To provide a cooking heater in which the labor required for cleaning is lessened by detecting boil over in the early stage and failure due to soup can be prevented.

The cooking heater comprises a heating section, e.g. a burner 2 for kitchen range or a heater, disposed above the cooking heater body 1, and a top plate 3 placed on the upper surface of the cooking heater body 1. The top plate 3 is provided with a recess 18 for receiving boiled over soup and the upper surface of the top plate 3 is inclined downward toward the recess 18. The recess 18 is provided, on the rear surface thereof, with means for detecting the temperature on the rear surface of the recess 18. When boiled over soup is collected in the recess 18 and the temperature detecting means detects the temperature of a specified level or above, input to the heating section is interrupted or lowered.