Microwave Ovens with Inverter Technology Really Cook
If you’re like most of us, your microwave oven serves two main duties: boiling water and reheating leftovers. But wouldn’t it be great if rather than just taking up a chunk of space in your kitchen, you could actually rely on your microwave for cooking meals?
Cooking food successfully in a microwave is challenging because the magnetron, the element that cooks the food in most microwaves, can only deliver full power. Even when set to “50% power”, the microwave oven is actually going through cycles of delivering 100% power, followed by a period of no power.
Imagine if your regular oven worked this way! Instead of cooking a roast at 350 degrees, you’d cook it at 700 degrees for ten minutes, then take it out for ten minutes, and repeat over and over again until the meat is cooked. Good luck with that!
The Microwave Inverter Solution
Panasonic and GE have microwave ovens on the market with something they call “inverter” technology, which aims to solve this problem. The inverter modulates the level of energy being transmitted by the oven to achieve a consistent level. So when you set 50% power, for example, you actually get a steady stream of 50% power for the entire cooking time. The result is more evenly cooked food, defrosting without cooked edges, and even the ability to keep foods warm until mealtime.
We spent a few weeks with Panasonic’s NN-SD688S, a 1.2 cubic foot counter top model with 1300 watts, to see how it worked out. Using recipes from Panasonic’s site, including some produced by the prestigious Culinary Institute of America specifically for inverter microwaves, we made hollandaise sauce, fruit crisp, corn chowder, barbecued pulled pork and some other fun dishes.
What we found was that the microwave inverter performed surprisingly well for dishes that required slow cooking in moist environments, such as the hollandaise sauce (which can be tricky to do on the stove top) and pulled pork. Corn chowder worked fine as well, though it would have been just as easy on the stovetop and we didn’t like moving large bowls of boiling liquid in and out of the oven. Perhaps not surprisingly, the fruit crisp was a flop, with a soggy, raw-tasting topping and overcooked fruit underneath.
Conclusion
Based on our experiences, we could easily see using an inverter microwave in addition to our standard cooktop and range, especially during busy holiday times when we are trying to cook many dishes at once, while also keeping everything warm until serving time. It is a fast and clean way to steam vegetables, melt chocolate, braise meats or do any one of a number of occasional kitchen tasks that involve steady cooking and do not require browning.
So if you are purchasing a microwave, we recommend that you give inverter models strong consideration. All Panasonic models also recently received the Good Housekeeping Seal, which provides a two-year limited warranty against defects.
Panasonic NN-SD688S microwave oven ($163): Buy Now at Amazon.com
How to Make Microwaves Even Better
(An open call to manufacturers)
Our experiment with microwave recipes, even those written specifically for Panasonic inverters, clearly revealed another long-standing design flaw with all microwave ovens. It turned our initial attempt at crumbled bacon for the corn chowder into charcoal, and curdled our first run of hollandaise. The culprit is the nonsensical decision to use a scale of “1” to “10” to set the power level, rather than setting a specific wattage.
This abstract power scale becomes a significant issue with microwave recipes because it requires the cookbook author to assume a certain wattage in developing the recipe (often 800 watts, sometimes not). However, microwave ovens vary significantly in wattage, from around 700 watts to about 1400 watts. So a 700-watt oven will take approximately twice as long on “High” as a 1400-watt one to provide the same amount of cooking. To compensate, the cook needs to convert those times for her own oven based on its wattage.
But this assumes the cook knows what the original wattage was when the recipe was written and the wattage of her own oven. And if you don't know your wattage, don't bother looking on the oven. Amazingly, many manufacturers don't even print the wattage on their ovens! Talk about trying to make things difficult for cooks! Algebra with unknown variables is not something that should be required in the kitchen...
The solution to this is simple, however, and just requires one manufacturer to make the common-sense leap forward to allow all of their ovens to be set based on wattage delivered. This is the same logic that allows us to set our regular gas and electric ovens to 325 degrees, not “60% of the way around the blank dial”. Microwave recipes could then be written as “cook at 800 watts for five minutes”, which would be easy for a cook to apply for any oven from any brand.
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Discussion 
Thanks, Jay. I wasn’t aware they already do that in Europe. Knowing that reinforces the notion that there is no technical hurdle preventing manufacturers from implementing it in the U.S.
As a cook (the best one in the world, according to my kids), using wattage as a measure is much more natural for me than an arbitrary 1-10 scale.
Panasonic would also have a real advantage here because their inverter technology should allow you to get consistent delivery of any wattage level from 100-1400 watts. Other manufacturers may have less flexibility because the magnetrons can only control power through cycling on and off - you could get an average wattage delivery through cycling, but not a consistent level. Still, much better than what we have now.
Great article about microwave inverters. I have been looking at buying a new microwave ovwen and came across this new inverter technology and it all sounds quite good.
I’m surprised i have only seen a few microwaves using this technology… such as Panasonic. I noticed you mentioned Panasonic a few times in your blog post. Are their any other Microwave makes/models you would specifically recommend or is the Panasonic one probably the best on the market at the moment?
And finally I noticed this article was done a while ago so are they any new developments on this kind of technology?
Thanks
Panasonic holds the patent on inverter technology and the only manufacturers that have it, to our knowledge, are Panasonic and GE (which licenses it from Panasonic).
The inverter technology has actually been around for a long time. We wrote about it because so few consumers are aware of it and we think more should be, given its inherent cooking advantages.
I would love to see new development around the idea I suggest in the article to allow microwaves to be programmed by wattage, rather than the arbitrary 1-10 power. That could truly transform microwave cooking (for inverter and non-inverter models) by bringing consistency and simplicity for recipes and ovens.
Josh,What's your current preference between
Josh,
What’s your current preference between “True Cook Plus” on Kenmore and LG VS “Inverter Technology” on Panasonic and GE? I am in the market to buy one now and am leaning towards Inverter Technology because of defrosting. Most times I defrost meats or fish the edges cook and it messes up the food.
I LOVE your thoughts on your post “an open call to Manufacturers” re: watts vs power 1-10. I wish all 3 ideas could be incorporated into ONE microwave! It would make life so much simpler with optimum cooking results. Now if we could only get these products made in the USA, I would be really happy and gladly pay more.
Hi Janet, Glad you enjoyed
Hi Janet, Glad you enjoyed te article!
Funny your should ask about TruCookPlus…We actually did a story on it: http://www.techlicious.com/tip/truecookplus-takes-the-guesswork-out-of-microwave-cooking/
The two technologies are really very different. TrueCookPlus is mostly helpful for prepackaged foods that have the TrueCookPlus label. It ensures proper reheating by automatically setting the time and power level for whatever wattage oven you have. However the underlying cooking technology is the same as a “normal” microwave - the oven cycles on and off at full power.
Inverter technology gives much more flexibility both for reheating and for actual cooking because it allows you to produce consistent low level power, when needed. And it doesn’t require a TrueCook label, obviously, so it makes it easier to cook any food, not just Lean Cuisines.
So my preference is definitely towards the inverter technology.
BTW, a great kitchen tip I use when in a rush is to defrost my meats in a pot of luke warm (not hot) water. Refresh the water if it gets too cold. Works super fast (thanks to the greatly increased surface area contact versus defrosting in air) and there is no risk of cooked edges as you have with the microwave. Place in a ziplocm if necessary, and press out the air to make sure you have contact with the water.
I have purchased the inverter
I have purchased the inverter microwave however I cannot find any receipes or cook books using that style of preparing food.
You can find recipes on Panasonic’s site that were created by the Culinary Institute of America for the inverter microwaves.
Here’s the link: http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/microwave/recipes/recipesGroups.asp
I've seen this technology incorporated
I’ve seen this technology incorporated in KitchenAid microwaves long before Panasonic. They named it OptimaWave, which enabled them to extract a premium for their microwaves for a long time. More recently, Panasonic ran with it in a big way, and refer to the inverter which is the enabling mechanism. Since Panasonic cannot protect the process, they may make the internal components of certain GE ovens that employ it, or have related process patent. Its history has been somewhat like the CVT transmission in cars. It’s the perfect concept. It has been around for a long time. Getting reliability on par with conventional methods have so far proven to be elusive. If you are offered an extended warranty, take it. The things that go bad are the inverter board, the microprocessor board that controls it, and as always, the magnetron. Just having the magnetron covered does a lot less for you in this case. The one I had with the best track record went 4 1/2 years without issue. Even so, it’s really the only kind you can do a decent job of cooking with. If you are always-on-high-guy making coffee and popcorn, don’t even think about an inverter-based microwave.
I LOVE your idea of standardizing power levels. There are variations in wave guide efficiencies, stirrer mechanisms, etc., so even if watts is not exactly the answer, some verifiable standard that measures cooking power would be perfect! The benefit to the industry and consumer would be huge.
Thanks, Jack, for the feedback.
Thanks, Jack, for the feedback. I wasn’t aware of the Whirlpool technology, but was familiar was some complaints about the reliability of the inverter boards. I felt comfortable recommending the Panasonic because they had secured the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, which automatically extends the warranty to two years.
PS: Whirlpool purchased KitchenAid,
PS: Whirlpool purchased KitchenAid, and have since used the same internal components in their microwaves except they call it AccuWave. The KitchenAid retains the high-end construction, user interface, and microprocessor-based cooking features. However, it also has the same reliability issues that plague the technology.
From Jay Fienberg on October 28, 2009 :: 7:42 pm
It’s interesting to read your open call to manufacturers. I was just staying in Paris and we had a Siemens microwave with a 700 / 1400 watts switch on it. We also noticed that the microwave recipes on the packaged foods described the cook times along the lines you suggest, e.g., cook at 700 watts for 10 minutes.
The hardest thing for me, in seeing this for the first time, was the unfamiliarity with concept (watts as a measure) and the the numbers. I am used to thinking about cooking at, say, 350 degrees, but it was strange / unfamiliar to think about cooking at 700 watts.
Obviously, if there’s a lot of uniformity around 700 / 1400 watts in both the microwaves and the recipe descriptions, we’ll all get used to it—and it’ll be great to NOT have to always guess which end of the spectrum one’s microwave is on, when a recipe calls for say “10-15 minutes” of cook time.
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