If you’re talking about cooking, then roasting is to cook meat and other foods by direct exposure to dry heat. Originally, it happened on a spit over an open fire to brown, parch, or dry the foods, such as you would do with marshmallows. It could also be accomplished by embedding the food in hot coals, or embers, both of which are still done all around the world. Though roasting traditionally took place over an open fire, it’s now generally done in the oven. Today one of the main purpose of the roasting cooking method is for browning.

However, if you live in Florida like I do, well, I guess it actually means the same thing, except we’re the food and the summer sun is the direct, dry heat being applied for browning! Anyways, it’s generally considered roasting when you’re cooking foods that already have a solid structure before you begin cooking. It uses the dry heat by allowing the hot air from the open flame, the oven, or another heat source, to cover the food surfaces. This allows it to cook evenly on all sides.

Roasting is a slow cooking process that predates the oven and makes foods such as chicken, potatoes, and carrots more digestible and more flavorful. It’s the oldest form of cooking that was done over or near an open fire. Basically, if the food could be skewered on a spit, and cooked over an open fire, it’s roasting.

Roasting is a more straightforward way to cook, and is generally much simpler than baking. Oven roasting is a way to uniformly heat and cook food, especially larger cuts of meat without having to monitor an open flame. It’s a simple way to cook something that doesn’t require you to constantly supervise it, the oven does most of the work for you.

Roasting is one of the easiest cooking techniques, and most of your efforts are applied before cooking even begins. Just apply a light coat of oil or butter, season your food to your taste, place the food in a low-walled pan, and put it in a preheated oven until it’s done. For accuracy and for best results, let you oven preheat to the recommended temperature before adding your food.

Roasting pans have low sides that allow more of the oven’s heat to make contact with the food. Using the roasting cooking method can enhance the flavors through caramelization as well as through the maillard reaction on the surface of the food. Further, it improves the texture and deepens the flavor profiles of whatever you’re cooking. Cooking food in an uncovered pan in the oven gives successfully roasted foods a brown, crispy outside and a moist tender inside.

Roasting is good for tenderloins, hams, whole turkeys, whole chickens, some nuts and seeds, and dense vegetables such as potatoes and squash. Most vegetables can stand up to moderate to high heat roasting quite well as long as they’re brushed with oil or butter and turned occasionally to keep the foods roasting evenly on all sides. However, smaller cuts of meats, like porkchops, chicken, or fish may not be the best when roasted. The smaller they are, the more likely they are to dry out. When roasting vegetables, cut them into pieces of uniform size to further ensure that they cook evenly.

Bring your foods to room temperature before you prepare them for the roasting cooking method. This allows the food to cook more evenly and more efficiently. Choose your oven’s temperature according to the type of food you’re preparing to roast. Depending on the food, you can roast at a low (around 250), a moderate (around 375°), or a high (400°) temperature.

Make sure to account for an extra bit of cooking time since some foods continue to cook even after you remove them from the oven. Let meats rest for 10-20 minutes after taking them out of the oven to allow for carry over cooking and to keep the meat moist. Resting allows the meats’ juices to redistribute. If you slice into a roast or a chicken, for example, immediately upon removing it from the oven, all of the juices would pour out onto your dish, and the meat would become dry.

Recommended Amazon Tools for the Roasting Cooking Method: