Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Sheet Pan?

Hello! It’s Eric Kim, reporting for duty and filling in for Mia Leimkuhler this week. How are we doing today?

They say you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, so here’s my pitch for a television show: It’s called “You’ve Been Sheet-Panned!” Each episode starts with a contestant’s cherished family recipe or specialty. Then, like a Cyrusian wrecking ball, I come in to sheet-pan it! A panel of judges decides whether or not the sheet pan improved the heirloom dish or made it worse.

In other words: Just because we can sheet-pan something, does that necessarily mean we should?

In the case of japchae, the Korean glass noodle dish (above), I’ve found that, yes, you can and absolutely should! Not least because producing a traditional japchae at home requires a lot of labor: Each vegetable, among a rainbowed array, is ordinarily stir-fried individually. In this variation, however, the spinach, bell pepper and mushrooms all roast together on the same sheet pan in color-blocked sections for ease and deliciousness (and to preserve each distinct flavor). The vegetables caramelize in an oven with much less effort than in a skillet, and then need only to be tossed with the noodles and sauce, making japchae a dish within reach for any night of the week.

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Featured Recipe

Sheet-Pan Japchae

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If sheet-panning a dish can help you incorporate it more regularly into your life, then that’s a win in my book. This japchae recipe has improved my day to day immensely, and I know it’ll do the same for you.

We can’t talk about sheet pans without mentioning chicken or Melissa Clark, the veritable queen of sheet-pan cooking. I’d bet that Melissa, my desk neighbor and colleague, has single-handedly driven sheet-pan sales through the roof. Her beautiful recipe for sheet-pan roasted fish with sweet peppers doesn’t just provide a smart blueprint for easy, hands-off fish. It also teaches you to take advantage of the way heat is distributed on the pan: The edges are the hottest, which is why the peppers are scooched there while the delicate fish roasts in the pan’s slightly cooler center. (Melissa calls for hake fillets, but cod and flounder — any mild, flaky fish — are adequate substitutes.)

Yasmin Fahr’s sheet-pan miso chicken with radishes and lime, adapted by Margaux Laskey, is a vivacious way to get the most out of your dinner. One reader, Dan, said, “This whole meal had surprising depth for the little amount of work that went into it.” The flavors are vibrant, but the electric colors of the green scallions and the pink-blushed radishes — whose bitterness turns sweet and mellow in the oven’s heat — make this a feast for the eyes.

Vivian Chan-Tam’s new recipe for baked cheesy chicken and mushroom pasta is for lovers of umami and haters of fuss. A tangle of vegetables, carbohydrates and protein, all bound by cheese, is a weeknight winner in any game book. That’s a complete meal, but if you want a salad to go with it, how about this nice old-fashioned Waldorf salad from Lidey Heuck?