It’s not meant for storing pans, baking sheets, or other cooking tools. According to appliance manufacturers, the drawer under your oven is meant to keep already cooked food warm. This doesn’t apply to all ovens. Sometimes there is no extra storage space, but when you find a drawer of the same building material as the oven, it’s meant to be a warming drawer. You may notice a message printed on the inside of the drawer or in some sort of owner’s manual that says: “The warming drawer is designed to keep hot food at serving temperature”.

The warming drawer uses hot air from the oven to keep cooked food warm. This feature is ideal when you have guests for dinner and you want to serve up food without the stress of trying to cook everything at once and keep everything hot at the same time. Now that you’ve learned, you can finally use the space under the oven for its main purpose.