When To Use the Top Rack of Your Oven (and When It’ll Ruin Your Dinner)

A lot of recipes start with telling you to move the oven rack or racks to specific levels. Why? Because it matters!

You probably found out the hard way that an oven isn’t a giant box of equalized heat. Parts of it run hotter than others. The middle rack is reliable and moderate. The bottom rack is intense yet finicky. As for the top rack, give it the wrong job, and it’ll render your recipe into carbon.

Think of those heat zones as assets, not liabilities. Used wisely, the top rack will deliver standout results: gloriously bubbling casseroles, browned peaks of potatoes on your shepherd’s pie. Here’s how—and when—to deploy its power.

How Ovens Heat

Electric ovens have heating elements in the top and bottom of the oven. Things close to the top will have their surfaces exposed to more heat, while things near the bottom will have their bottoms exposed to more heat.

In a gas oven, the heat comes from the bottom only. Pretty simple. But! Hot air rises, so the top of your oven will usually be the hottest part. I know the quirks of my own oven, but I wanted some input from experts.

What the Top Rack Excels At

Your oven’s top rack is splendid for sheet pan meals, like shrimp and asparagus. The pan is shallow, the ingredients cook fast, and they benefit from a little browning. “In a traditional oven, the top rack will give you quick caramelization and crisp tips,” says Joel Chesebro, Corporate Executive Chef at Wolf. 

What about long-cooking foods like chicken quarters or macaroni and cheese? For those, the top rack is best for finishing: Use the middle rack for most of the baking time, and if you want a nice crispy skin or topping, move it to the top rack for the final 10 minutes or so. The just-right touch of golden brown makes food so much more alluring.

When To Avoid the Top Rack

Generally speaking, the strong top-down heat of the top rack isn’t good for baking batters and doughs. Imagine baking banana bread in a loaf pan on the top rack. “In a standard oven, the top will brown too fast before the center sets,” Chesboro says. “The middle rack is best for even baking.”

Sometimes you have a lot of dishes to juggle at once (think of Thanksgiving Day), and they won’t all fit on the desired rack, forcing you to squeeze things in on the top rack that you wouldn’t otherwise. This is a smart time to deploy a classic workaround, says Chesboro.

“In a standard oven, tent with foil and lower the temperature slightly if the top is getting ahead.” You can also put sturdier dishes, like sweet potatoes or green bean casserole, on the top (cover loosely with foil), and prioritize the middle rack for custards that might curdle from excessive heat, such as corn pudding. 

The Best of Both Worlds

If you’re baking two sheets of cookies or vegetables at once, recipes often call for rotating the sheets to promote even cooking. “If I'm baking two things at once on baking sheets, I like to rotate the pans halfway through so the top baking sheet becomes the bottom baking sheet,” shares Kate Leahy, author of Wine Style and co-host of Everything Cookbooks.

“It's mostly about browning. If it's cookies, the cookies on the top part of the oven will get more color on their tops while the cookies on the bottom rack may look pale on top but dark on the bottom.” Leahy says she prefers to bake only one sheet of cookies at a time for this reason. 

“If it's vegetables, I like to rotate them for the same reason,” she continues. “You can play around with it, too. If vegetables are getting too dark but aren’t cooked enough—say, carrots—you can protect them by moving them to the lower rack and putting potatoes above them.” Leahy does caution against going off-recipe with rack placement for “something delicate, like genoise cakes.”

As long as you’re mindful, don’t be afraid to hack your oven racks for more exciting textures and deeper flavors. One way I capitalize on a hybrid approach is by baking dense pies like pumpkin pie or anything with a bottom crust. I start the pan on the bottom rack as insurance against a doughy bottom crust. Then I move it up to the top rack for a little color on the top crust. This works with pizza, too. If you crave a crunchy and well-browned pizza crust (particularly for deep-dish or thicker crusts), try starting it on the bottom rack.

What About Convection Ovens?

If you have a convection oven, most of what you just learned goes out the window. “In a convection oven, heat is distributed evenly throughout the cavity thanks to fans, so there’s no ‘hotter’ top or bottom—every rack performs the same,” said Chesboro.

Leahy says that you still benefit from getting to know your oven’s character. “Every oven and convection setting acts a little differently. Only you will know where there are hot spots in your oven. When I use convection, no matter the rack I use, the back right corner will brown more than the front left corner. I have two oven thermometers in my oven. One in the back right corner and one in the front left side to help gauge the differences.”