back burner

back burnernoun

• 1

  A section of a stove used to keep some pots warm while one focuses on others.

  • In restaurants, the back burner is the place that chefs leave their sauces and soup stocks to simmer while they are engaged in other, more immediately pressing, and faster operations on the front burners.
  • Also, avoid reaching across a lit burner in the front of the stove to stir a pot on a back burner. Turn the front burner off while you tend to food on a back burner.
• 2

  A state of low urgency; a state of low current importance.

  • We'll put next year's Christmas party on the back burner until we deal with the current financial crisis.
  • I kept cases on the back burner for years—just thinking about them, playing them out in my head, waiting for the time to work it, or a lucky break.