The Weeknight Wood-Fired Oven

Food from a wood fired oven just tastes better. From the perfect doneness on the bottom to the crispy browned top, there’s a reason so many people are devoted to this style of cooking.

However, creating great food in a wood fired oven often requires splitting wood, building a fire, waiting for the oven to warm up, and then constantly monitoring the temperature. It's a time commitment. Since time can be hard to find during the week, we often push our wood fired oven cooks to the weekend.

The Yoder Smokers Wood Fired Oven Experience 

The Yoder Smokers Wood Fired Oven (WFO) is the answer to making better-than-restaurant meals with great wood fired flavor any night of the week. It is such a game-changer that people who were previously on the fence about which grill to buy have purchasing a new Yoder Smokers pellet grill so they can have the convenience of a temperature-controlled wood fired oven accessory and the flavor it provides at their fingertips.   

Easy Setup 

Preparing to cook in the Yoder Smokers Wood fired oven is simple. All you do is pull your grates and heat diffuser out and then place the heat management plate, the wood fired oven housing and the stone in the cooking chamber, and you are ready to start the grill. Then you just need to fill the pellets, push start, and set your desired temperature. Now you can put your ingredients together while you wait for the oven to heat up just like you would with any other meal.  

Quick Pre-heating 

We’ve found that the Yoder Smokers Wood Fired Oven requires no more time to heat up than a conventional oven. If you want Neapolitan style pizza, the warmup time may be longer, but it still takes far less time getting above 750 degrees than most other wood fired ovens, which can take an hour or more. Time is valuable and the Wood Fired Oven helps you make the most of it. 

Temperature Control 

Thanks to the temperature control of the Yoder Smokers pellet grills, managing the temperature in the WFO is as easy as setting the grill temperature. Compare that to a traditional wood-fired oven, where the size and amount of wood on the fire controls the temperature. It's a skill that takes practice, can be difficult to achieve an exact temperature, and requires special tools. 

With temperature control, you don’t have to worry about balancing the heat over the top with the heat on the stone (which could lead to undercooked food on one side and overcooked food on the other). Now you can have even heat on both sides without worrying about feeding the fire. Let your grill do the work so you can focus on the meal. 

Creativity Inspired 

We've found the WFO inspires our creativity. This could be because of the way the oven uses three different heat transfer methods to cook, or it could be the way it reminds us of a time when everything was cooked over an open fire, but we find ourselves going out of our way to find new ideas for using this oven. When you add in the use of cast iron or carbon steel cookware and the fact that the top of the oven can double as a burner, the ideas seem limitless. 

Speaking of creative ideas... Are you looking for an easy idea for a weeknight? Try making sheet pan meals!

The Yoder Smokers Wood Fired Oven is sized to fit a standard kitchen sheet pan, so it is perfect for sheet pan meals, an easy way to get food on the table in less than an hour. This technique is universal so you can use it with almost any protein, vegetable, and seasonings. We've included one of our favorite recipes below to get you started.

Pro Tip: When choosing vegetables for sheet pan recipes, try using vegetables with similar density so they will cook at the same rate. If you plan to use vegetables that have different cooking times, add the vegetables in at different times. More dense vegetables that need to cook longer go in the pan first and less dense vegetables that cook faster go in last. 

Easy Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas 

Ingredients (Feeds 4-6 people):

4-5 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts 

1-2 Red Bell Peppers 

1-2 Yellow Bell Peppers 

1-2 Green Bell Peppers 

1-2 Medium Yellow Onions 

Cattleman’s Grill Mexicano Rub 

Cattleman’s Grill 8 Second Ride Carne Asada Seasoning

Limes 

Tortillas 

Shredded Colby Jack Cheese, Salsa, Sour Cream, and Additional Preferred Toppings 

Instructions: 

Install Wood Fired Oven Insert and preheat grill to 425 degrees 

Cut chicken, peppers, and onions into strips that are roughly ½" wide by 3-4" long and toss around in baking sheet.

Season with Cattleman's Grill Mexicano Rub and Cattleman's Grill 8 Second Ride Carne Asada Seasoning to your preference 

Place pan in oven on the cooking stone and cook until chicken reaches 160 and vegetables become tender, while tossing halfway through (at about 10-12 minutes).

Cook until chicken reaches 160 and vegetables are tender.

Tortilla Hack: We sat a piece of carbon steel cookware on top of the wood fired oven and used the pan to heat our tortillas before serving.