The Broiling Mistake You're Probably Making With Your Electric Oven

Whether you're new to broiling or a seasoned pro, you may have heard conflicting instructions about what to do with the oven door while the heat is on. Perhaps your oven manufacturer says to leave it closed — but your mother insists it should stay open. Turns out, both are valid, but it all depends on what kind of oven you have. Using the wrong method could lead to undesirable results for your cooking or even a disastrous fate for your appliance.

The general idea behind keeping the oven door open is that electric ovens automatically cycle the heat on and off when the door is closed. That's bad news for broiling, which needs high, constant heat to work. Leaving the door open introduces cooler air that keeps the temperature in a gas oven at a consistent level. Gas ranges, however, don't have this on-and-off cycle, and will broil at the same temperature the entire time.

For the most part, gas ovens should remain closed, while electric ovens can be propped open while broiling. Many electric ovens will have specific settings for broiling with the door open, along with an automatic stopper for the door that holds it slightly ajar. However, you need to find out if your electric range is designed to broil with the door closed instead, so be sure to check the owner's manual before assuming anything.

We have a few other broiler tips to both keep the process safe and make sure your food turns out great. Broiling is a lot like grilling, but with the intense heat coming primarily from above rather than from flames below. Broiling allows you to get the effect of a grill indoors, so you can, say, bake bone-in chicken thighs to cook the meat through and then broil it for a few minutes to crisp up the skin.

Since broilers get so hot, if your appliance has temperature knobs on the front directly above the oven door, keep it closed, whether it's gas or electric. Strong heat blowing on the knobs can damage the controls. Also, a broiler works best with your food as close as possible to the heating element, meaning you'll need to monitor the process closely to prevent burning and smoking. No setting it and forgetting it, or you might wind up researching how to scrape melted plastic out of your oven. Whether you broil with the door open or closed, most recipes will only ask for about 10 minutes under the heat, but keeping an eye on things is still crucial. Follow these tips, and improving supermarket tomatoes with a broiler or using it to cook frozen shrimp incredibly quickly will be much easier.