How To Line Baking Pan With Foil
Master This Kitchen Skill
Make Your Life Much Easier

How to line baking pan with foil?  Do you do this often?  In fact, do you know that mastering this kitchen skill will make your life so much easier?  Am I exaggerating?  Well, let's see. 

Using this skill lessen your frustration of scrubbing down your pan.  Also, applying this skill to certain recipes, you may not even need to clean up the baking dish and/or roasting pan.  All you need to do is to toss the foil into the trash can.  How does that sound? 

Having a busy family and working a full-time job is very exhausting.  When you get back home, you still need to cook dinner and clean dishes.  Man....the day feels like too long.  Or should I say it seems never-ending.  I am actually in this exact situation.  So, I must be creative to think of some ways to make my life easier.  

I have been using aluminum foil to line my baking dishes, baking pans and roasting pans for many, many years.  I apply this skill at least once a week for making dinner for my family.  And it always works like a champ.  I highly recommend you to give this a try.  Practice makes perfect.  Once you get a grip of it, you will find it doing a lot of wonder in your life.

Which Side Of Foil Facing Up?

There are 2 sides of the foil.  One side is shiny and the other side is dull.  It is due to the manufacturing process.  The side in contact with the roller came out shiny. 

People always ask, "Which side of the foil should it face up or down?"  According to research, either side gives the same result.  There is no difference.  I tend to have a habit to have the dull side facing up.  Part of it because of thinking of the oven heat source as the sun and the foil as the Earth.  Sounds crazy?

Well, for whatever reason, I always think of the shiny side of the aluminum foil as the ice in the Poles.  The sun shines on the ice and reflects the light back which supposes to turn to heat.  Therefore, I always have my dull side up.  It may not make sense to you.  But I have been doing this for years and I can't even remember when and how I started it.

Either way, the research has shown that you will get the same result.  There are a lot of discussions and arguments on the internet.  It really depends on your preference.  But I encourage you to give it a try and find out which way works better.  Please share with me your discoveries, too.

How To Line A Baking Pan For Easy Cleaning Later?

A 13" x 9" baking sheet can simply use one layer of aluminum foil lengthwise.  The foil is wide enough to cover the rims.  You only need to gently push down at each corner so that the foil tugs in nicely.

A regular 13" x 9" baking sheet

Use your fingers gently push down the foil at each corner

Only 1 piece/layer of foil takes care of it

After roasting lamb chops under the broiler

Look under the foil, clean as you had never used it before. Isn't that awesome?

How To Line A Baking Sheet Or Roasting Pan Bigger Than 13" x 9"?

For any baking sheet or roasting pan bigger than that size, apply these steps below:

1. Line half of a pan crosswise with foil
2. Use your fingers gently push down the foil to cover the corners
3. Repeat the last 2 steps to cover another half of the pan.  Make sure both pieces of foil overlapping each other in the middle of the pan
4. Line one more piece of foil on top to cover the pan lengthwise. (Usually, the width of the foil is wide enough to cover the pan's ones.  I have never come across one that the foil is shorter than the width of the pan.)

Check out the illustrations below.

How To Line A 13" x 9" Baking Dish?

A regular 13" x 9" Baking Dish

Line half of a pan crosswise with foil

Use your fingers gently push down the foil to cover the corners

Both pieces of foil overlapping each other in the middle of the pan crosswise

Line one more piece of foil on top to cover the pan lengthwise.

The entire pan is covered and ready to rock and roll

The entire pan is covered and ready to rock and roll (zoom out)

Check out the double layer foil lining

Can you imagine how hard will it be for you to clean up this baking dish without lining it with foil?

This is what you will get from cooking the BBQ Pork Tenderloin in the oven

Looking good! No leaking!

No leaking under the first layer of foil either. AWESOME!

How To Line A (Turkey) Roasting Pan?

This is actually a turkey roasting pan. But I use it for all kind of roasting recipes you can think of

Line half of a pan crosswise with foil

Use your fingers gently push down the foil to cover the corners

Both pieces of foil overlapping each other in the middle of the pan crosswise

Line one more piece of foil on top to cover the pan lengthwise

The foil is slightly wider than the pan. So, it only covers about 1/3 of its height lengthwise

Another angle of the entire roasting pan lined with foil

Look at all the dripping after roasting the California blend vegetables

Just some grease at the bottom. Only a little bit of dish detergent can take care of it. No scrubbing at all.

How To Line A Baking Pan Wider Than The Foil?

1. Skip the last step above, continue the following steps after overlapping 2 pieces of foil crosswise
2. Line the pan lengthwise in the middle and overlapping 2 foils
3. Line the 3rd piece of foil lengthwise in the middle of the pan
4. In this case, you will need 5 pieces of foil in total.  (2 crosswise and 3 lengthwise)
5. Spray with no-stick cooking spray and get cooking

Recipes Used
"How To Line Baking Pan With Foil" Skill

Beef

• World's Best Prime Ribs

Breakfast

• One Pan Roasted Kielbasa Pepper Onion Potato Hash

Chicken

Holiday

• Best Juicy Turkey
• Easy Chocolate Fudge

Pork

Restaurant Remakes

• Homemade KFC Chicken
• Outback Steakhouse Asparagus
• Pizza Hut Sweet Chili Wings

Seafood

Side Dish

• BOP Garlic Bread
• California Blend Vegetables Kielbasa

Vegetarian

• Roasted California Blend Vegetables
• Roasted Potatoes Green Beans
• Rosemary Sweet Potato Oven Fries

Misc.

• Everyday Meatballs

You May Also Be Interested In:

• One Pot Dinner Recipes

Thank you very much for your visit.  Please check regularly for more update of this page.

Return from How To Line Baking Pan With Foil page to How-To Tips page

Return to Easy Dinner Ideas Homepage