywhere.
Ready to unlock a new level of sheet-pan cooking? Try these versatile trays and see how much time and effort they save you in the kitchen.
Buy: Cheat Sheets Silicone Trays, $29.99