Roasting all-in-one dishes on a single sheet pan in the oven is an easy way to make a delicious meal!
Meats and vegetables respond well to the high heat of oven roasting, and pan juices caramelize into savory bites and beautiful coloring. I’ve cooked some meals this way, and they taste amazing – and also require minimal cleanup since everything is prepared in one sheet pan.
Cooking this way on a sheet pan is a great way for the oven heat to cover all the surface of the food. The carmelizing I mentioned occurs because the high heat draws out the natural sugars and makes a delicious finish on the outsides while keeping the insides tender.
Sheet pan cooking can be used with all kinds of meats, seafood, and vegetables, and so far I’ve made it with shrimp/ andouille sausage/corn-on-the-cob/red potatoes, and chicken breast/andouille sausage/red onion/red potatoes. Here are a few tips I’ve found to be useful when making sheet pan suppers:
- Avoid Pan Sticking: Spray the sheet pan with non-stick cooking spray. You can add a piece of parchment paper on top, as I’ve done in the two meals shown in this post, or just go with the non-stick spray.
- Brush Food with Olive Oil: You’ll want to either marinate your food items before loading them onto the sheet pan, or you can brush them with oil after they’re on the pan. It really doesn’t matter which way you do it – but it is important you don’t skip this step to avoid the food becoming dry. And, the oil adds to the carmelized finish.
- Tongs Work Well: With your foods spread across the sheet pan, I’ve found it works best to use kitchen tongs to turn the items during cooking as needed. It’s a lot easier than trying to make a spoon or spatula work.
- Seasonings: Be creative with your seasonings, and if you add them to the foods on the sheet pan instead of marinating first, be sure to use your tongs to turn and coat all sides of the food.
- Similar-Sized Pieces: It’s important to cut the food items into roughly the same sized pieces so they’ll cook evenly. For example, in my chicken/sausage dish, I cut the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces roughly the size of the sliced sausage, and cut the red potatoes in half. And, for the shrimp dish, I cut the corncobs in fourths so they would be similar in size to the other items.
- Stage the Cooking Time, if Needed: For the dishes I photographed and included in today’s post, I was able to cook all the items together for the same amount of time. However, my next-up plan for a sheet pan supper is to cook salmon with portobello mushrooms and red potatoes, and I’ll want to add the salmon to the sheet pan after the potatoes have cooked for a while. You can experiment with what works best for different dishes, depending on the food choices you make.
- Serve with Bread: The delicious juices and carmelized food bits in a sheet pan supper call for serving with your choice of bread. It’s an informal kind of meal, anyway, and chunks of bread can soak up those flavorful last bites!
I enjoyed not only cooking, serving and eating these flavorful sheet pan suppers, but also photographing them!
Shrimp/Andouille Sausage/Corn-on-the-Cob/Red Potatoes Sheet Pan Supper
Chicken Breast/Andouille Sausage/Red Potatoes/Red Onion Sheet Pan Supper
Vegetables on Sheet Pan
While these aren’t a full meal cooked on a sheet pan, they are delicious roasted in the oven as side dishes for other meals. I photographed my green beans and potatoes cooked this way. Although I don’t have any pictures, I’ve also roasted cherry tomatoes on a sheet pan, and they are delicious!
In addition to the salmon/red potatoes/portobello mushrooms sheet pan supper I’m planning to make soon, I’m going to experiment with a sheet pan dessert. I’m thinking maybe half of the sheet pan as blueberries and the other half as cut strawberries – all covered with an oats-and-brown-sugar streusel to make a fruit crisp that will be served warm out of the oven with vanilla bean ice cream. Stay tuned!
Have you made a sheet pan supper? What foods did you use? Be sure to comment below!
