Does your oven had a drawer? If so, what do you keep in it? Most people keep cookie sheets, muffin pans, grills, and other cooking items that are just too big for their cabinets. While this drawer may be the perfect size for those items, that’s not what it was built for.
While it is true than there are some ovens with a built in storage drawer, there are far more built with a warming drawer that’s meant to keep your food hot until you’re ready to put it on the table. This is an invaluable tool, especially for big meals or special events when there’s just too much food to prepare at the same time.
When it was originally created more than half a century ago, the warming draw simply relied upon excess heat radiating off the oven to keep food warm. Now many models include their own separate heating element. If you’ve got one of these models there should be a “warming drawer” button or somethign similar on the control panel like in the video below.
Ovens that have a “storage drawer” usually have some insulation between the bottom of the oven and the top of the drawer to keep stored items from getting too hot. The next time your oven is on, open the drawer. Is it warm inside? If so you’re in luck and you’ve got a great place to keep those rolls warm before dinner. You can still use this drawer for storage, just don’t put any cook books or rubber spatulas down there!
Note that this drawer will never get hot enough to cook food and should not be filled with uncooked items. This is just a place to keep things toasty until the rest of your meal has finished cooking.
Like and share this post if you learned something new today. Please leave a comment on Facebook and let us know if you’ll be using your warming drawer any time soon!