Microwave Vegetable Steamer

Microwave Vegetable Steamer
Steaming Veggies Quickly and healthily

Ask any mom and you would know that Veggies are important part of any diet.

Though many vegetables can be eaten raw, they are always better if steamed properly. The age old technique of boiling them in water takes time and robs vital nutrients from the veggies. The other metallic steamers work well, but again take time to cook veggies as they rely on boiling water.

If you are look for steamed veggie in quick time, the microwave Vegetable Steamer is a great option. It works on the microwave principle so it is obviously faster than the stove. Besides a well designed steamer can ensure that the veggies get steamed properly and uniformly.

The typical Microwave Vegetable steamers consist of a mesh or perforated basket that allows steam from below to flow over the vegetables and cook them.

How to Use Microwave Vegetable Steamer

Steaming vegetables is a great way of cooking them. If steamed properly, there are soft and palatable but not mushy or raw. This makes them great with any meal – besides their nutritive value.

So the key to steaming vegetables in any steamer is to get the degree of cooking just right. There are many factors that affect how the vegetables get cooked and how long you need to cook them.

Here are some important aspects of cooking vegetables:

Size
Whole vegetables take long time to get cooked while cut ones take less. The smaller the pieces, the less time it takes to cook them.
Kind of Vegetables
Some vegetables are naturally soft while others are tough. Typical soft vegetables are peas, leafy vegetables like spinach, etc. The tougher ones are like carrots, beet root, etc. So depending on what vegetable you are steaming, you need to determine the steaming time.

Using Steamer vs. Microwave Vegetable Steamer

Now comes the important part of steaming the vegetables. You can stream vegetables using the conventional steamers or microwaves. The conventional steamers require that you place the vegetables on the steamer and place it in a pressure cooker or any other source of boiling water. With microwave steamers, the same concept is used but with a microwave.

Positioning

The microwave steamers have a base tray with perforated steaming trays. Pour hot water in the base tray – just enough to fill the base. Now place the vegetables on the steaming tray with place the steaming tray on top of the base tray.

Precautions

Ensure that the vegetables are not in contact with the hot water. If they are, remove some water from the base tray. If this care is not taken, the portions of vegetables in contact with the water may get over cooked leaving non-uniformly cooked food serving.

Timing

This is the most important part of microwave steaming. Again, remember the classification of vegetables. When you are steaming them, try to keep the same kind of vegetables together. This means that you should not be steaming green peas with beet root or broccoli – you will end up with mushy peas or semi cooked broccoli.

Usually in a microwave, softer vegetables would get steamed within 2 minutes, while the tougher ones may take 3 to 5 minutes.

However, it is best to keep checking on the vegetables every minute to determine how much more you want to cook them. Again with practice you should get a good estimate for steaming vegetables.

Popular Model of Microwave Vegetable Steamer

Given below as some models that you can look at.

2-Tier Jobar Microwave Steamer

As the name suggests, this microwave steamer takes the basic concept a level further – literally. This consists of two baskets – one on top of the other that allows you to cook two sets of vegetables separately making better use of your time.

The basket is made of good quality plastic and it comes in White color. It also comes with complete cookware set giving you a good package to cook up great recipes.

The only pain area for some users would be that it needs to be hand washed. However, if all you use it for is to steam vegetables a quick rinse should do the job just right.

Haband Microwave Steamer

This is another steamer that works on the same principle as Jobar steamer. It is designed to keep all the nutrients in the vegetables and you don’t have to bother with fat or oil to cook the veggies.

This unit comes with two baskets, a water tray for the water and a lid with a steam vent. It is quite compact and can fit into most common microwaves.

Besides, the whole unit is dishwasher safe and can be kept in freezer too. So it works not only as a steamer but also as a storage aid.

Nikyoro Microwave Vegetable Steamer

This steamer is comes in a very convenient box form. The complete box acts like the water tray and the lid in other steamer designs.

The veggies can be placed in a separate tray that will hold them on top of the water to let them steam properly. Once completed, you can use this as a carry box and have delicious veggies.

The comical designs on the box make it very attractive for your kids to carry to school. You can give them the best food in their favorite tiffin box and have peace of mind that your kids eat vegetables regularly.

Progressive Microwave Fish and Vegetable Steamer

This one quart steamer is a compact and efficient steamer. This steamer is freezer safe and dishwasher safe so it an double up as a storage box for your food too.

It’s small size means that it will fit into most microwave devices, and yet it has been designed with one quart volume, which is decent enough to get your veggies of fish steamed.

On striking feature of this model is the adjustable steam vent which can help you control how much you want to control the steaming.

Which to Pick?

All the models discussed above provide a great means of steaming veggies quickly in a microwave. They are compact and most can double as a storage box too. However, with the added feature of vent adjustment, Progressive steamer offers a better option over others. But if you are not keen on steam vent adjustments, all are good choices.

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