Fast cooking is one of the most commonplace, yet characteristic, features of our age, so much so that we take it for granted.
For nearly the entirety of human history, cooking something took a significant amount of time.
In the age of fast ovens and microwaves, however, we have an expectation of food being piping hot and ready to eat after just a few minutes’ worth of heating and preparation.
We’re also lucky enough to have containers such as Pyrex, which take just as little time to prepare.
But what about putting the two together?
Is it safe to put Pyrex in an oven and, if so, how can you make sure that you do so safely?
Can Pyrex Go in the Oven
The reason this is an issue is that glass has a way of shattering when it is exposed to extreme temperatures. Put a glass cookware set in a freezer, and there’s a chance it could shatter. The same is true for glass and ovens.
That said, both of these cases require extreme temperatures and a lack of safeguards. You can easily store many types of glass receptacles in freezers, and so too can you use Pyrex in ovens.
The key is to take steps to mitigate factors which can, unchecked, cause shattering.
Using Pyrex in Ovens Safely
When putting a glass in a freezer or an oven, one of your main enemies is thermal shock. Even sturdy glass such as what is used in Pyrex is susceptible to sudden changes in temperature. Take a Pyrex pan directly out of the freezer and plop it in the oven, or vice versa, and the odds of it shattering go way up.
Pyrex can handle a lot, temperature-wise –as cold as -313 and as hot as 932 degrees Fahrenheit. Unless you’re cooling or heating your Pyrex pan in a volcano or beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, chances are you should be fine.
However, while it can handle extremely high and low temperatures, the glass can’t handle rapid, radical changes between the two.
You, thus, want to get your Pyrex pan or other product gradually acclimatized to the new temperature conditions. Let it cool or thaw after taking it out of the oven or freezer before exposing it to extreme temperatures, especially those opposite to the ones it most recently faced.
Pyrex does not do well on stove tops, so avoid using it that way or storing it there. Concentrating the heat at the bottom of the pan – rather than having it more evenly heated on all sides as in an oven – can cause breakage.
In the event your Pyrex pan does crack or is chipped, do not under any circumstances heat it up or place it in the oven. With the structural integrity compromised, even a little bit, the pan can shatter when exposed to high or low temperatures.
Thankfully, as long as your pan is not already damaged, you should be good to go. Just follow these basic precautions, and you’ll be heating up meals as fast as ever.