Keeping A Clean Microwave Is So Much Easier With One Smart Paper Plate Hack

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For many of us, it is hard to imagine life without a microwave oven. The seemingly magic way they warm leftovers, cook ready to eat meals, and defrost frozen items make them key to our fast-paced life. Cooking with a microwave is a great hack all by itself. All modern kitchen appliances require regular cleaning, but the way that microwave ovens cook means that they are more prone to spatters, spills and messes from food boiling over during cooking. Frustrating indeed. But could a simple paper plate hack keep that frustration from finding you? For sure! Using a paper plate as a cover over your food in the microwave is proven method to reduce mess in the micro and even cook the food more efficiently. That's the hack, rather than cooking your food on a paper plate, cover the cooking food with a paper plate. It makes cleaning your microwave oven much easier because there will be less food residue and grease inside of it. But there are some caveats.

By bombarding microwave energy into your food, your microwave oven causes water, fat, and sugar molecules to vibrate 2.5 million times per second, producing a lot of heat. Even if your oven spins the food as it cooks to spread the heating effect, hot spots will occur where the moisture becomes steam and actually explodes from within the food. That's splatter and, when uncontrolled, it's a big mess. By placing a microwave-safe paper plate over the food, you will contain the splatter. (Of course, you need to always use a microwave-safe container to cook in.) You can enhance the paper plate hack by putting a paper plate under that container. It will collect any boil-over or drips that happen, keeping your microwave oven even cleaner. Let's talk about what you need to know when choosing the right paper plates.

Not all paper plates are created equally. Some, especially colored paper plates, may have wax and plastic included in their production to increase their durability. Heating those types of disposable plates may release dangerous chemicals into the food. (Formaldehyde, dioxins, and PFAS are "forever chemicals" that have been associated with some paper plate products.) It is good practice to look for microwave-safe and BPA-free labels on any and all food-use items, kitchen tools, and disposable plates. Microwave-safe paper plates should be marked that way; be sure to look for them before you purchase your paper plates. Finally, some folks find the single-use of paper plates to be an environmental concern. Some paper plates are compostable and sadly, paper soiled with food are often not accepted by recycling centers.

To address the single-use concern mentioned above, there is a new category of single-use paper-like microwave cookware, identified as compostable dinnerware, like these plates on Amazon. You need to make sure your compostable plates have the microwave-safe label if you choose to purchase and use these products. They will break down in a composting situation, although not as quickly as may be desired. Even so, they make the single use food preparation process more environmentally friendly. But the most important news is that they will stop the splatter with style and keep your oven clean.