13 Mistakes You're Making With Your Oven's Broiler

A broiler is essentially an upside-down grill that you use inside. As such, it's a handy tool, especially during the winter or when the outdoors is uninviting. 

The broiler offers a good way to cook foods that otherwise become messy, such as grilled cheese with tomatoes. And it is also great for replicating upscale results, such as when you want to make restaurant-style pizza at home or produce a quality steak. Enough turf, what about surf? You can also transform frozen shrimp into dinner in minutes or make a to-die-for salmon burger with curry remoulade.

However, you must know how to use the broiler to get the most out of it. Indeed, if you employ it incorrectly, you will quickly ruin your food. (And if you've ever ruined a lovely, expensive cut of meat or a homemade pizza over which you labored for hours, you understand the trauma of this.) So without further ado, here are 13 mistakes to avoid making with your oven's broiler.

Forgetting to preheat the broiler is a common mistake that people make, says Sarah Bond of the blog Live Eat Learn. "Yes, it needs preheating too!" she exclaims. Although we all instinctively know not to put food into a cold oven to bake, we somehow forget about this when broiling. Sure, an open flame is more of an instant-hot proposition than convection heat, but still.

This step is important because preheating the broiler helps to ensure that the oven is hot enough to cook the food in the intended fashion according to your recipe. Thus you should always wait until it is fully preheated to put the food under the broiler. Even if flames are coming out or it looks or feels very hot, it may not be at a high enough temperature.

You may also consider preheating the pan. That helps to ensure that there isn't a cold surface working against the heat of the broiler, so your pan aids in searing food and locking in flavor. If you don't feel confident that your broiler accurately reflects the temperatures you're looking for, you can use an oven-safe thermometer to get instant results. If you think you have an uneven browning pattern, pop a tray of white bread slices under the broiler and let them go for a few minutes. The color variation will tell you where the hot spots are.

Another mistake? Getting your rack placement wrong. "If it's too close, it can burn on the outside before cooking through," says Rena Awada of Healthy Fitness Meals. "If it's too far, it might not brown properly or take longer to cook." Broiling is a delicate matter; make sure you're following the rules. Always check your recipe when deciding where to place your rack.

For meat, Sarah Bond says, "Start by placing the meat on a broiler pan or rack to allow excess fat to drip away, and keep it about three to six inches from the broiler, depending on thickness." In general, Awada adds, you can usually count on four to six inches being the right distance, depending on what you're making. If you think six inches is too close, then you might want to consider looking for a recipe for baked chicken instead.

Using the wrong cookware in the broiler can be a real bummer. It may result in damage to your pans or disservice to the food. Never use nonstick pans, enameled cookware, or glass baking dishes. None of these do well under high heat.

Ideally, you should always use a broiler pan unless you're really just browning the top of something. They have a slotted top rack through which juices can trickle and a solid bottom pan that will catch drippings. This is especially important when cooking meat, or if you simply want to save your oven from a big mess.

If you don't have a broiler pan, you can use a few other combos. A rack inside a baking sheet with a high lip will do, as will a roasting pan. A good cast-iron skillet will also work well. Whatever you use, remember that things come out of the broiler hot (like, hot-hot). Make sure you have a good pair of dry hot pads on hand for removing it.

Soggy food is no one's favorite. Like, literally, what recipe have you ever seen that says to "cook until desired sogginess level?" And yet, with as often as home chefs crowd the food, you'd think they were into it. The thing is, when you mash a lot of food together in a pan, it cannot cook properly. This is as true with broiling as it is with sauteing.

For one thing, too much food in a small space will lower the temperature of your pan. This prevents browning and promotes sticking, neither of which is ideal. For another thing, if you don't have big enough gaps between different items, then the heat cannot circulate, resulting in food that is wet and gray. Yum ... said no one ever.

As such, you should make sure you have several inches of space between pieces of meat or bread, and always follow the recipe's guidance for amounts per batch. Resist the temptation to shove more food in so that it will cook faster. It doesn't work.

Some food is meant to be baked or roasted, not broiled. Although it might seem like higher temperatures will cook faster, the point of the broiler is to cook something very quickly from the outside without needing the inside to cook much. As such, the broiler is a counterproductive tool when your goal is to cook something all the way through. If what you really need to do is roast an item, do that. Some broilers have a high and low setting, which can help accommodate different thicknesses. Typically you would use the lower setting with, say, a thicker cut of meat.

It can be confusing to decide whether to bake or broil. Essentially, try to go for broiling when you are either cooking a thin protein (say, fish) or veggies, or when you're just trying to brown something right at the end. The method you decide on will determine how far your pan is from the element at the top as well; for baking, you probably want to position your pan closer to the center of the oven.

It's easy to mistake broiling's supercharged heating power for the ability to cook all foods properly, regardless of their temperature. That's not true, however. Food that's too cold will maintain a low internal temperature while still broiling relatively quickly on the top or outside. This can leave you with an interior that is undercooked, unsafe, or both.

Make sure that food is at the right temperature before you stick it under the broiler. For instance, let's say you want to brown the top of a lasagna. The broiler will do that nicely. However, it will not warm the rest of the lasagna if you have just pulled it out of the refrigerator. The rest of the lasagna will need to be heated through. Other foods should be at room temperature as well. An hour on the counter should be long enough to get them there. Just make sure they don't stay in the danger zone of 40 to 140 F for more than the two hours recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

There is an exception to this rule, however. It really doesn't seem to matter if you warm up your steak beforehand. The real concern is how dry you get it. The temperature of the steak matters less to how brown it gets than its water content does. If you dry it very well but it's cold, you'll still get a better, browner result than a soggy room-temp cut.

Broiling is essentially blasting with hot air and/or flame. It's a high-temperature desert in there, and if you're not careful, you'll suck the moisture right out of your food. To avoid this, make sure to oil items before you put them under the broiler. Oil helps create a moisture barrier so your food doesn't dry out, Sarah Bond says, explaining that foods like veggies are fantastic broiling candidates, but need to be cut up and evenly oiled for best results.

Oil also helps distribute heat from the pan so your food will cook more uniformly. It also triggers the Maillard reaction, a chemical process that food undergoes when amino acids interact with reducing sugars to produce that inimitable sugary, savory, brown crust on foods that have been broiled or grilled. Moreover, oil seeps into the food to replace water lost, carrying yummy flavors along with it. Lastly, it keeps food from sticking so you get to keep all that delicious, browned, caramelized crust you just created on your meat, fish, veggies, or cheese bread. So always remember to also coat your grill pan or rack with a little bit of it.

On the other hand, you want to avoid using too much oil. If you create too thick a layer of fat over meat, vegetables, or anything else, it can cause dangerous flare-ups and flames. Literally, your food can catch fire if you place it under the broiler with too much oil coating the surface, so be careful with marinades or fatty dishes like duck confit, for instance.

Typically, a good recipe will tell you how much oil to use in order to protect the dish without it becoming a fire hazard. If you don't have any guidance, then pour a little bit of oil into a ramekin and use a pastry brush to coat the food's surface. This will help to avoid overusing oil. You can also douse it with a little bit of non-stick cooking spray if you don't trust yourself to apply it lightly enough.

Heating oil or juices at a high temperature causes them to caramelize and get very sticky. While this is an appealing quality in foods we are eating, and the reason we enjoy grilled meats and bubbly cheeses (yay, Maillard reaction!), it is not an appealing quality when you are trying to scrub a pan clean.

You can avoid that sticky, brown residue on the bottom of your pan by lining it with a little bit of aluminum foil. Yes, it should be aluminum foil. Parchment paper can catch fire and wax paper is no better. Silicone liners are better suited to baking because their max temperatures are, depending on the manufacturer, either 480 or 550 degrees Fahrenheit, and broilers may go higher than this. Stick to foil.

There are a few different ways you can line your pan, depending on what you're broiling. For a simple tray of veggies, just place foil over an entire cookie sheet and throw your food on. For meat, you might want to line both the grill pan and the catch pan with foil, then cut along the vents of the top pan so grease and juices can drip through. You can also line a cookie sheet with foil and then place a cooling rack on top of it, but make sure it doesn't have a nonstick coating.

Like many tools, the broiler can be your best friend or your worst enemy. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to walk away, because the broiler can torch foods faster than you can say "OMG, my crostini!" With broiling, as with grilling, you must make sure not to wander off. Now, this is tricky sometimes, such as when you're socializing or (ahem) enjoying a drink or two. But make sure you stick close to the kitchen when you've got something in the oven.

"With the broiler's high heat, even an extra minute can mean disaster," says Sarah Bond. "As a rule of thumb, if the broiler is on, don't walk away from the oven!" If you are broiling something that takes a bit longer, like meat, feel free to set the timer or use a meat thermometer, but stay in the kitchen. Be fairly vigilant with veggies too. "Smaller veggies like asparagus can cook in just a few minutes, while heartier ones like bell peppers may take a bit longer," Bond says. However, if you are broiling the top of a dessert or cheesy dish, simply turn on the oven light, sit down, and watch. It's the only safe play.

"Each type of food needs slightly different handling to make the most of broiling," Rena Awada explains, adding that "Timing is everything." Meat, veggies, bread, and dessert all call for different treatments, depending on the ingredients they contain and the intended finish of the dish.

"Veggies, like asparagus or bell peppers, can handle the intense heat and often get a nice char, but they cook quickly," Awada says. "Meat needs careful monitoring to cook through without burning the outside. Thicker cuts might need to be further from the broiler or finished in the oven."

Bread browns in seconds, she continues, and dessert with a sugary top can quickly become burnt and bitter. Always look up a recipe for exactly how long you need to broil something, set a timer, and then take it out immediately. Food blogs and Pinterest can help with this. "Thanks to the internet, it's really not that hard to find broiler-related recipes," Awada says. "If you're more of a visual learner, platforms like YouTube and TikTok are perfect for finding step-by-step videos that show you exactly how to broil everything from steak to marshmallows for s'mores."

Many experts advise keeping the oven door open when broiling because it increases airflow. This is because the thermostat, which is responsible for regulating the temperature, may not keep the broiler on if it perceives that the oven is already hot. That might change cooking times or result in a suboptimal finish. The best bet? Crack the door. It ensures that air is always escaping, which will keep the broiler going full blast in response to cooling temperatures.

Depending on your oven's model, though, this advice might not apply to you. "Some older models recommend cracking the door to prevent overheating, but most modern broilers are designed to work with the door closed," Sarah Bond explains. "Check your oven's manual to be sure."

If cracking the door is recommended, make sure to keep an eye on it to make sure you're not losing too much heat, Rena Awada recommends. When checking on food, she adds, make sure not to leave it wide open too long, as this can change the temperature as well.

Some foods, like pizza or Croque Monsieur, should only ever be cooked from above. However, many foods do best when they are cooked evenly. This is especially true of things that take a little longer, such as meat or vegetables.

"When broiling, it's important to flip the food halfway to ensure it cooks evenly on both sides," Rena Awada says. "If you wait too long to flip (or don't at all), one side might get overcooked while the other stays underdone." Wait until the first side is nicely browned and starting to crisp up, she says, then flip it quickly and stick the pan back in.

Make sure to check the recipe you're using to see if you're supposed to flip it at all, though, and don't just do it willy-nilly. Food like fish is too delicate to withstand much jostling. If you are going to flip foods, keep in mind that you should only flip them once.