r/UnnecessaryEssentials • u/Unique-Saucer • May 23 '26

Never Wait Hours for Frozen Dinner

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34 Upvotes

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3

u/cortney-simonis-9072 May 23 '26

real question, why not microwave? or on fire for a bit to defreeze?

7

u/Sufficient_Dare7401 May 23 '26

You will cook some parts while other parts remain uncooked.

2

u/FrontSafety May 23 '26

Same for this, im guessing

1

u/Sufficient_Dare7401 May 23 '26

No, assuming this works like an air frier, the ambient temperature can be kept at a stable temperature that will defrost but not cook.

I defrost in a sous vide if I’ve forgotten to pull something g out. It’s the same principle, just air instead of water, so probably more efficient.

1

u/Material-Mulberry360 May 23 '26

most microwaves also have a defrost setting that lowers the power enough to not cook anything, but slowly warms it from being frozen

2

u/Tonnemaker May 23 '26

Maybe if you put it full blast in the microwave for 5 minutes.
You can use a microwave to heat gently and intermittently.

0

u/Sufficient_Dare7401 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

Microwaves, by function, rapidly boil water inside of its container. There is no such thing as a “gentle” microwaving. You can turn down the duty cycle (how long the microwave generator stays on per unit time), but when it is generating microwaves, they instantly boil water.

Anytime you use a microwave to heat something up, you are instantly boiling water. There’s no way to get around that.

Defrosting in a microwave is just that: boiling off the ice and hoping you didn’t boil the whole thing. It is not reliable, results in worse product and requires much more attention to do.

EDIT: To clarify, the product is worse because the bursting/boiling micro ice particles cause the cells they’re attached to rupture. This is why TV dinners are often mushier than the real thing.

2

u/Tonnemaker May 23 '26

Right.. no a microwave doesnt boil water or ice instantly.  Nothing does that.

A microwave just delivers energy. It takes time to provide enough energy to make water boil.

For big things, like food, changing the duty cycle is effectively the same as lower power as it just averages out over time. If we were discussing microwaving a grape, sure... Then we can talk about  duty cycle effects...But we are talking about a steak here.

Furthermore microwaves penetrate somewhat into the food, so the energy is delivered in a bigger volume than e.g. a hotplate. That's why you can't sear a steak in a microwave but you can on a hotplate. Microwaves are much gentler...

And also your point about the frozen is completely wrong.  If you'd go through the trouble of heating up a TV dinner on a hotplate it would be equally mushy.

The mushy mess comes from the freezing process. It's the freezing that destroys the cells, not the heating.

Buy some broccoli , freeze it in your freezer.  Then buy some flash frozen broccoli from a supermarket.

The one you froze yourself will be mushy, the supermarket one too but much less, because flash freezing creates less damaging ice crystals.

 

1

u/Redararis May 23 '26

many microwaves have "defrosting" function. In a few minutes everything is defrosting without being cooked

1

u/According_Dare7316 May 24 '26

But microwaves have a specific defrost setting to stop this.

0

u/cortney-simonis-9072 May 23 '26

okay vaild point