The One Step You Shouldn't Miss When Microwaving Your Food

Using your trusty old kitchen friend, the microwave, may not be as simple as you once thought. Sure, you have used your microwave thousands of times when heating up leftovers or frozen food from Trader Joe's, but cooking in a microwave is not as simple as just throwing your food in, pressing a button, and calling it a day. It gets the job done, but it heats up your food unevenly and leaves you with molten hot spots alongside parts that are still cold.

That's why you need to make sure you are stirring your food when heating it up in the microwave. Midway through cooking, you should be giving your food a good mix in order to make sure the microwave's natural hot and cold spots are heating your food up evenly, and hopefully avoid burning your mouth on one bite and stumbling across a cold bit the next.

Microwaves rely on electromagnetic waves to heat up the water in your food, so the water content of your food can cause uneven heating. The waves that heat up the food also don't penetrate much further than the surface of your food, which is why you need to be stirring your food while it is heating up.

No matter how long you are cooking your food in the microwave, you should stop the microwave when it is halfway through to give it a good mix. Be extra sure to use a towel or oven mitts as the dish can get hot, and use a heat-safe utensil to give your food a mix; no disposable forks or spoons here. This will reposition the food so that the hot spots can hit all the parts of your food and ensure even heating.

I find that it often helps to add some water, either by putting a scant teaspoon or so directly into the food container, covering your food with a moist paper towel, or by placing a small cup of water alongside your food, to help keep your food from drying out and facilitate even heating.