Sheet Pan Meals to the Rescue
Sheet pan meals are wildly popular. And, it is easy to understand why. Quick to prepare and assemble, these one-pan meals are tasty and require little clean up. They remind me of a modern-day casserole, but dare I say a sheet pan meal is more up-scale!
While I love a good casserole, or hot dish, as my friends in Minnesota call them, sheet pan recipes offer all the elements of a traditional meal without dirtying up extra pots and pans. Covered with parchment paper, sheet pans are the ticket for anyone who wants a hot meal at home, without spending tons of time in the kitchen.
Another tally in the win column for sheet pans is the simple act of roasting. From fish to more dense proteins and from vegetables to toasted grains, roasting adds a dimension of flavor and texture hard to duplicate in a baked dish.
Since roasted onions add depth of flavor to lots of dishes, we simply couldn’t (and didn’t) want to be out in the cold. We know the internet is full of lots of sheet pan recipes, so if you’ve made it here, Thank You! Now, we hope to set ourselves a degree or two apart from the rest with our ‘masterful pans’ for long and newly proclaimed (and those yet to be) fans of onions.
A Trio of Must Try Sheet Pan Suppers
Spicy Sheet Pan Roasted Jambalaya All the jazzy flavors and ingredients of traditional Jambalaya with a few twists, roasted, and served over linguine pasta instead of rice.
Sheet Pan-Style Buddha Bowl A medley of roasted vegetables combines perfectly with quinoa and a savory, slightly sweet tahini sauce to form bowlfuls of yum.
Fashioned after a traditional chicken dinner Easy Chicken Citrus Fennel and Onion Sheet Pan Meal uses inexpensive drumsticks along with onions, potatoes, fennel, and orange zest to make a satisfying dish served with brown rice and quinoa.
Thoughts behind this sheet pan trio
In case you’re curious, or like to geek-out over food (cuz’ we sure do), we had a few ideas about what a sheet pan meal should be. We used the following guidelines to create our trio of recipes:
Cooking instructions should be as hands-free as possible. Taking the pan out of the oven multiple times reduces the convenience factor and requires the cook to stay in the kitchen to babysit dinner.
Lots of meals could be prepared on a sheet pan. Our goal was to create a well-rounded meal to which accents or sides could be added to make a complete meal.
Develop flavor forward recipes. Roasting adds great flavor, but we wanted each recipe to have a fresh dimension using fresh herbs and sauces.
Each dish must be a full recipe, not just a list of ingredients. The ingredients should be familiar and easy to find. The recipe should be easy to follow, yet leave room for the cook to make their very own creation should they choose.
Happy Sheet Pan Cooking!