Microwaves: Features explained
You can get a solo oven for around £25
Many of today's microwaves have lots more features than simply heating and defrosting. Models with grills and convection cooking (combination ovens) or just grills are widely available for people who want to upgrade or do more 'real' cooking in their microwaves.
Supermarkets have made a significant entry to the low budget microwave market and nowadays you can pick up a solo oven for around £25.
Those who want to trade up to a microwave with a grill or a combination microwave with a grill and a convection oven can often expect a stylish product with digital displays and metallic finishes.
Type
Solo
Solo or basic microwaves are great for simple tasks such as heating soup, cooking jacket potatoes or heating ready meals. You can also use them to defrost food.
But basic microwaves can't brown food so they are unable to compete with conventional ovens on everyday jobs such as grilling or roasting meat.
Combination
Combination ovens can roast chickens
Combination microwave ovens use convection heating (fanned hot air) and come complete with grills as well. So you can use microwaves, grilling and convection heating to both cook and brown food.
Grill
Grill models use a heating element along with normal microwave cooking to brown food and give it a more attractive appearance and texture. They come complete with metal racks to bring food closer to the grill element.
We make toast to show how evenly each microwave grills
Heating category
A microwave’s heating category is a rating from A to E and is designed to show you how quickly or slowly your oven will heat food.
Ovens in category E will heat your food more quickly than ovens rated A. You’ll find your oven’s rating on the front usually on the door. E is the most common rating.
All the ovens we've tested have been given a heating category of E by the manufacturer which means they're supposed to cook at between 741 and 800 watts but this isn’t always accurate. You may need to cook your food for longer than recommended to make sure it’s piping hot throughout each time.
Functions
Auto-reheat buttons can help you cook
Auto-reheat buttons
These allow you to enter the weight of the food and will calculate how long it should take to cook.
The better ones let you select what it is you're cooking rather than giving one cooking time for every type of food.
Vegetable steamer
In addition to microwaving, roasting, baking and grilling some microwaves come with a vegetable steamer. They can be tricky to get started with but after a bit of practice, it's a fast and healthy way to cook vegetables.
Pizza function
Many of the microwaves on test have a function (a button or an item on a 'menu') for cooking or reheating pizza. These tend to work better with the grill microwaves than the solos, because the grill will help crisp the pizza and brown the top.
Some microwaves include crisper plates which you cook pizzas on to help crisp their bases. They can also be used with quiche. You tend to get better results if you use a frozen pizza and pre-heat the oven and plate for four or five minutes before use.
Containers
Steam your vegetables in the microwave
It's important to use the right cooking containers. Heatproof glass, pyrex or plastics labelled as microwave safe are ideal.
You can also use paper plates and paper towels. Pottery, ceramics and earthenware are suitable as long as they are not porous.
Avoid containers from frozen or chilled food (such as margarine tubs) because their low melting temperatures may leave contaminants in the food.
With fast-food foil containers there's a danger of sparking if foil gets too close to the sides, and the food can heat unevenly because the foil shields it from the microwaves. So transfer last night's Chinese or curry into another container.