December 01, 2023
The Pros And Cons Of Steam Ovens
If you’re a big fan of healthy cooking, you’ve probably heard of the steam oven. But what is a steam oven? This relatively new cooking appliance cooks food using, well, steam. It’s fantastic for your favourite vegetables and it retains more nutrients than your regular cooking. We’ve compiled a solid list of the pros and cons of steam ovens below, so you can figure out exactly how steam ovens work and if you’d like one in your kitchen.
5 min read
What Are Steam Ovens And How Do They Work?
Steam ovens are the hot new appliance on the block (other than air-venting induction hobs). They have a reservoir of water within the appliance that is converted to steam during the cooking process. This is circulated around your food and cooks using steam only. This is different to average convection ovens, which use a dry heat rather than moist heat. Using steam only has many advantages, including the locking in of essential vitamins that you lose when you brown or roast most foods.
A steam oven works its magic by heating up the water in the reservoir. Hot steam rises, then passing over your food through a small valve that reacts to the pressure in the reservoir. This steam gets to a really high temperature, cooking vegetables and other foods in absolutely no time. A steam oven is like your regular steamer that goes on the hob, but with more power and more cooking functions to play with. There’s also such a thing as a combination steam oven, which combines your regular oven with a steam oven, but we’ll cover that later.
What Can You Cook In A Steam Oven?
Just about anything, is your answer. However the most popular answer is vegetables, but you can also cook meat, fish, pasta, bread, rice and lots of great puddings too. Honestly, the list of foods you can cook is endless.
As we’ve said before, cooking using a steam oven is great for your health. The steam keeps vitamins locked inside the food, rather than drawing them out like a normal oven does. Steamed foods contain more nutrients such as Vitamin C, antioxidants and folic acid. And your food will not only be better for you, it will be more flavourful too!
Steam ovens also cook food quickly. The direct heat from the steam means that things like veggies and fish are cooked in about fifteen minutes. You can use the pure steam oven on its own to keep things simple, or you can use it alongside your convection oven too to spice things up a bit. Such as using your normal oven for roasting a whole chicken, and then using the steam oven for creating super nutritional veggies (broccoli and carrots) to have on the side.
Cooking foods simultaneously is also better in steam ovens. The steam feature keeps your food crisp and crunchy, rather than soggy and bland like boiling your food. There’s no transfer between food flavours like there is in a regular oven.
Here are some delicious steam oven recipes we’ve found:
What Type Of Steam Ovens Can I Buy?
To start with, there are pure steam ovens. It’s a great addition to the kitchen, and if you’re opting for other Built-In cooking appliances, you can create a really sleek streamlined effect across the whole kitchen. You can choose just a steam oven, but if you love crispy brown potatoes and meat, we recommend having one as well as your conventional oven.
The best answer to solving this problem is to get a combination oven. It combines the goodness of steam cooking and the tastiness of dry heat cooking in one. If you were roasting a turkey in a combination steam oven, which let’s face it almost always turns out dry, you’d get the crispy skin of the turkey whilst retaining the moisture through the steam function.
You can also get a microwave & steam combi steam oven. This has the convenience of your microwave cooking, but the deliciousness and reduced cooking times of your steam oven on top. So if you’re currently planning your kitchen, you could get a convection oven and then a microwave & steam combination oven to keep your kitchen appliances streamlined. We would suggest sticking to one brand to ensure your built in appliances match.
Are Steam Ovens Energy Efficient?
Steam ovens are very energy efficient! A lot of our steam ovens are A+ energy rated. When you’re steam cooking, you don’t need to heat your oven to the high temperatures you would use in a conventional oven. Using lower temperatures requires less energy, which is better for the environment and your bills.
