Aluminum foil – what is the right side to cook on?

Today I’m taking all of the guess work out of which side of aluminum foil you should cook on, on today’s Tuesday’s Tip!

So if you’re a nerd like me, you tend to be uber inquisitive often to the point you’ll lie in bed at night wondering things. Do penguins have knees? When we bark at a dog, are they able to understand us? Can sour cream really go bad if it’s already sour? And what side of aluminum foil should we be cooking on – shiny or dull? That latter one Mr. Fantabulous and I got into a huge lengthy discussion about it. I mean we nerded out big time and even now we are STILL debating this. We’re talking about heat refraction, types of heat used and so forth. Trust me, it wasn’t pretty. If you’re an engineer or uber nerd like us you would have loved the debate. If you’re not you would have just shook your heads and called us crazy for obsessing about it.

For years I always thought the shiny side was the right side to cook on. It’s shiny and as a girl, shiny is better, right? <insert batting of lashes here> lol No I always thought it just made sense. I thought the shiny side was used when you wanted a more crisper product as that reflected head where the dull side was used when you wanted a more even cooking surface. Apparently I was wrong.

So I decided to do some research and go to the makers of most foil, Reynold’s Kitchen to find out what the differences were, if any.

“This is a common question and the answer is that the foil is “milled” in layers during production. Milling is a process whereby heat and tension is applied to stretch the foil to the desired thickness. We mill two layers in contact with each other at the same time, because if we didn’t, the foil would break during the milling process. Where the foil is in contact with another layer, that’s the “dull” side. The “shiny” side is the side milled without being in contact with another sheet of metal. The performance of the foil is the same, whichever side you use.”

Huh… well how about that!  Now that I read that it makes perfect sense. Bottom line is – if you use the shiny-side up, you’re doing it right. And if you use the dull-side up, you’re also doing it right.

We’ll call this debate a tie as we’re both wrong and right.

However one thing I should make note of is that there is such a thing as non-stick foil and there IS a difference on which side you should cook in. Only one side has a non-stick coating applied and to make our lives so much easier, Reynold’s thankfully imprinted the words “NON-STICK SIDE” on the correct side we should use. Thanks Reynolds!