7 Ways to Love a Quarter Sheet Pan

Some kitchen tools get overlooked in favor of flashier ones. Knives like to be shown off, especially when they look so good on our magnetic block, but a cutting board is every bit as essential to the task at hand. And while a little skillet doesn’t shout as loudly as the big-batch prowess of the HexClad 8QT/7.5 L Hybrid Stock Pot, it earns its keep with omelettes and off-the-cuff cooking for one. 

A quarter sheet pan, also known as the Hybrid Small Baking Sheet, may be the most underrated tool of all. Measuring 9 by 13 inches (23 cm x 33 cm), it’s useful for the organizing obsessive, the solo cook and the hard-core meal prepper. It also fits comfortably in both big and small ovens, and can even slide into some larger toaster ovens.

Why is it called a quarter sheet? The name comes from the full sheet pans used in commercial kitchens, which are too large for most home ovens. "Half sheets" (we call ours the Hybrid Medium Baking Sheet) became the familiar cookie-sheet standard, whereas "quarter sheets" are, yes, half that again. That smaller footprint turns out to be useful beyond baking. They fit neatly onto refrigerator and freezer shelves without crowding everything else and can slot into the oven alongside larger pans. Equally, they’re just the right size for toasting nuts to top a cake.

Here are our top six ways to use this essential kitchen tool.

1. Efficient Meal Prep

At some point, the internet decided we should mix everything together on one pan and hope for the best. And yet, not everything cooks at the same rate. Enter the quarter sheet pan, which allows for batch cooking ingredients that need different amounts of time in the oven. Put your carrots on one, asparagus on another and chicken thighs and a third, and pull each when it’s ready.

Want to do everything at once? Look how well it fits in a toaster oven! 

2. Reheating Leftovers

Quarter sheets aren’t just for making food. They’re just as handy for smaller portions of food you’ve already prepped and stashed, whether that means reheating roast chicken and vegetables for two or baking off a few premade empanadas. We’re also big fans of rewarming Detroit-Style Pan Pizza on a quarter sheet rather than in the microwave to regain any lost crispness.

3. Precision Toasting

The last thing you want to do with a thick slice of homemade sourdough is to jam it in a too-small toaster slot. Instead, whip out your quarter sheet and toast the slices in the oven. Better yet, drizzle the slices with olive oil before you slide them in and rub with a cut garlic clove before serving. And while you're at it, a small baking sheet should be your go-to for all oven toasting, including nuts, seeds and bread cubes. 

4. Ingredient Corralling

Let’s begin by saying the one thing that can make your cooking life so much better: mise en place. French for “putting in place,” mise en place simply means preparing and organizing ingredients before you cook. But taking it one step further and putting those ingredients onto a quarter sheet—whether in small dishes or loose for bigger ingredients—makes cooking so much easier. That’s not the only kind of organization a quarter sheet can offer. We turn to them to corral everything headed to and from the grill, to organize batch-cooked ingredients in the fridge and to gather anything that needs a little visual structure. 

5. Small-Batch Baking

No doubt, a big batch of cookies is a thing of beauty. But sometimes you want to freeze most of the dough to bake for future you. You know what we mean: a warm cookie baked off each night while cozying up on the couch. A quarter sheet is ready to bake off a cookie (or three) a la minute. Or, if you do small-batch baking simply because you have a smaller kitchen, then these are the trays for you.

6. Broiling Cheesy Sandwiches

Don’t mess around with a tuna melt or a meatball hoagie placed straight on your oven rack. Instead, line your quarter sheet with foil so that no cheese goes amiss. You'll thank us later when there's not a major cleanup required—and the smoke alarm doesn't go off.

7. Oven Tetris™

Ever tried to fit two half sheet pans next to one another in a standard oven? Yep, us, too. Doesn't work, does it, unless you want one to look like the Titanic, falling over on its side? A quarter sheet pan is just the thing, whether you want to bake off all your salted dark chocolate chunk cookies at once or roast every bit of cauliflower. These can also nestle alongside larger, big-handled roasting pans, too.

In short: quarter sheet pans. You need them.