What microwave utensils can be used? How to understand the label?

The usu­al thing is heat­ing food, cook­ing using a microwave oven. How­ev­er, so that there are no sur­pris­es dur­ing the cook­ing process, microwave uten­sils should be select­ed very care­ful­ly. What mate­ri­als should be pre­ferred? And what to con­sid­er when choos­ing uten­sils?

The nuances of products for microwave ovens

The vari­ety of con­tain­ers cre­at­ed from var­i­ous mate­ri­als and suit­able for cook­ing is very large. How­ev­er, not every con­tain­er is suit­able for cook­ing using a microwave oven. When decid­ing what kind of dish­es you can cook in the microwave, choos­ing such con­tain­ers, you need to pay atten­tion not only to the mate­r­i­al, but also to the size of the prod­uct. What should be pre­ferred?

Dish­es for the microwave oven: sub­tleties and nuances

1. Kitchen uten­sils that are planned to be used for a microwave oven must be made of durable mate­r­i­al. Microwave­able dish­es must with­stand high tem­per­a­tures with­out deform­ing, crack­ing or emit­ting tox­ic fumes that can cause poi­son­ing.
2. When pur­chas­ing glass­ware or con­tain­ers made of oth­er mate­r­i­al, you should take care of the issue of its “through­put”. The most suit­able choice is a trans­par­ent con­tain­er, devoid of any pat­terns.
3. On the sur­face of the prod­ucts, as well as in the com­po­si­tion of the mate­r­i­al, there should be no met­al ele­ments. There­fore, uten­sils with gild­ing, sil­ver or cop­per pat­terns are unsuit­able for microwaves. Its use may cause elec­tri­cal dis­charges inside the appli­ance.
4. A pop­u­lar option is plas­tic dish­es for the microwave, but before buy­ing, you need to pay atten­tion to the pres­ence of a spe­cial stamp locat­ed on the bot­tom or lid of the con­tain­er. The mark­ing of dish­es for a microwave oven made of plas­tic is indi­cat­ed by let­ter com­bi­na­tions (PP and PC), and a the­mat­ic sign in the form of waves or a schemat­i­cal­ly depict­ed microwave oven must also be present on the con­tain­er.
5. It is bet­ter to give pref­er­ence to those kitchen prod­ucts that have lids. At the same time, they should have a small hole for the exit of heat­ed air.
6. When choos­ing a con­tain­er, it is use­ful to take into account its shape. It is best to use round, oval, cylin­dri­cal dish­es as part of cook­ing dish­es in microwave ovens. The sides should not be too high. If the con­tain­er is with sharp cor­ners, this can some­times lead to dry food around the edges.
7. The size of the kitchen uten­sils is also extreme­ly impor­tant. It should be eas­i­ly locat­ed inside the microwave, with­out touch­ing the walls dur­ing oper­a­tion of the device.

In addi­tion to the com­mon and famil­iar mate­ri­als from which dish­es are made, the fol­low­ing options are suit­able for heat­ing and cook­ing dish­es in a microwave oven:

• you can use trans­par­ent foil or a spe­cial film, on the pack­ages of which infor­ma­tion is indi­cat­ed on the avail­abil­i­ty of use in microwave ovens; bak­ing bags are also suit­able, how­ev­er, they must first be pierced with a thick nee­dle or knife in a cou­ple of places so that air and steam can escape;
• it is also allowed to put dish­es made of thin pressed poly­styrene in a microwave oven; you just have to care­ful­ly mon­i­tor the heat­ing process so that the con­tain­er does not melt;
• dis­pos­able prod­ucts made of thick card­board, paper are also suit­able; excep­tions are those forms of dish­es that are cov­ered with a wax lay­er or have an oily, greasy base; the wax can melt under the influ­ence of heat, and the oil base can flare up, pro­vok­ing a fire in the house­hold appli­ance;
• it is allowed to put con­tain­ers made of alu­minum in the microwave if they have low walls; and also on the dish­es for the microwave oven, made of such mate­r­i­al, there must be a cor­re­spond­ing stick­er;
• you can warm up pas­tries, muffins, sand­wich­es on nap­kins, in paper bags, wrap­ping them in parch­ment paper;
• fab­ric ver­sions of “dish­es” in the form of pure linen or cot­ton mate­r­i­al are also suit­able for microwave ovens.

When there is a gen­er­al idea of ​​what kind of dish­es can be put in a microwave oven, you need to def­i­nite­ly decide on the main types of mate­ri­als that are suit­able and pro­hib­it­ed for use in microwave ovens.

Good to know:

Materials Not Suitable for Microwave Use

Among kitchen uten­sils that are not spe­cial­ized for the microwave, there are a num­ber of options that can­not be placed in the microwave oven due to var­i­ous rea­sons. What uten­sils will have to be aban­doned as part of the heat­ing and cook­ing with a microwave house­hold appli­ance?

Which dish­es can not be used: the main list of unac­cept­able mate­ri­als

1. Prod­ucts from crys­tal glass should not be used for microwave cook­ing. First­ly, in its com­po­si­tion the mate­r­i­al has sil­ver and lead. Sec­ond­ly, the crys­tal sur­face is often inho­mo­ge­neous. The influ­ence of microwave radi­a­tion on thin places of crys­tal uten­sils can cause the uten­sils to explode right inside the house­hold appli­ance.
2. Is it accept­able to put prod­ucts from thin glass? Def­i­nite­ly not. This kind of glass­ware is made from melanin, which is some­times referred to as “arti­fi­cial” or “syn­thet­ic” porce­lain. By its struc­ture, this mate­r­i­al is very frag­ile and too light. Under the influ­ence of heat in a microwave oven, it can crack and crum­ble into frag­ments.
3. should be exclud­ed from use iron con­tain­er, even suit­able for bak­ing in the oven. This ban does not apply only to cer­tain alu­minum prod­ucts. Although such con­tain­ers do not deform, their walls, even thin and low, are not able to pass microwave radi­a­tion through them­selves, while heat­ing up very much. Because put met­al uten­sils in a house­hold elec­tri­cal appli­ance is not rec­om­mend­ed.
4. Pure pot­tery and earth­en­ware, not cov­ered with a lay­er of durable glaze on top, can­not be used for cook­ing using microwave ovens. Due to high tem­per­a­tures, such con­tain­ers sim­ply crack and crum­ble.
5. should be avoid­ed and plas­tic table­ware, not labeled or pur­chased else­where than in spe­cial­ized stores. Plas­tic is not a heat-resis­tant mate­r­i­al, it is eas­i­ly deformed and has a tox­ic effect on prod­ucts. The excep­tion is spe­cial vari­eties for microwave ovens.

The best microwave cookware options

Before you decide for sure which dish­es are suit­able for the microwave, you need to remem­ber a few basic rules that allow you to test and then use non-spe­cial­ized kitchen uten­sils for cook­ing in a microwave oven.

Rules and tech­niques for check­ing dish­es

• The select­ed prod­ucts must with­stand strong tem­per­a­ture influ­ences (up to 300 degrees, if the grill func­tion is used).
• In addi­tion to the “through­put”, the con­tain­ers should not get very hot while in the microwave.
• Kitchen uten­sils should not have chips, cracks, scratch­es, or any oth­er sur­face dam­age. There should also be no frozen air bub­bles inside the prod­ucts.
• If it is pos­si­ble to con­duct a test, then in the select­ed con­tain­er you need to put a glass cup with dense walls, in which there is a cer­tain amount of cold water. Then, plac­ing the entire “struc­ture” in the microwave oven, turn on the device at full pow­er, set­ting the time to a minute. A pos­i­tive result of such a home test is hot water in a glass at the out­let and cold or slight­ly warm walls of the dish­es being test­ed.

What dish­es can be used for the microwave: the best mate­r­i­al options

1. Porce­lain or faience are con­sid­ered quite suit­able options for a microwave oven. Despite the fact that con­tain­ers made of such mate­ri­als are opaque, both faience and porce­lain are “con­duc­tors” for the waves of the stove. At the same time, they do not heat up exces­sive­ly and do not crack due to heat.
2. If there is a need to apply ceram­ic uten­silsthen it must have com­plete glazed coat­ing, includ­ing the bot­tom and inner walls of the cook­ware. Ceram­ics, like clay, heats up even­ly, which guar­an­tees suc­cess­ful heat­ing or cook­ing. Such con­tain­ers must be care­ful­ly removed from the house­hold appli­ance, using oven mitts, so as not to burn your­self.
3. The most pop­u­lar spe­cial con­tain­ers for microwave ovens are prod­ucts from fire-resis­tant, heat-resis­tant (heat-resis­tant) glass. The first ver­sion of the dish­es will allow you to cook at tem­per­a­tures up to 300 degrees, the sec­ond is only suit­able for microwave mode (about 145 degrees). It is easy to dis­tin­guish such glass­ware from ana­logues: it has very dense walls, the sides are not too high, and there are often hol­low or flat han­dles.
4. spe­cial plas­tic uten­sils, cre­at­ed from polypropy­lene (use poly­car­bon­ate prod­ucts with care), is con­sid­ered to be the sec­ond most pop­u­lar option for microwave uten­sils. Addi­tion­al­ly, sealed con­tain­ers allow you to eas­i­ly store food and cooked meals in the refrig­er­a­tor.
5. Also sil­i­cone table­ware suit­able for cook­ing in a microwave oven, with­out being afraid of high tem­per­a­ture effects. And she has cer­tain advan­tages against the back­ground of oth­er uten­sils. First of all, these con­tain­ers are suit­able for bak­ing and baked dish­es. They are dis­tin­guished by light­ness and soft­ness of the mate­r­i­al, thanks to which it is easy and sim­ple to han­dle such mod­ern dish­es, as well as to store them.

When won­der­ing whether it is pos­si­ble to make the process of cook­ing food in the microwave using non-spe­cial­ized dish­es, you just need to pay atten­tion to the mate­r­i­al from which it is cre­at­ed. And then take into account the size and shape. For exam­ple, the fol­low­ing options for uten­sils can help out when it is not pos­si­ble to heat or cook food in the right dish:

• faceted glass­es with dense walls;
• porce­lain plates, saucers, vas­es with low sides;
• ceram­ic cups and mugs with­out pat­terns, chips and cracks on the enam­el;
• bowls and molds made of durable dense glass, with­out pat­terns, col­ored coat­ings, with a smooth and uni­form sur­face;
• wood­en, unlac­quered con­tain­ers can also be used in the microwave, but you need to care­ful­ly mon­i­tor the cook­ing process with­out set­ting the max­i­mum pow­er on the house­hold appli­ance.

What to cook in the microwave? (video response)

In order not to get con­fused in the store, try­ing to choose the most suit­able uten­sils for using it in a microwave oven, you should watch the video below. The video focus­es on the main points that should not be for­got­ten when choos­ing the nec­es­sary dish­es.

Thanks to a large selec­tion of dif­fer­ent uten­sils for microwave ovens, it will not be dif­fi­cult to choose the most suit­able option. But, even with­out spe­cial con­tain­ers in the kitchen, you can cook in a microwave oven in any con­tain­er that meets the basic require­ments for microwave prod­ucts.