Broiling

When your oven is set to broil, the heating element at the top of the oven gets extremely hot, so food placed on the top rack of the oven cooks or browns quickly. Broiling is a fast way to cook small cuts of meat or vegetables, and it can also be done to finish off or toast the top of a dish without baking it through – for instance, broiling a pasta dish to melt the cheese on top. Since a broiler pan has slats, fat drips off whatever you’re cooking. That’s a bonus if you’re trying to make a healthy dish, but is also means that meat can dry out if left too long under a broiler.

Baking

The home chef is probably most familiar with baking as a cooking method. It’s a cooking catchall, as just about anything that can be broiled or grilled can also be baked. Foods baked in the oven are surrounded by dry heat so they’re cooking evenly on all sides. While meats and vegetables can be cooked by any dry-heat method, baking is the only effective way to cook foods that don’t already have structure. Most casseroles, bread dough, cakes and cookies should be baked, since they would fall apart or burn before cooking through if broiled or grilled.

Grilling

Whether done on a sun-soaked patio or on a grilling pan in your kitchen, grilling gives food a smoky flavor it can’t get from other cooking methods. Though the results taste slightly different, the experts at Le Cordon Bleu school of cooking say that grilling and broiling are nearly identical ways of cooking. Though both a grill and broiler use high heat, the broiler cooks food from above while grilled food is cooked from below. And as any cookout fan knows, grilling adds crunchy char marks to foods that you won't get from any other cooking method.

To Broil, Bake or Grill?

When choosing a cooking method, consider the flavor and texture you want food to have. To make tender steak, use the grill or broiler to cook the meat quickly and seal in juices. Grill vegetables to bring out their natural sweetness, or bake them if you prefer to let delicate flavors shine through. No matter what method you use, preheat the oven or grill and rub your pan or grill grates with oil to prevent sticking. And since cooking times vary by method, get in the habit of determining meat's done-ness using a thermometer rather than a timer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture suggests a safe minimum temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit for steak and pork, 160 F for ground meats like burgers and 165 F for poultry.