Microwave Cooking

[PritiPatelsMaker]

Is anyone thinking of using their Microwave more to cut down on energy costs?

I've found a few recipes that I'm going to try but has anyone got any tried and tested recipes that they'd like to share?

No, I won't. I would happily get rid of mine, but other people in the house want one. I feel it takes up a lot of room for what it does: melt chocolate, heat through frozen peas, reheating soup, occasional defrosting, precooking baked potatoes etc.

When I first got one, I tried things like chocolate pudding in a mug, scrambled eggs etc, but really everything came out as a pale imitation. But I'll follow and see if I've been getting it wrong all these years!

I have just bought the microwave grill from lakeland for this. I'm going to experiment with sausages and toasted sandwiches for quick teas that hopefully won't need an oven.

Thanks for your help Cyn

If I’m on my own I do a jacket potato in the microwave. The family like them done in the oven. Charity shops always have microwave cookery books published back when they wanted to convince us we could cook a three course meal in them.

When our kitchen was being renovated, we only had a microwave for about 6 weeks and quickly became bored of what we could cook decently in it. Yes, you can cook pasta, risotto, jacket potatoes etc…. in it but we all agreed that they weren’t as good. We could have gone down the ready-meal route but that would have been expensive and defeats the whole point! I’ve decided that whenever I use the oven I’m going to batch-cook things that can be reheated in the microwave.
Having said that, I did these roasties in the microwave at Christmas when I was short of oven success and got several compliments!

Jacket potatoes in a slow cooker are much better than in the microwave! 🤤

Same. I almost never use ours and would prefer to have the space for more clutter something else.
DH loves a pasty heated up in the MW however, and won't hear of getting rid of it.

Batch cook bolognaise sauce, curry, lasagne, stew and dumplings in the usual way then freeze tubs that can be microwaved up as needed.

Thanks everyone

I'm already using mine more and enjoying. Especially that it's quicker and I can put the pots in the dishwasher. We have an oven and grill in ours too. Going to the shops tomorrow to look for a recipe book for ideas. Only reheated food in it before now and feel like I've been missing a trick due to misplaced snobbery. I cooked my bacon in it earlier and it was fine. I'm not sure if that's actually cheaper though?! The oven particularly is amazing. It seems to take a fraction of the time to cook as a conventional oven. I had no idea! Our energy bills are average and I suspect we can drop that a lot this year as this is the first winter in 3 years we've not a baby in the house. Hoping that adjusting our cooking methods will mean our bills aren't as astronomical as being predicted. We shall see!

Prefer the air fryer.

It is handy if you batch cook to reheat rather than turning on the oven to reheat one or two portions of something. I was gifted couple of microwave cooking books once and one of them actually has some really nice recipes if you are cooking for one.

I made a really good coffee cake in the microwave recently. Recipes easy to find if you Google it

I'd be lost without mine. It has a grill and conventional oven too. The grill isn't as efficient, but I cook all manner of veg in it, makes sauces for cauli/mac cheese, potato wedges ready for frying, even heating water for coffee. Much cheaper.