Can you put a cardboard pizza box in the oven?
Well, can you put a cardboard pizza box in the oven? You generally can but should not. Because putting a cardboard pizza box in the oven at any time is an unsafe practice. Read on to find out why.
At 350 F cardboard may start to smolder and smoke all over the kitchen and house. At temperatures, 400 F degrees and above you can have that cardboard pizza box spark and catch that nice little fire. That corresponds roughly to 200-204 C degrees.
That fire can, as a minimum, can burn your pizza to the point when it will be only good for a trash can. The cardboard pizza box in the oven can burn the stove or oven. And in the worst-case scenario, it may ignite the whole kitchen, and then burn down the whole house, apartment, or apartment building.
You should agree with me here – this is not what we are trying to accomplish when making pizza. We are not trying to burn down the whole block, do we? I thought so.
Yet, apparently, many people still do put cardboard in the oven quite often. One thing to note is that at temperatures less than 200 – 250 F it may be safe to put pizza cardboard in the oven. But that temperature usually is just too low for making a pizza.
So, where you are cooking pizza or preheating it, I totally suggest ditching pizza cardboard and not putting it in the oven with pizza. Instead, opt for more suitable items like using a pizza stone, baking sheet, metal pan, or putting pizza straight on a rack in the oven.
So, what to do if you left the cardboard on the pizza?
Forgot to take the cardboard off pizza? If you just put it in the oven and started heating pizza there – simply very carefully turn down the heat, take it out and take the pizza off the cardboard. Throw out the cardboard to ensure that you do not have insurmountable temptation to do it again. Or keep it to reuse for some safer purpose.
- Now, put the baking sheet or metal pan in the oven and heat it up for about 5-10 minutes.
- Then take it out, but that pizza on it, and put it back in the oven.
- And keep baking that very pizza as usual.
Granted, pizza may not come out as the best exemplary specimen of your unparalleled cooking abilities, but it may still come out as eatable. Why waste a precious pizza dough just because you have made this mistake, right?
In the more likely scenario, you completely forgot to take the cardboard off the pizza and left the cardboard on the pizza through the whole cooking process. Well, let us hope that it does not catch fire.
Therefore, as soon as you recall that you left the pizza on cardboard and put it in the heating oven – drop everything you are currently doing, run to the kitchen and immediately turn down the oven heat. Without panic but do it fast.
Alternatively, turn down the heat to 250 F or less to prevent the cardboard from catching fire. Then, extend pizza coking time by 10-15 minutes.
Be happy – you just saved the house or whole neighborhood from trouble. Pat yourself on the back and do not do it again. I also would not boast about it in your local neighborhood bar.
Jokes aside, some people accidentally or deliberately cook pizza in cardboard in the oven and still eat it. But it is bad practice on many levels.
Accidentally cooked pizza on cardboard – spoiled taste
Pizza cardboard cooked in the oven may spoil your pizza taste. Well, in this best-case scenario you cooked pizza on cardboard, and it did not ignite with the flames. You still may have a problem because paper cooked faster than pizza and may have burned pizza crust or added to it unpleasant favor.
Remove the cardboard. You now may have to painstakingly detach cardboard from the pizza by hand or cut it with a knife or other tool. I would not eat the crust with well-cooked cardboard sticking to it. Just not my type of food.
When Can Pizza Cardboard Go in the Oven Safely?
According to popular opinion, pizza cardboard can “safely” go in the oven if you intend to cook pizza on low 250 F or less. However, I advise against putting cardboard in the oven at any time – see the last section of this article.
Therefore, let us summarize our popular opinion data in this table for what happens when you put pizza cardboard in the oven:
Temperature | Safety | Reason |
150-250 F | Safe* | Cardboard is safe*, but may release harmful chemicals |
350 – 400 F | Unsafe | Cardboard may start smoldering and release smoke |
400 F + | Very unsafe | Cardboard may burst in fire |
Conclusion: | Cardboard in oven at 350 F or higher is unsafe practice |
* “Safe” in this context means that carboard is not likely to burst in flames due to temperature. Still, it may catch fire from fire in the gas oven.
Hopefully, this helps to understand the breakdown.
What if I want to reheat pizza in the oven?
You are quite stubborn. You still want to make sure it is your way, not mine. Well, fine.
Some say on forums that you can reheat your pizza in a cardboard box in the oven at a temperature probably no more than 300 F. In fact, 250F-270F is a safer temperature for reheating pizza on cardboard in an oven.
Preheat the oven before you put a pizza in cardboard in it and do not go higher than that temperature!
Again, I strongly advise you to never put cardboard or paper in the oven under any circumstances. There is always a risk of fire, even at low heating temperatures.
Cardboard in the oven is never a safe practice
Even leaving cardboard in the oven without heating is unsafe. First, you can forget about it and turn on the heat.
But most importantly, even at low temperatures cardboard is unsafe because it is essentially poisonous to our health. It may expose us to dangerous chemicals.
Modern cardboard is not even the same cardboard our grandparents used. Modern cardboard is made of many various recycled products and we do not know what those were.
Modern manufacturing uses numerous chemicals or minerals when making cardboard or paints for printing on it.
When cardboard heats up even a little bit, it may start releasing invisible fumes of cancerous and dangerous chemicals, some of which melt when heated up even a little bit.
And food that touches heated cardboard may absorb some of those chemicals and then release them into our bodies during the chewing and digestion process. We do not want that stuff in our bodies, trust me. Even occasionally, even one time. It is always better to avoid it.
Even worse, some of those modern chemicals may catch fire at extremely low heating temperatures like 150 F.
That is why I truly recommend never put cardboard in the oven, much less in the heated oven, even turned-on low heat. In my humble cautious opinion putting pizza cardboard in the oven is never safe.
The above is really the most conservative and safe way to look at things. But the occasion of somehow cooking pizza in cardboard in an oven most often is not the end of the world and such pizza is still consumable.
Final thoughts
Pizza is meant to be enjoyed in modern times. It is not meant to be the sole source of food and nutrients nowadays. Therefore, just enjoy its taste as a nice occasion.
Cardboard is not meant for cooking in it, much less in the oven.
Cardboard can catch fire, spoil pizza, or expose you to harmful chemicals when heated.
Always remove food from the cardboard box before cooking. Better use items designed for cooking – baking sheet, pan, rack, bowl, or whatever else you can use.
Having said that, do not sweat or panic if you accidentally cooked your pizza on cardboard in the oven. This is not the reason to throw it away yet. Enjoy this pizza this time and simply avoid doing this again.
Surely, do not make a regular practice out of putting cardboard in the oven when cooking.
We all do silly things sometimes and make mistakes. Nothing to worry about. If you do it, remember that about 1 000 000 – 2 000 000 people did it before you. And more will do after you. Therefore, this is not the worst mistake that one can make in cooking.
Enjoy your pizza as much as you can, just make sure to stay safe and exercise a certain amount of caution when cooking. Use your judgment, enjoy your cooking and be well.
Here are links to government sites with materials and recommendations about cooking fire safety: