Alternatives to aluminum foil for baking?

[OceansEve]

Like baked potatoes and covering chicken, ham, etc. My family has always used foil.... I don't know of any other way? Help?

[nathansmum]

Not too sure, I've never used foil for cooking lol.

Baked potatoes - I just prick the skins and pop them directly on the rack to bake.

Anything else that needs to be covered while cooking I'll put into a covered dish.

[wendyland]

I leave everything uncovered, even the chicken (the one time I actually cooked one) Is it bad to cover things with foil? Does the aluminum still get into your food if it's not touching it?

[Ruthla]

I use parchment paper for lining cookie sheets (I have really old ones that once were non-stick, until they went though a self-clean cycle of my oven. oops.)

I only use foil to cover chicken because I broke the lids to my corningware pots and haven't saved up the money to replace them yet. When I had the glass lids, I didn't need to use any foil.

I rarely bake whole potatoes- generally I cut them into cubes (peeling if needed) and roast them uncovered with oil and spices mixed in. When I do bake whole potatoes, I'll just put them in a baking dish and not worry about wrapping or covering them.

It sounds like you need to get one good baking dish with a lid for cooking meats.

[tankgirl73]

I've never baked potatoes in foil and don't really understand the reason why it's so common. Like the pp, I just prick them and bake them on the rack.

The only times I regularly use foil is for REALLY messy things, like stuffed chicken breasts from M&M, I put them in a little foil 'dish' (raise the sides) inside the baking dish, then all the sauce they leak stays in the foil rather than making an impossible mess in the pan that gets so overbaked I can't even eat any yummy bits...

And I use foil for BBQ packets.

But covering stuff in the oven? Not really all that often.

[mommy13]

I read just to put potatoes on the rack and don't poke holes in them.... they come out very yummy. I was also wondering if foil is bad?

[yeahwhat]

Be careful not poking holes in potatoes though. I've had one explode when I forgot to poke some fork holes in it. What a mess.

Get a couple of roasting pans or covered baking dishes and you won't need foil very often at all. I sometimes use it for very messy things, but I could just plan to spend more time scrubbing instead.

[nathansmum]

Yeah, I've always poked holes in potatoes for baking and the one time I forgot it exploded all over my oven.

[lightheart]

the best gadget out there for baking potatoes is a metal prong looking thing, it spears up to 4 potatoes and lessens the cooking time, ours is aluminum I'm pretty sure so if your just trying to away from that particular metal.... We have had company before and I have used some sainless steel forks that I didn't care about if something would happen to them 'baking'... the forks came out fine and so did the potatoes.

[OceansEve]

Thanks for all the responses! Good to know I can just throw them in there w/o foil. I didn't know :P I have glassware with covers, I just cook as my mom and grandma cooked. One of those, I don't know why I do it... I just do it.

[annethcz]

You can also make baked potatoes in the crock pot (with no foil )

[californiajenn]

Originally Posted by lightheart

the best gadget out there for baking potatoes is a metal prong looking thing, it spears up to 4 potatoes and lessens the cooking time, ours is aluminum I'm pretty sure so if your just trying to away from that particular metal.... We have had company before and I have used some sainless steel forks that I didn't care about if something would happen to them 'baking'... the forks came out fine and so did the potatoes.

Metal skewers work really well too and it's not a unitasker.