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See why.The Best Microwave Egg Cookers
We hatched a plan to find the best microwave egg cooker. But first we had to lower our expectations.
What You Need To Know
Microwave egg cookers offer the allure of quickly cooked eggs without the need to stand over the stove or clean a pan. Given our experience with microwave ovens’ uneven radiation—they’re fickle when it comes to precision cooking—we were skeptical that these containers would consistently produce properly cooked eggs. To determine if they were worth buying, we bought and tested seven microwave egg cookers priced from $5.12 to $14.90: two omelet makers and five poachers. Each was made of either silicone or plastic, with a lid, latch, or folding mechanism. We didn’t expect them to replicate perfect stovetop eggs, so we primarily evaluated the microwave egg cookers on how easy they were to use and clean and whether they produced eggs that were fully cooked without being drastically over- or undercooked.
Most manufacturer instructions did not specify microwave wattage, so we tested products in both 800-watt and 1,200-watt microwave ovens. We also tested the egg cookers at different power levels, experimenting to find the optimal power setting and amount of time for each model.
However, no amount of tinkering could compensate for the microwave oven’s unevenly distributed electromagnetic waves (aka “microwaves”). The egg poachers simultaneously overcooked and undercooked the eggs, giving us runny whites and too-firm yolks. In addition, the models designed to poach multiple eggs cooked each egg to a different degree of doneness. On the odd occasion that an egg poacher produced favorable results, we weren’t able to replicate the results in later tests. On a whim, we tried poaching eggs in the microwave in a bowl of water: We nuked the water until it was boiling and then added the egg and cooked it for 30 seconds. This gave us poached eggs that were superior to what came out of the gadgets but still far short of what you can make on the stovetop.
Why were the microwaved eggs inferior to stovetop eggs? Egg yolks contain less water and more fat than egg whites, so the two parts of the egg absorb energy at different rates, making it challenging to get nicely cooked eggs in a microwave oven.
The two omelet cookers in our lineup fared marginally better, producing eggs that were not quite an omelet and not quite scrambled eggs but something in between. But the microwave oven again took its toll; uneven radiation distribution sometimes caused overcooked gray spots in our omelets even though other parts of the omelet were properly cooked. The cause of these ashy spots? When eggs are overcooked, sulfur released in the egg white reacts with iron in the egg yolk, forming ferrous sulfide—and an accompanying grayish-green hue. (You may be familiar ...
Everything We Tested
Recommended with reservations
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Egg Quality: 2 stars out of 3.
Though this omelet cooker made eggs that were more akin to scrambled, it produced the most consistent results in our lineup. Eggs were mostly cooked through with occasional runny bits near the center of the cooker, and raw add-ins such as cheese, asparagus, and zucchini cooked well when we included them. The plastic cooker was easy to handle right out of the microwave, and cleanup was a breeze.
Not Recommended
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Egg Quality: 1.5 stars out of 3.
This double egg poacher showed promise when eggs were cooked at a lower power level, but ultimately we weren’t able to get fully cooked whites without overcooking the yolks. It wasn’t simply a matter of egg yolks cooking differently than egg whites, either—the yolks themselves were partially overcooked and partially undercooked, and the same was true of the whites. The bottoms of the eggs were especially susceptible to being undercooked.
- Cleanup: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Egg Quality: 1 stars out of 3.
This cooker produced passable eggs—cooked whites with runny yolks—in one test but gave us spongy eggs with almost lacy whites in another test and completely overcooked eggs in yet another test. In short, we encountered major consistency issues. On top of that, this egg cooker occasionally elicited an “ouch” when we removed it from the microwave oven, as it was very hot, and there was a slight residue on the egg cooker after repeated washings.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Egg Quality: 1 stars out of 3.
Not only did this two-egg poacher produce substantially different results for each egg, the egg cooker’s design was also highly problematic. Getting eggs up and out of their cavities was difficult, and yolks sometimes fell out of their surrounding whites before we could plate the eggs.
- Cleanup: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Egg Quality: 1 stars out of 3.
Given the difficulties of properly poaching one egg in the microwave, a four-egg poacher is quite a gamble—one that we lost. Eggs stuck in their cavities, were somewhat difficult to lift out, and on top of that, were nowhere near properly cooked. Yolks were firm and yellow in some spots and orange and slightly less cooked in others, while whites were runny for some eggs but not for others.
- Cleanup: 1 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Egg Quality: 2 stars out of 3.
This model’s eggs were on a par with those produced by our top-performing model, but it was much harder to use. It was often too hot to handle after cooking, and if we washed it by hand to make a second set of eggs, those eggs tasted soapy no matter how many times we rinsed it. On top of that, this omelet cooker occasionally leaked, likely due to the midcook flip we gave it (per manufacturer instructions).
- Cleanup: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 1 stars out of 3.
- Egg Quality: 1 stars out of 3.
We thought a single-egg cooker might be easier to work with than multiple-egg models, but that was not the case with this silicone model. For starters, eggs from this cooker sometimes tasted soapy after we washed it. But the bigger issue was getting an overcooked yolk surrounded by a runny white, even though we placed the cooker on the outer edge of the microwave as instructed, which is thought to better distribute radiation. We also found the silicone to be very warm right out of the microwave.
Reviews you can trust
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
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