I accidentally left the oven on for half an hour after taking the food out. Will anything happen?

There is nothing to fear. It just made your house hotter.

Nope…All will be fine.

If I had a cake for every time I’ve done this, I could open a chain of bakeries.

If something terrible were going to happen, it would have happened to me at least once every couple of months for about the past half century. I’ve also boiled teakettles dry, burned hard-boiled eggs (pretty bad stinker, that one), and left the curling iron on for three days. Luckily the world seems pretty well fortified against such minor acts of stupidity.

You would have left it on if you needed to cook the food longer, right? Don’t worry about it!

Perhaps you are thinking of certain microwave ovens, especially older ones, which are not supposed to be operated empty because of possible damage to the magnetron (the device that generates the microwaves) when there’s no food to absorb energy. Not an issue with a conventional oven.

The oven is no biggie. It’s when you leave the burners on the stove top going it could be concern for a fire or burns.

Here’s one to reassure you that it is ok to leave it on. Spring break in college, last one in the apartment and I baked something in the oven. Came back a week later, oven is still on. Oops. Electric bill was a little higher but everything else was fine.

I think we all have done that once or twice. Not a terrible thing if during the winter, just turn it off and open the oven and take advantage of the heat, heck you paid for it.