5 Mistakes Everyone Makes When Cooking On A Gas Stove

When it comes to choosing a stove, you have a number of options in terms of style and heat technology. An electric stove works by running electricity through metal coils or plates, while an induction stove top uses magnetic fields to create heat. A gas stove top, our main topic today, uses a gas-powered flame as a heat source to cook the food. Cooking over a flame is a good way to heat food evenly, but you could be making some mistakes when it comes to how you're using that gas stove.

Like any heating device, gas stoves can be potentially dangerous if proper rules aren't followed. Gas stoves work by connecting to either natural gas or propane, and if you don't follow safety protocols, you could risk anything from starting a fire to breathing in dangerous chemicals. Besides making a safety mistake, you need to make sure you're utilizing all elements of the stove, properly cleaning and caring for the stove top, and ensuring your kitchen remains a safe environment for the gas flame. (Spoiler alert: Don't cook with the windows open.) Here are five of the biggest mistakes to avoid making with your gas stove.

A typical gas stove has a vent hood hovering above your burners (it can sometimes be on the underside of the microwave) and essentially sucks air out of the kitchen and into the outside. Its purpose is to remove elements like steam and harmful gases from the air. Because of the way gas stoves heat, they can add pollutants into the air in the form of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, benzene, and formaldehyde. A 2023 study linked nearly 13% of all U.S. childhood asthma cases to indoor gas stove use. Luckily, a proper vent hood can help you combat a lot of those gases and sends them outside, so you breathe in less of them while in your kitchen. 

Gas stoves' emissions have become a heavy topic of conversation recently. While some people prefer gas because of the way it cooks, the government is considering limiting the use of gas stoves. In 2023, New York became the first state to ban gas stoves and furnaces in new residential dwellings. If you have a gas stove, it's important to turn on the vent hood to ensure you're breathing as few harmful pollutants and chemicals as possible.

It's important to clean and maintain all of your kitchen appliances, but especially the stove. As you cook, grease and food splatter all over the stove top. Over time, that leftover food builds up and, if left to sit, it can become increasingly difficult to remove. While a dirty stove is gross enough to look at, the food and grease buildup can also clog your burners, leading to issues with the heat and flames.

Cleaning the gas stove is easy, but each part requires a different process. The grates should, at the very least, be wiped with a damp cloth after each use, as should the stove's surface and burner caps. For a more thorough clean, soak the burner caps in warm water and create a paste from vinegar and baking soda to remove harsh, stuck-on stains. But before giving the stove a deeper clean, consult the cleaning instructions for that specific appliance, as they can vary depending on style and brand.

At first glance, you might not notice anything different about each stovetop burner. But a closer look shows that there are often up to four different-sized burners on the gas stovetop. The purpose of each remains the same, but smaller burners are meant for smaller pans. A big mistake you could be making is cooking with the wrong-sized burner or flame, which leads to over- or under-cooked food.

The burners on the stove top have adjustable knobs that control the flame size, and, in turn, how much heat hits the pan. For small pans with little food, utilize the smallest burner. Putting too little food over too large of a flame can result in unwanted burning. For the most part, stick with the idea that more food means a larger burner, but there are exceptions. If you're simmering a large pot of sauce for a couple of hours, for example, then you might want to utilize the smallest burner because the heat will build up as it cooks. Pan-searing a steak, on the other hand, requires high heat, so you should go with a larger burner.

Gas stoves heat in a circle; this makes sense because the bottom of most pans is a circular shape. The idea is that the pan sits in the center of the flame, creating the most even cooking experience. However, given that you can't see the flame when you're looking straight down at your pot or pan, it's easy to miscalculate where the center of the pan is.

This is a minimal error for an easy task like boiling water, but it can be a big problem if you're cooking something like chicken cutlets. If the heat isn't centered over the pan, one piece of meat will be done before the other. Besides the obvious concern that one piece could end up overcooked, uneven heating means the other piece could end up undercooked, which poses potential health risks since meat can carry harmful bacteria. Always ensure your pan is placed right in the center of the flame, and measure each individual piece of meat with a meat thermometer.

On a beautiful sunny day, it's tempting to cook with the windows open. And in the middle of summer, the hot stove paired with the hot weather might mean cranking up the AC or turning on a fan. But if you're cooking with gas, you should think twice about doing any of these. A gust of wind, whether one that comes in through the window or one that's created by the fan, can actually blow out the flame. 

At best, your food will stop cooking, but at worst, it could lead to a gas leak, which could cause carbon monoxide poisoning or even an explosion. Smaller flames and burners are at a higher risk because it takes less air to blow them out. It's best to not have any direct air blowing near the flame, so keep windows closed and fans off (except the exhaust fan, which takes in air instead of blowing it out).