Best Microwave Steamers That Keep Food Above Water

How the Five Compare on the Numbers

Seven steamers are on the fact sheet and two are left off. PrepSolutions is a mini steamer with a 2 cup capacity and a basket that doubles as a colander, published at 4.0 by 7.25 by 6.25 inches and 0.37 lb, which is the smallest answer here and overlaps the two single serving picks already on the page. ReneeChef publishes 1 quart, a locking lid and scale marks inside, and no dimensions or weight at all.

What decides everyday meal preparation is whether food sits above the water or in it. Three of these five publish something that lifts it: a perforated ceramic tray, a removable raised rack, or a steam tray over a water tray. One raises food on bumps molded into its base. One is a vented bowl with nothing inside it, and its own listing describes cooking rather than steaming.

The capacity row cannot be compared without conversion, which is the recurring problem with this category: 1.6 quarts, 44 ounces, 42 ounces, 940 milliliters, and on GoodCook no capacity at all, only the outside measurements of the box it forms. What no listing publishes is a cooking time for anything, so how long a portion of broccoli takes in any of these is not answerable from the text.

Steaming, or Heating in a Covered Bowl

Three Publish a Rack or a Tray

Rovista makes the argument explicitly, with a bullet headed true steam not boil: a removable raised rack keeps food above the water while steam circulates round it. EliteVibe does it with a perforated ceramic tray inside tempered glass, and states that no plastic touches the food at all. GoodCook uses two plastic parts, a water tray at the bottom and a steam tray on top of it.

That is the difference between steaming and heating. Food sitting in water boils, loses texture and leaches into the liquid, and all three of these listings are built around avoiding it. Rovista goes furthest with a 15 ml stainless steel scoop and a written guide giving 1 to 4 scoops for different foods, which is the only water measurement published anywhere in this pool.

One Bowl and a Set of Bumps

CJKKH takes a middle position. It publishes a striped bump design on the base that elevates food off the container, which is not the same as a rack but does keep a piece of fish or a dumpling out of the liquid. It also publishes a water storage lid that continuously provides steam during cooking, which is a genuinely different idea from a vent that lets it out.

Sistema is the honest outlier. It is a 940 ml noodle bowl with a steam release vent and easy lift tabs, and its listing says it is designed to cook pasta, soup and stew in the microwave. There is no rack, no tray and no claim of steaming, and for reheating a portion or cooking pasta in water that is exactly right. It is on this page because it is the cheapest way to find out whether you needed a steamer at all.

Five Capacities in Four Units

No Two Listings Use the Same Measure

EliteVibe publishes 1.6 quarts and adds that it fits single servings, quick lunches and small sides. CJKKH publishes 44 oz. Rovista publishes 42 oz and translates it into something useful: 1 to 2 servings, or 2 cups of broccoli florets. Sistema publishes 940 ml. GoodCook publishes no capacity in any unit.

Rovista’s translation is the only one in the pool and it is worth more than the ounces. Two cups of broccoli is a figure a cook can picture, and it also reveals that a 42 oz bowl is a side dish rather than a family portion. EliteVibe’s single servings wording says the same thing about 1.6 quarts, which is the same order of size in a different unit.

The One With No Capacity At All

GoodCook publishes 12 by 8 by 2.7 inches twice, in its size field and in a bullet about cabinet storage, and never says what the steamer holds. It covers more worktop than anything else here and publishes only 2.7 inches of depth, which is the shape of a tray for fish fillets and flat vegetables rather than a bowl of anything.

That shape is a real choice rather than an omission. A shallow wide tray steams a fillet evenly and takes up a whole shelf in a cupboard. A 42 or 44 oz bowl holds more by volume in less floor space and is worse for anything long. Neither GoodCook nor CJKKH publishes a capacity that would let the two be compared directly.

Where the Published Size Is Not the Bowl

A Collapsible Bowl Measured Flat

Rovista publishes 7.0 by 8.66 by 2.2 inches in its dimension fields, and 2.2 inches cannot be the height of a 42 oz bowl. The listing explains it: the silicone bowl is collapsible and folds flat to save cabinet space, so the field is the folded state. That is the most useful thing in the fields and it is not what a specification table reads it as.

CJKKH has the opposite problem. Its title publishes 10.5 by 5.7 by 4.3 inches and its dimension fields read 5.9 by 10.0 by 4.0. Those are close but none of the three figures matches, so the two sets cannot both describe the same bowl. This page quotes both and treats the maker’s own title as the better figure, because that is where the size appears in words.

What the Material Means for the Microwave

EliteVibe is the only pick with no plastic touching food: thick tempered glass rated to 482 F with a perforated ceramic tray, and the listing leads with that. CJKKH publishes food grade silicone and plastic rated to 480 F. Those two are the only heat figures in the pool, and they are within two degrees of each other.

Rovista publishes food grade silicone with no temperature. GoodCook publishes plastic with no grade and no temperature. Sistema publishes 100 percent virgin plastic, phthalate and BPA free, again with no temperature. Three of five put an unrated plastic or silicone in a microwave, which every one of them is sold for, and only two say what the material will take.

Which One Fits Your Kitchen

No plastic near the food. EliteVibe, 1.6 qt of thick tempered glass with a perforated ceramic tray, rated to 482 F, published at 7.4 by 7.4 by 5.8 inches, and it goes from the microwave to the table as a serving bowl.

Knowing how much water to add. Rovista, a 42 oz collapsible silicone bowl with a removable raised rack, a 15 ml scoop and a written 1 to 4 scoop guide, sized by the maker for 1 to 2 servings or 2 cups of broccoli.

Fish fillets and flat vegetables. GoodCook, a two tray steamer published at 12 by 8 by 2.7 inches and 0.7 lb with an adjustable steam vent and a clear lid, stated dishwasher safe. It publishes no capacity at all.

Steam that keeps coming. CJKKH, 44 oz in silicone and plastic rated to 480 F, with a water storage lid that continues to make steam, a striped bump base and heat resistant side handles. Dishwasher safe.

Pasta and soup rather than steam. Sistema, a 940 ml noodle bowl at 0.29 lb with a steam release vent, cool touch lift tabs, and fridge, freezer and top rack dishwasher use. There is no rack inside it.

What We Could Not Verify

Every figure above comes from the maker’s own listing text. These are the things we went looking for and could not source in any of them.

• No listing publishes a cooking time for anything, so how long a portion takes in any of these is unanswerable.
• GoodCook publishes no capacity in any unit, only the outside dimensions of 12 by 8 by 2.7 inches.
• Rovista, GoodCook and Sistema publish no heat rating, on containers sold specifically for a microwave.
• CJKKH publishes 10.5 by 5.7 by 4.3 inches in its title and 5.9 by 10.0 by 4.0 in its fields, and nothing reconciles them.
• Only Rovista publishes how much water to add, with a 15 ml scoop and a 1 to 4 scoop guide.
• EliteVibe and Rovista publish no weight, and neither says whether the glass or the rack is dishwasher safe.