Bakeware for Meal Prep
Bakeware is everything you need for effective oven cooking. Whether you’re baking bread and pastries or roasting turkey dinner, there’s endless options of tools suited to meet you meal prep needs.
Ovens are great for low and slow cooking, so you have to have the right tools to make the most of it. Sheets and pans come in a wide range of materials to match your cooking style. Depending on what you like to bake, whether it be a plate of cookies or a cheesy lasagna, choosing the right materials from ceramic to stainless steel and nonstick can make a world of difference.
Making meal plans for the colder seasons? Roasting is a great way to bring out those rich, deep flavors with racks that can hold meats above the veggies for umami-packed aus ju. It’s hard to go wrong with proper bakeware and we’ve found the best for your meal prep.
Baking Sheet
Baking sheets are flat surfaces made with oven safe metals. They are thin with raised sides depending on the style. They are great for roasting or baking vegetables, sliding into an oven with ease.
To prevent sticking, cooking oil is usually applied or home cooks will place a sheet of parchment paper on top. Some materials are nonstick too, making clean up even easier.
Baking sheets come in a wide variety of sizes to fit any oven. They can be incredibly wide, capable of holding large amounts of food or sized toaster ovens for single portions. One size doesn’t fit all so it’s important to find baking sheets that are compatible with your kitchen.
Casserole Dish
Casserole dishes, typically made with porcelain or glass, feature tall sides for baking deep dish recipes like baked mac and cheese or chicken parmesan. They excel at maintaining heat so that contents can reach the perfect temperature for melty consistencies.
Casseroles are a great way to pack all your ingredients into a single bite, reducing kitchen complexity. When the week is rough, sometimes we just want to cut our ingredients up, throw them in the oven and be done. So we found the best casserole dishes to do just that.
Some can even take their casserole dishes a step further. If you have a glass meal prep container that is oven safe, then you can cook your casserole or whatever directly into your dish to eliminate the entire storing process.
Muffin Pan
Muffin pans are baking sheets with 12 impressions made for pouring batter into. They are great for compartmentalizing baked goods, making it easy to portion out. They’re also easy to clean and store.
While muffins are notorious for their high sugar content, home cooks can make a lot more than just muffins with a muffin pan. They are great for baking a wide range of foods like eggs if you want to make quiches or tarts.
The line between dinner and dessert has never been more blurry than with a muffin pan. Whether you want to make mini shepherds pies, morning pastries, or evening desserts, the options for meal prep are surprising with muffin pans.
Pie Dish
Pie dishes are large, circular pans with raised sides to hold up pie crust. They come in a range of sizes depending on how many portions you want to make and the contents inside. Pies are either savory or sweet and normally served as a dinner or dessert.
Pies are widely different between the United States and the United Kingdom. In the United States, pies are traditionally made with fruits, spices, and sugar hence the quintessential apple pie. However, in English cuisine, pies tend to refer to mince meat, potatoes, and gravy.
Fortunately, both taste great and both can be made in the same type of pie dish. You just need to know what type of recipes you are intending to make for meal prep and what you might want to try in the future.
Ramekin
Ramekins, the small ceramic bowls, are individual baking dishes for specialities like creme brulee and lava cake. They are great for decadent desserts because you can scale down the quantity of expensive ingredients that you need.
Alternatively, and oftentimes more commonly, ramekins serve as the best prep bowls. They are the perfect size for aromatics, spices, and liquids that you need to measure out or put aside. Mise en place could never be easier.
Due to their single portion size, it is easy to bake with ramekins because you can easily place the resulting food into your storage container with minimal mess. Just scoop it out and it’s ready to go unlike other recipes which need layering.
Roasting Pan
Roasting pans are similar to casserole because they are large, with high walls for large ingredients. However, they also include a wire rack for meat to be placed onto with ingredients underneath. The resulting product is a roasted piece of meat with the side dish cooking beneath it – perfect for meal prep.
Roasting pans aren’t exclusive to large pieces of meat either. Cooks can also use the pan to roast larger vegetables like potatoes and carrots that are slow to soften up. The low and slow method for roasting will ensure that a deep caramelization will occur on the vegetables, leading towards an unforgettable meal prep.
A lot of seasonal recipes like roasted turkey and honey baked ham are popular during the fall and winter holidays, making them perfect for festive meal prep plans. Thanksgiving leftovers are half the fun and a roasting pan will bring you one step closer.