If your food is unevenly heated it’s probably because you need to adjust the cook time and power settings. Heating it longer at a lower power setting will let the heat spread more evenly.
Alternatively, check your microwave’s wattage. I always have to adjust microwave instructions to be about 10% longer because my apartment’s microwave is weaker than companies assume the standard microwave is.
✨ May better heated microwave food await you ✨
Yeah, once I started playing with power level settings, it was like night and day with cooking in the microwave.
tl;dr: skill issue
Except the food has localized concentrations of oil, fat or water or differences on overall density.
That’s why you lower the power. Leave enough time for entropy to distribute the heat before dumping more energy into the food. The more heterogenous the food is, the more you need to lower the power (down to maybe even 200-400 W for mixed leftovers). And make sure all your foodstuffs are touching each other to allow heat to homogenize.
“How about I just heat the plate instead dipshit?”
But why’s it gotta be hotter than the runaway nuclear reaction at Chernobyl?
My plates always stay cold lol
In the kitchen it hums with delight,
A mischievous microwave, quite a sight.
With a twist of its dial, a dance begins,
Uneven warmth, where chaos wins.
With a flicker and a sarcastic hum,
Microwave, oh marvel, where chaos is spun.
A promise of warmth, a comedic jest,
In your reheating quest, you give us the rest.
Wavelengths oh do cancel when a crest and a trough
Do meet one another and, energy, not enough
Yet center the plate, or a bowl, it’s your choice
So the food spins round the high points and molecules, excited, rejoice
magical energy, technological wonder,
Could my reheating choice perhaps be a blunder?
My mind races, my feelings are mixed;
Lasagna like magma with ice patches betwixt.
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I just started doubling time and using half power. It works sooo much better!
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I do this with Taco Bell leftovers. They all work outside of the actual tacos (specifically Doritos locos) most everything else comes out deliciously.
I still prefer to reheat crunchwraps in a skillet though.
Look at Mr. Money Bags who can afford Taco Bell.
Used to be $20 got you the whole store. Now it gets you 2 Burritos. Sauce extra.
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This is because all microwaves have terrible UI/UX. If you are supposed to use less than 100% then why do I have to hit 9 buttons every time I want to use less than 100% power? And only 1 button to use 100% power for a variety of different settings.
Why is it not you hit Cook, then enter Power, then enter time? Like every single other stove in existence
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I usually just use high power. I should try this sometime, although I don’t tend to have issues with stuff having cold spots. Something I think that helps is stirring stuff half way through and letting it sit for a min after it’s done.
Rotating microwaves do a lot better of a job to avoid hot spots.
But it won’t do anything to avoid overheating some parts to rubber by overheating or heating too fast.
Stirring definitely helps. The exact setting to use will vary depending on the microwave, what is being heated, and how much of it there is, but my usual go-to for a starting point on a full, regular-sized bowl or plate of food is: 3 minutes at 40%, remove and stir or flip as appropriate, then another 2-3 minutes at 30-40% depending on how hot it was. This approach will end up heating most things evenly without drying them out or burning anything.
Some things can be more sensitive, so if I’m ever unsure about what would be safe, I’ll start at 30% for 1 minute just to get a baseline for context. Below 30% is usually only useful for frozen things. Soups usually require several stirs - you don’t want to let it sit still for too long, or use too high a setting, or it can explode.
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No, if you’re using high power for anything longer than like 20 seconds to nuke a coffee or something, you’re microwaving wrong.
Most things are 👌 3:00 @ Power Level 6 (60% on, 40% off)
Yup, totally agree. Changed my microwaving habits a few years back. 3 minutes at about 600 watts works like a charm for just about everything. Add a minute or so if you’re heating soup or something else with a lot of mass/water.
I always did 2 minutes at maximum power previously and it was always like the surface of the sun on the outside and cold on the inside.
Mine only got 3 settings + thawing. Let me overclock this sucker to 200%.
microwave “power” changes are only on and off in intervals.
Not if you use an inverter microwave.
Among the other suggestions people have made in this thread, I’d like to add that just covering something and allowing the food to steam-heat makes a big difference. For instance I will usually poke a well in the middle of leftovers, put a tiny bit of water in (especially with rice, which dries out) and cover it with a plate. The water boils and heats it much better.
Yeah, aluminium foil as cover does sparking wonders in that regard!
Hey Ferb, I know what we’re gonna do today
Great suggestion.
On a side note look into eating left over rice.
PROTIP: Whenever possible, shape/place the food you’re heating like a donut. ( O )
Microwaves need to penetrate the food; if it’s a big lump, it’s hard to reach the stuff in the middle. By using a “donut” shape, you are creating more surface area, and spreading out the “middle” so it’s easier for microwaves to reach all the parts of the food equally
Microwave ovens were a tech ahead of their time. It’s crazy how incredibly little these have evolved though decade after decade.
Yeah but how exactly would you improve upon them. They do tell you how to do it properly, people just never bother and press the +30s button until it hits a few minutes, then complain their food is badly heated and the plate is piping hot instead.
Almost as if, and hear me out here, that’s not how you reheat food with a microwave!
It’s like if you want to bake something with an oven, and all you do is set it to 250°C, Fan, and leave the door open, then complain it doesn’t work. And those don’t even offer automated programs you could be using instead!
(now don’t get me wrong, on the cheaper end there’s also a whole lot of shit microwaves, but I’m assuming we’re talking at least a somewhat respectable model here)
I dunno. I’m not a microwave engineer but you point out that misuse is rampant. I almost never cook anything above power 50, but I didn’t even figure that out until my late 20s. Maybe a quick photogrammetry scan to determine size of food stuff, a scale to determine mass could help with some basic settings. Maybe even just a cook (default, 50% duty cycle) and power cook (full on, boil water etc.) to direct users. What about multiple magnetrons? Would that help with dead spots? What about a magnatron on a servo that raster scanned your food? Test pauses during cooking where infrared thermometers sample progress and make adjustments? I know Amazon made a pretty decent little smart microwave but I haven’t even seen basic smart features cooked into very many of them. I’m just spitballing here, but with proper use and a sometimes some repositioning microwaves can do a pretty decent job, but I’m surprised they have evolved pretty minimally.
Even cheap-ish microwaves have “defrost” and “reheat” functions that ought to do the job more or less correctly (defrost will pulsate the magnetron to allow ice to melt into a water layer that’s easier to heat up, reheat uses a steam sensor to roughly gauge the amount of food).
Most people are just impatient monkeys who hit the “max power” setting 100% of the time and will not, under any circumstances, take five minutes to learn to use the reheat function or lower the power level.
I don’t normally stop for “cute” but this one got me. It’s super cute.
You’re using it wrong. Respectfully 😁
The fried capers and white bean soup in this video are BOMB. Would highly recommend - it’s super simple and delicious!!
Don’t inverter microwaves solve this problem?
I thought it was the metal fan in front of the magnetron that scattered and randomized the microwaves so there aren’t any hotspots.
Inverter microwaves allow you to change the power level without duty cycling
Not directly, but they improve the low-power modes substantially, and using the low-power modes for longer times is the solution. Inverters aren’t strictly needed, but they do make it better.
There’s nothing a bit of inverting the polarity can’t fix!
Some have sensors that will really help heat food evenly and will adjust times and power levels depending on what you’re doing. Most are just default cook times, but if you haven’t tried it out, it’s worth it.
I watched a video the other day discussing the sensors in some Microwaves for popping popcorn. Most lower end units don’t have these sensors but the ones that do, can actually make pretty good popcorn.
TechnologyConnections is pretty dope
Thanks, I couldn’t recall the name of the channel. He does some great content. I never cared about microwaves because I don’t use them, but I found myself watching a couple of long videos he did on them none the less.
America’s Test Kitchen will help you care
tl;dw: Learn to use the power settings to let heat defuse through the food during the process.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
America’s Test Kitchen will help you care
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I watched that same video, and it inspired me to upgrade my microwave game. I’ve had the same one for like a decade and it sucked. New one has all the bells / whistles and does air frying too. It’s night and day compared to the old one
You guys need an airfryer in your life.
I just got an air fryer and find that the food is cold in the middle but the rest is cooked. What am I doing wrong?
How am I going to airfry a soup?
(With that said I have an air frier)
You have trouble evenly heating soup in a microwave? I thought the process is pretty simple, multiple heating stages and stir in between
That’s exactly what I do and I don’t have problems getting it warm all throughout.
And even for solid food it isn’t too hard. Just keep it shaped like a doughnut, then let it sit for a minute or two.
I have a steamer combo. Can you steam soup?
@[email protected], care to comment on your creative process?
Hah! Just like Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.
People who have inverter microwaves, do they actually heat food more evenly or is it just marketing buzz?
dunno what an inverting thing is but I suspect uneven heating is due to different food’s physics properties so uhm…
We have a Panasonic inverting one that has a flat bed (no turn table) and it doesn’t heat evenly…
Don’t all microwave ovens have an inverter? Like, isn’t that the thing that produces the photons?
No, that’s the magnetron. Normal microwave magnetrons have 2 power settings, on and off, and reducing the microwave’s power just means switching the magnetron on and off at different intervals.
An inverter just allows to keep the magnetron running at a lower power. Whether that has a better effect than just on/off-switching the magnetron I do not know, but it’s probably more energy efficient over long usage periods.
Ahhh thank you, I’m getting my words mixed up.
I would imagine having an inverter would allow you to avoid situations where individual parts heat too quickly during your heat cycle, but the advantage probably isn’t that big. Afterall, you could just heat it at a slightly lower power to stop whatever overheating effect you’re troubled with.
Spinny plate and letting it sit afterwards
It’s an effect of how they work which is inherently uneven saved depends largely on what it is cooking or rather it’s water content.
Yes a wave has peaks and valleys
Rotating reduces this short coming
And waiting allows the heat to spread
Not just that they have peaks and valleys, some things are simply not heated by microwaves. The ice crystals in frozen food are only heated by-proxy because the tiny amounts of already melted off water will heat up and melt more ice, so there is no benefit in blasting an ice cube at full power for 40 minutes.
And placing the food at the edge of the plate instead of the center.
Thawing the pizza? of course that one edge has to be half done while we’re at it!
