What happened when I cooked all my meals in a microwave for a week

From eggy explosions to surprising mug brownies, my week of microwave cooking was full of ups and downs.

By Laura Wingrove

The trusty microwave has graced kitchen counters in the UK since the ’70s. Originally created in 1945 to offer a speedy alternative to oven cooking, it was soon largely relegated to chief reheater.

Aside from when Nigella almost broke the internet with her creative pronunciation, I rarely thought about my microwave – and cooked with it even less.

But with the recent hike in energy prices, four-hour slow-cooked pork now seems pretty frivolous. Speed and efficiency have become priorities in my meal planning, leading me to start looking at my microwave in a whole new light.

Dare I say it, I’m a decent cook. My eternal greed and Spanish side of the family are mainly to credit there. But while I certainly know my way around an oven, I’m not so well acquainted with its miniature cousin. I’ve even blown one up in the past while trying to make its acquaintance.

Putting all that to one side, I set myself a challenge: to use only a microwave to cook all my meals for an entire week.

You’ve got questions, I imagine. Questions about the recipes I cooked and whether it was all worth it, sure, but mainly regarding whether yet another microwave became collateral damage in my culinary pursuits.

Here’s what happened – and everything I learned along the way.

Planning is key

When planning my meals, it quickly became apparent that I needed to get to know my microwave a little better. Lots of microwave recipes out there expect you to have a modern, multifunctional combi number, or at least an accurate digital timer. Mine, however, is borderline prehistoric with a simple and surprisingly inaccurate manual dial, which meant (I quickly learned) that a stopwatch was a must when using it, especially when I was cooking things for less than a minute.

If, like me, you’re only packing a single-function 750W microwave with limited (read: zero) fancy features, there is still hope. Trust me.

Once you know what you’ve got, find recipes that are suitable for the microwave you own. Most importantly, follow the recipes you use. Don’t wing it like me or you’ll have a string of stodgy porridges under your belt by midweek and be starting most days frustrated or hungry (or, even worse, both).

Play to your microwave's strengths

The week began strong with some real smash hits: Mexican bean-loaded sweet potatoes and a ginger and soy sauce steamed sea bream. I lay the fillet in baking paper, drizzled it with soy sauce and topped it with chopped garlic, ginger, spring onion and pak choi. Then, I wrapped the lot up in the paper and microwaved it for about 4–5 minutes. The soft fish was perfectly cooked and made a filling meal alongside microwave rice – plus it was ready in under 10 minutes and created next to no washing up.

While fish worked beautifully in the microwave, I was wary of cooking other meat in it. So, I spoke to cooking expert and author of microwave recipe book Ping!, Justine Pattison.

“When testing recipes for my book, I cooked lots of meat successfully in a microwave. What I would say, though, is if you want to use cheap cuts of meat it isn’t the best. Those kinds of cuts often need low and slow cooking, which doesn’t play to a microwave’s strengths. I’d use a slow cooker instead.”

Encouraged, a few days later I made beef chilli and cheese nachos. I can’t pretend it didn’t feel weird to be stewing mince in the microwave, but I also can’t deny that it worked.

My first big fail came in the form of an old favourite dish: mushroom and tofu ramen. It was a disaster for several reasons, not least my fateful attempt at boiling an egg to go on top.

As I’ve briefly mentioned, my microwave is a basic beast whose timer is useless if you need to cook something for less than a minute. My phone – with its oh-so reliable stopwatch – wasn’t about my person so I just thought I’d guess when the 45 second cook was done. Unsurprisingly, I overcooked the egg, it partially exploded and I had a stinky start to the evening. Devastating – for the whole household.

A note on eggs

I relayed my egg-related woes to Pattison, and she had thoughts.

“Don’t wing it – follow a recipe,” was her first piece of advice. Which makes sense, with the whole point of recipes being that someone else has done the testing (and therefore the failing) for you. Her second? “Some things are not meant to be made in the microwave, boiled eggs being one of them.”

Well, now I know.

That said, poached eggs in the microwave seemed to be an absolute game-changer and were much easier to make than in a pan. I simply cracked an egg into a ramekin, added a few tablespoons of water until the egg was covered and microwaved for around 30 seconds, or until the white was cooked.

In recent weeks there have been highly publicised instances of exploding poached eggs, with devastating results. Having seen the photos I'm unwilling to tempt fate after my lucky week and probably won’t be reaching for the microwave to poach my eggs in future. This was really disappointing to read about, as I thought I’d come across a speedy win!

That said, eggs can still star in speedy WFH lunches. My favourites from the week were fried rice and omelette – both of which were safe and healthier cooked in the microwave than fried on the hob with oil or butter.

Don't believe the myths

Speaking of health, I consider myself to be relatively nutrition focused (don’t throw that in my face when I talk about desserts next). While it was a plus that microwave cooking sometimes negates the need for cooking oil or fat, I was a little concerned about it zapping all the good stuff in my food.

This, I was pleased to read however, is a total myth. In fact, microwaving might even help to retain nutrients, especially those like vitamin C which are particularly sensitive to heat.

To help keep as much goodness as possible in your food, it’s best to use as little water as you can get away with or cook things quickly – meaning the microwave fits the bill perfectly. By cooking food quickly and efficiently, the veggies I was eating were still packed with vitamins, putting my nutrition worries at bay.

Dessert dos and don'ts

While unwilling to forego dessert for a whole week, I was sceptical of mug cakes. Completed with little effort and at record speed, how good could they really be?

The truth is, pretty great. A five-minute microwave brownie changed my mind and hit the sweet spot nicely.

There’s only so many mug cakes you can eat in a week, though. So I became a bit bored and started scouring the internet for interesting sweet ideas, eventually coming away with pancake and crumble recipes.

The pancakes were an absolute fail. The process was slow and tedious – pouring the mixture onto a plate to cook the pancakes one by one with no fun flipping or frying – and they turned out slimy and soggy. Would not recommend.

The crumble was a minor success, though. Stewing frozen berries and apples worked well in the microwave and took no time at all, but the topping did lack that all-important crunch.

Think about texture

I really missed crunchy, crisp textures throughout the week. Luckily, Pattison has some great ideas for injecting extra texture to microwaved dishes.

“Adding toppings, such as toasted nuts or a fresh salsa, works well. And serving with accompaniments that don’t need cooking, such as crusty bread or a lovely crisp salad, provides extra texture.

“It’s also important to not overcook things so they retain plenty of texture. If you get it right, it can be really great – vegetables cooked in the microwave can have more texture and flavour than when cooked by other methods.”

Efficiency

There’s no denying using a microwave is a quick solution for many people, but when making things from scratch is it really that much faster?

For meals like macaroni cheese, the microwave is undeniably speedier than the hob. This recipe was a particular surprise. From cooking the pasta in the microwave (gasp!) to making a cheese sauce (which I was convinced had split and failed halfway through), it all worked perfectly. Plus, it was ready to eat in 15 minutes.

Other meals such as the ramen, boiled eggs and porridge did seem quicker but with such lacklustre results it wasn’t a worthwhile trade-off – I ended up wasting food and time.

It’s also worth considering how many people you’re cooking for. While attempting the pesky ramen, I found one bowl of broth would cool down while the other was heating up, so my partner and I ended up eating separately to avoid cold dinners. Similarly, I found when making meals with multiple elements, each part had to get red hot to stand a chance of still being warm when the rest of the dish was ready.

The Results

I definitely look at my old microwave with new eyes now. While it helps to have a decently kitted out kitchen, it is entirely possible to cook three meals a day from scratch just using one of these unassuming appliances.

While I can’t pretend I wasn’t happy to be reunited with my oven after the week was through, my little microwave does play a larger part in meal times now, and has proven its worth for far more than reheating yesterday’s leftovers.

My microwave food diary

Originally published May 2023