Convection Oven Pros and Cons List

Traditional ovens use conduction. Convection oven uses hot air to cook the dish. In addition to the heating element there is a fan in convection oven that circulates the hot air inside. There are many who don’t like using convection ovens for specific dishes but a larger number love the outcome. Let us explore the pros and cons of convection oven.

List of Pros of Convection Oven

1. Even Cooking / Heating
The obvious advantage with convection oven is even cooking. When hot air gets evenly circulated inside the oven, the entire dish or food item gets uniformly heated. No particular portion gets more heated than another. This is a major drawback of conduction or traditional ovens. They tend to heat the surface of the food first or the portion that is closest to the heat source. The heat is then conducted through the food item or the ingredients of a dish. Convection oven has hot air targeting every surface and then the heat gets dissipated from all directions into the food item or ingredients of the dish. You wouldn’t have the middle of a food item colder than the surface which gets burnt at times with traditional ovens.

2. Less Cooking Time
Since the even circulation of the hot air uniformly heats the whole food item or the entire dish and not the surface, the cooking time is much shorter in convection oven than traditional ovens. This is not to say that the cooking time would be halved but there will be a significant impact. When you are simply heating an already prepared dish in a convection microwave, that time is also significantly less.

3. Cook Multiple Dishes
You can cook multiple dishes at the same time in a convection oven. You don’t need to rely on conduction or the surface to be in touch or on a rack. Circulation of hot air is even and hence dishes placed in separate vessels will not have any problem getting exposed to the heat.

List of Cons of Convection Oven

1. Recipe Changes
You have to make changes to your recipes because all traditional recipes are meant for the conventional ovens. The exact changes you need to make will depend on how you are using a convection oven, how long, for what dishes and what ingredients you are using.

2. Problems while Baking
Convection oven is not ideal for baking, cakes or dough. The dough wouldn’t rise as much as it would in a traditional oven. Also, cooking several dishes at a time will adversely affect the efficiency of the oven so that is not as significant an advantage many may think.