Microwave Wattage

Microwave Wattage Conversion

Microwave runs on wattage which means the amount of power output in the ovens. Before buying a microwave or while owning a microwave you need to understand the working principle behind it for efficient and time saving cooking.

Wattage - Know How:

Microwave ovens run on different wattage ranging from 450 to 1500 w with higher watt enabling faster cooking.

Here are general guide on how much watt do we need:

Microwave with less than 650 watt best for reheating snacks and sandwich. Cooking other foods with this microwave will save little time than any other cooking method.
Microwave with 650 to 750 watt, can be used for home cooking and reheating food.
Microwave with 900 to 1500 watt oven is best suited for large family member, it can cooks up to 10 portions of the food or reheat very quickly yet it saves time.

What is Power Level

Beside microwave wattage, we should look into their power level.

Power levels are usually marked in percentage.

If it is said 100%, it means the amount of time of this oven produce microwave is 100% and 0% in remaining time when it is not cooking.

And if we say that the oven is running on 80% power, this means that 80% of the time microwaves are emitted every single minute and switched off 20% of the time.

For cooking foods slowly or defrosting you must use low power level.

10 to 30% power level is the best choice.

At 30% power level the oven is on for 3 second then off for 7 seconds.

This is performed till the fixed cooking time is reached.

The additional benefit with this function is that you can cook the inner part of the food before the top crust is ready.

For microwave cooking and reheating usually define in 1 or 2 wattage levels. but for those who have to cook with different wattage, the cooking time needs to be converted.

Lets have a look, how this can be performed with ease.

Adjusting microwave watts - yours vs. recipe book.

If your recipe talks about a different wattage time then don’t panic, cooking can be performed evenly by adjusting the cooking time.

Follow the below steps to convert the wattage to the cooking time:

Identify the wattage of your microwave. You can look in the manual
If somehow you lost your manual or it didn’t listed, then you can still find a way to identify it. By placing a cup of 33 – 40 F water and look at table below to compare.
Now after you found your microwave watt, then you can put your watt in the conversion script below

For example, if it took 3 to 3 and half minutes to boil the water, then according table below, your microwave should around 725 to 800 watt.

Microwave Wattage Conversion

Please complete the fields below.

Your Watts:

Recipe book Watts:

Input Time (MM:SS):

Please note if you got result like 37.5 minutes it means 37:30 to put into your microwave.

Preparing food in the microwave is made even easier with the understanding of the functioning of the microwaves. You can now cook anytime, any place and turn into a Master chef!

Source: S. Gilmore, L. E. Baltzer, Food preparation study course: quantity preparation and scientific principles By Iowa Dietetic Association

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