Cooking Timer Calculator

This calculator works backwards from your desired serving time. It adds up your cooking steps and resting time, then subtracts that total from the serving time to tell you when to start. The steps are treated as a sequential timeline (one stage after another), so enter the stages of a single dish — not several dishes that share the oven at the same time.

The Formula

• Total time = Sum of all step durations + resting time
• Start time = Serving time − Total time

Example: roast chicken (sequential stages)

• Step 1: Preheat oven — 15 min
• Step 2: Roast the chicken — 90 min
• Step 3: Make gravy while it rests — 10 min
• Resting: 15 min
• Total = 15 + 90 + 10 + 15 = 130 min → serving at 13:00 means start at 10:50

Stages run one after another. The roast potatoes are not a separate step here — they go in the same oven during the chicken's 90-minute roast, so they are already covered by Step 2. For dishes that cook in parallel, work out each one's own start time (serving time minus that dish's own cook time) so they all finish together.

Food safety

Timings are a guide only — always check the core temperature with a meat thermometer. The UK Food Standards Agency advises chicken, turkey, pork and all minced or reformed meats reach 75 °C in the centre (or 70 °C held for 2 minutes). Whole beef and lamb joints (intact muscle) may be served less well done — about 52 °C rare, 57 °C medium-rare, 63 °C medium, 71 °C well done — but the surface must still be fully seared. Meat keeps rising a few degrees while resting, so this calculator includes a resting step.