How to Make a Sheet-Pan Dinner with Any Ingredients

The key to cooking a complete meal on a single sheet pan is to add the ingredients gradually, so that longer-cooking ingredients, like potatoes, get the chance to cook through and tender ingredients don’t end up burnt. Keep this in mind and you’ll always have success with this method.

To make a full chicken dinner on a sheet pan, you’ll need chicken (approximately 24 to 28 oz), melted butter or other cooking fat (4 tablespoons), a mix of long-cooking and short-cooking vegetables (4 to 8 cups), salt and pepper and toppings of your choice.

1. Rub chicken with melted butter, salt and pepper.
2. Toss cubed long-cooking vegetables in fat, salt and flavorings, if desired.
3. Place chicken and vegetables on pan. Roast in hot oven, stirring a couple of times.
4. Add short-cooking vegetables, if desired, and roast longer.
5. Finish the dish with toppings.

Got a package of chicken and a crisper full of forgotten veggies? Here are some ingredients that work well within this framework.

• Fat: Butter, vegetable oil, olive oil, bacon fat, sesame oil
• Seasoning: Salt and pepper, Montreal chicken seasoning, barbecue seasoning, Greek seasoning, seasoned salt, Jamaican jerk seasoning, Cajun seasoning, Italian seasoning, chicken taco seasoning, garam masala
• Long-Cooking Vegetables: Quartered new potatoes, cauliflower, peeled cubed Russet potatoes, peeled cubed sweet potatoes, sweet potato wedges, rustic-cut peeled carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, bok choy, bell pepper, Brussels sprouts, bagged stir-fry veggies
• Short-Cooking Vegetables: Spinach, Asian greens, baby kale, cherry tomatoes, cooked beans, frozen (thawed) peas, corn or edamame
• Toppings: Parsley, thyme, cheese (feta, fresh mozzarella, gruyere, queso fresco), fresh herbs (cilantro, basil, tarragon, oregano), toasted nuts (pine nuts, pecans, walnuts, cashews, pepitas), sweetener (honey, molasses, brown sugar, sugar)

These expert tips will help ensure that your sheet-pan dinner comes out stellar, every time:

• Melt butter in the microwave on 25 percent power. Keep your microwave tidy by placing a paper plate over the top of the dish to prevent popping and splattering.
• Cut vegetables the same size. For example, quarter the new potatoes first, then cut the cauliflower to match the size of the potato pieces.
• Frozen veggies and watery veggies, like zucchini and summer squash, even when small in dimension, take a lot longer to cook on a sheet pan than you’d expect. Allow extra cook time. Thaw and pat dry frozen veggies before adding to pan.

The right timing and temperatures for cooking proteins and vegetables on a sheet pan depends on what you’re making. Our kitchen experts devised this chart to provide a guideline for you to follow, if you want to experiment with proteins other than chicken, and to help you remember how long veggies should cook.

Food	Total Time	Temp
Cauliflower Florets	45	425
Quartered New Potatoes	40	425
Peeled Cubed Russet Potatoes	37	425
Peeled Cubed Sweet Potatoes	35	425
Pork Tenderloin	30	425
Sweet Potato Wedges	27	425
Bone-In, Skin-On Chicken Thighs	27	425
Boneless, Skinless Chicken Thighs	27	425
Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts	23	425
Bone-In Pork Chops	15	425
Stir-Fry Veggies	15	425
Salmon	13	425
Broccoli Florets	12	450
Cubed Beef Sirloin	12	450
Shrimp	8	425
Shrimp	7	Broil
Cherry Tomatoes	7	Broil
Chickpeas	7	Broil

We love sheet pan dinners so much that we developed two fully-fledged chicken sheet-pan dinner recipes to help you learn these guidelines by doing. Try them first, if you’re used to cooking from recipes, then step out your own and experiment!