Review: Egg Wave Microwave Egg Cooker

Egg Wave Fails to Deliver

The Egg Wave is an "as seen on tv" product that doesn't live up to a good idea.

The idea is to offer folks a way to easily and successfully microwave eggs, so they can avoid all the fat that's involved in frying, or the nettlesome aspects to other ways of cooking eggs (boiling, scrambling).

The Egg Wave package includes four Egg Wave cookers (egg-shaped plastic compartments with a screw-on top); an Egg Caddy (which can be used to carry all four Egg Waves into or out of the microwave); four scrambling grates, which are inserted into the Egg Wave cooker when scrambled eggs are desired; four egg removers to get the cooked eggs out of the Egg Wave cookers; an egg separator and an instructional/recipe booklet.

The Egg Wave is advertised as providing "perfectly cooked eggs in seconds." Its makers claim it can produce soft-yolk, hard-yolk, scrambled, sunny-side up, poached and even omelets right in the microwave.

For all varieties, crack an egg into the Egg Wave, with the egg remover already inserted. Put the screw-on top on, be sure to open the steam vent in its top, and pop in the microwave. Upon removal, twist the egg remover handle and pull out the egg.

Does the Egg Wave cook eggs? It sure does! Does it cook good eggs, eggs that are just as good as those cooked in the normal fashion? Well ... We'll say this: Egg Wave eggs can't help but be healthier for you because there is no grease, oil, butter or other such cooking mediums used. All you get is egg (unless you make an omelet).

When our Egg Wave arrived, we immediately set out to try four different types of eggs, using all four Egg Wave cookers in succession (but not simultaneously, because cooking times vary by a few seconds).

First we tried poaching, then we made a hard-yolk (the equivalent of a hard-boiled egg), then we tried an omelet and finally scrambled.

We followed the cooking time for poached and wound up with hard-yolk (the instructions do say that because of different cooking times in different microwaves, a little experimentation will be needed to find the proper cooking time). Of course, our hard-yolk did, in fact, produce a hard-yolk egg.

For our omelet, we cracked an egg into the Egg Wave cooker, added in pieces pulled off a deli-sliced turkey slice, a pinch of shredded cheese and a teaspoon of salsa. We put on the egg scrambler, screwed on the top and gave it a shake. The omelet cooked up fine.

Then we scrambled, using the egg scrambler.

The eggs tasted OK. Our missus felt they were a little chewier than normal eggs, which may well be the case since they are, after all, microwaved. We're not sure we could tell the difference, on taste alone, if we didn't already know which eggs had been cooked in the Egg Wave and which were cooked the old-fashioned way.

The major problem is appearance. When you poach, you get a clump of egg. When you scramble, you get a clump of egg. When you make an omelet, you get a clump of omelet.

When you remove the "scrambled" egg from the Egg Wave, you have to mash it up with a fork to approximate the appearance of real scrambled eggs. The poached eggs do bear some resemblance to real poached eggs, but only in the sense that the yolk is prominent in the center of the egg white.

Because when we say clump, we mean it. The shape of the Egg Wave eggs is sort of a miniature football or a ball of Silly Putty, about the diameter of a U.S. silver dollar. They look much smaller than eggs cooked the normal way (although of course one egg is one egg - it's just their shape that makes them appear smaller).

The Egg Wave, based only on what you've read so far, might, in fact, be worth using for some people. But there's another problem that makes us loathe to recommend the Egg Wave.

Only one of those four eggs we cooked the first day (we cooked many afterward, too) cooked in the microwave without, well, exploding.

"Exploding" may be too strong a word. Many things that cook in a microwave will produce loud pops as steam escapes. And the top of the Egg Wave cooker includes a valve that must be open during cooking, specifically to allow steam out.

But our very first Egg Wave attempt resulted in the top of the cooker (the cover that screws on) blowing off. Our second attempt did not result in the top blowing off, but a very loud pop occurred at one point and the Egg Wave jumped about a quarter-inch off the surface of the microwave. The omelet cooked without problems. But for the scrambled, the Egg Wave top blew off and the cooker toppled over on its side.

This didn't always happen, and we adjusted cooking times with some success. But it happened much too much for us to be comfortable continuing to use the Egg Wave, or recommending it to anyone else.

We also found the Egg Wave cookers a chore to clean.

In the final evaluation, we just don't see much of a reason to cook with the Egg Wave rather than making your eggs the old-fashioned way. They don't taste better, they don't look better, clean up is a mess, and you'll have things exploding in your microwave.