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The humble, versatile sheet pan is one of the kitchen’s all time greatest tools. Easy, dump-and-spread-style roasted dinners. Crispy mac and cheese. Grandma-style pizza. And don’t forget cookies. The sheet pan helps us get so many meals—and so many different kinds of meals—on the table every single night.
Editor Joe Sevier celebrates the well-earned patina on his half-sheet pans, likening them to a perfectly seasoned cast-iron pan. Noah Kaufman, our reviews editor, loves to use quarter-sheet pans to make multiple dinners in one night, suited for picky kids and parents who want to consume something other than chicken fingers. My truest affections are reserved for the smallest size, the eighth-sheet pan.
This is because I, like an increasing number of Americans, have fallen in love with the countertop oven. It is the dominant appliance in my kitchen, and as a result, my eighth-sheet pans are one of my most-used kitchen tools. If you currently have a toaster oven or multi-oven and you don’t have an eighth-sheet pan, here’s what you’re missing.
Most new toaster ovens come with a set of baking surfaces, like a rack, an air-frying basket, and a drip catch/baking tray. There’s nothing wrong with using the pan that comes with your oven, but the baking tray, by nature of its dual role as a drip catch for the air fryer, quickly gets gross. Covering the drip tray in foil may make cleanup easier, but it’s also wasteful and can cause your appliance to overheat.
And when you buy a separate sheet pan for your toaster oven, you can get a higher quality pan: Our test-winning Nordic Ware sheet pan comes in this smaller size, but is made of the same even-heating, warp-resisting material. When you have a high-quality little sheet pan for your oven, nothing stops you from making a full dinner in the machine. Since the toaster oven requires little to no preheating, roasting takes way less time. Toss some chicken, green beans, and carrots with a little oil and throw them on eighth-sheet pan, and you’ll have Sunday dinner in 20 minutes flat. I’m also convinced there’s no better way to roast a salmon fillet than by plopping it skin side up on an eighth-sheet and blasting it under the toaster oven broiler. Naturally, classic toaster oven fare, like tuna melts, leftover pizza, and baked potatoes, are at home on the small sheet pan too. It’s the perfect tool for people who cook dinner for one or two each night—with one, you’ll virtually never have to heat the full-size oven again. (Until you host your next dinner party, that is.)
And these small sheet pans are perfect for little prep tasks or appetizers when you won’t be turning on the oven, or when it’s already in use. Use an eighth-sheet pan to roast a whole head of garlic for a salad dressing, or to make an appetizer like baked Brie. And don’t forget that cleaning a mini sheet pan is the same as cleaning a larger sheet pan…but at a slightly smaller scale. So really, it involves less cleaning! (I’ll take any win we can get here.)
Out of the oven, use eighth-sheet pans to corral your most-used ingredients into a “flavor station,” or use them as a condiment holder for summer grilling nights. A sheet pan is really just a tray after all. But it’s a tray that can do so much more. With this tiny sheet pan, you’re sure to do big things in the kitchen.
