Do You Always Need to Preheat Your Oven?

Maybe you’re in a rush to make cookies, or you finally completed the last proof of your overnight cinnamon rolls. Suddenly, you glance at your recipe and then your oven. Whoops — you forgot to preheat the oven. 

How big of a deal is this, really? Can you just slide in the pan and start cooking? Or do you have to wait until the oven has preheated? 

In most circumstances, preheating is essential. But there are moments when it isn’t necessary, and others when pros prefer a cold oven. We asked chefs across the country to to break it all down.

How does preheating the oven work?

In most homes in the U.S., “room temperature” sits somewhere between 68° to 74°F, depending on the season and your preferences with heat and air conditioning. In most instances, oven interiors sit right around that temperature, give or take 10 degrees. 

Preheating bumps up that internal temperature a few hundred degrees. When you preheat, your food bakes or roasts in consistent conditions, which helps it reach its desired texture, color, and doneness. 

“Preheating ensures consistent heat, proper browning and texture, accurate cooking times, and optimal rise for baked goods,” says Robert Cantu, executive chef of Mokara Hotel & Spa and Omni La Mansion del Rio in San Antonio. He calls it a crucial step to any recipe.

How long does it take to preheat the oven?

It can take from 12 to 20 minutes to preheat most ovens. To be safe, preheat at least 20 minutes before you plan to cook most foods. The exception is when you are baking bread in a Dutch oven (more on that below) and need the baking vessel to get as hot as possible.

There are a few factors that affect how quickly your oven comes to temperature, which include the size of your oven’s interior (a larger space will need longer to heat up) and how hot you want it to get. If you have a smaller oven and are preheating to 325°F, it will likely need less time to come to temperature than a very large oven that you’ve set to 450°F.

Why does preheating your oven matter?

In most recipes, the temperature and duration of cooking have been carefully tested to produce certain results. If you ignore instructions to preheat, your dish may deflate or degrade while the oven temperature ticks up 250°F or more. 

“If the recipe specifically requires a temperature of 350°F for an hour, and the oven hasn’t yet reached this temperature, putting a cold item into the oven will lower the temperature even further,” says Charlie Loomis, executive chef of Ellington Park Bistro at The St. Gregory Hotel in Washington, D.C. 

As a result, whatever you’re making will likely require additional cooking time, says Loomis. But you don’t necessarily know how much. This presents all sorts of issues. 

It’s not only inconvenient to constantly check in on a dish as it cooks, but to frequently open and close the oven door can make the interior temperature fluctuate dramatically.

Preheating is also more efficient. “The number-one reason why I preheat my oven is that it saves me time,” says Emily Yuen, executive chef of Lingo in Brooklyn, New York. “The first thing I do before prepping my ingredients, or even looking at a recipe, is turn on my oven to 350°F,” which is the temperature she uses to make most of Lingo’s sweet and savory dishes.  

When do you absolutely need to preheat your oven? 

It’s best to preheat your oven whenever a recipe calls for it, chefs say. That’s especially true when baking bread, and a hot oven will enable oven spring, the final rise that takes place as soon as your dough makes it into the oven.

“For breads and baked goods, preheating the oven ensures proper rising of your baked item,” says Yuen. “The initial burst of heat when you put your baked goods in the oven helps it rise properly and also brown evenly.”

Loomis agrees. “You need to be scientific with time and temperature, or your cake might end up as a pancake.”

When can you skip preheating?

Preheating is less crucial when you cook something “for a long time at low temperatures, like roasts and stews,” says Cantu. 

If you’re reheating a dish like Tom Colicchio’s Braised Short Ribs, it’s no problem to put it in a cold oven. Yuen prefers to reheat casseroles in this way because she finds it helps to warm the middle without drying out the exposed top or edges.

In some instances, professional cooks start breads, cakes, or cookies in a cold oven to control their rise or spread. 

A baker might put uncooked sourdough bread into a cold oven so the dough undergoes its second proof while the oven heats up, “followed by the final bake once [the oven] reaches the appropriate temperature,” says Loomis. “It could also work if you’re looking for a larger cookie spread, or in some cases, it might give you a better rise in a cake.”

This tactic is used by pros in tandem with other steps tailored to their process. If you take a sourdough recipe that calls for preheating and just pop your dough into the oven with no other changes, you probably won’t be thrilled with the results. 

“When in doubt, follow the recipe,” says Cantu.