If you like eating healthy, you can’t go wrong with carrots. An often underestimated vegetable, carrots can be prepared and cooked in hundreds of ways. A lot of people ask things like how long to steam carrots in microwave?
It doesn’t take more than three to five minutes to cook a pair of chopped carrots, creating a tasty, beautiful addition to any home-cooked meal (and saves you literal hours of cleanup too).
If the idea of making a steamed carrot dish sounds good, you’ve come to the right place. The following section details the kinds of carrots you can use for microwaved carrots dishes and is a big help if you hate long hours of cooking on stovetops.
What Carrots Can You Steam Using A Microwave?
First, let’s get something clear. You can steam literally any carrot using a convection microwave oven, whether it’s a whole carrot, chopped carrot coins, or rainbow carrots. Steamed carrots are a delicious side dish and can even be had with some salt, herbs, and pepper as a healthy snack for your day off from work.
Still, it doesn’t hurt to take a moment to know the different ways you can prepare your carrots for steaming and how long to steam carrots in microwave?. You can cook your carrots in a variety of ways, namely:
- Baby Carrots: Baby carrots are a very, very popular type of carrot. Usually, these are about as big as three-quarters of your palm. Forgetting for a moment how adorable they look (and God, they’re irresistible cute little things!), all the preparation baby carrots need is a quick slice to cut them in half.
- Rainbow Carrots: Rainbow carrots are beautiful, coming in shades like golden, yellow, beet-red, and the signature orange. They’re also sweeter than regular carrots, which honestly makes steaming them all the more delicious!
- Carrot Coins: The name sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Chopped carrot slices might sound overly simplistic, but they’re the quickest to prepare, and they’re surprisingly delish when combined with garlic, rosemary, and salt.
- Regular Large Carrots: If you can’t find any of the above (or can’t be bothered, that’s fine too), regular fresh carrots will work just as well. If they’re a little larger than your hand, slice them into thirds and pop them into the microwave.
- Carrots With the Tops: This is probably the only thing you shouldn’t do. The tops don’t really cook all that well in a microwave. Instead, use them for something like a presto dish!
Making A Tasty Steamed Carrots Dish in Under 10 Minutes
If you love carrots but want to skip the stovetop for once (and given how much of a pain it is to clean up, nobody’s surprised), try a countertop microwave! Whether they’re chopped carrot slices or whole carrots, there are hundreds of different ways to cook carrots in a small microwave oven.
Here’s a simple and easy recipe for steaming carrots to make a quick addition to any meal:
Ingredients:
- 450g Carrots
- 2 Tablespoon Water (30 ml)
Recipe:
1. Clean, Cut, and Wash Your Carrots
The first and most essential step in cooking anything, wash your ingredients under running water and dry them off for a minute.
Use any vegetable peeler to remove the outer layer of the carrots (seriously, those are horrible), cut off the stems and tips of each carrot.
Now you can either cut the carrots into three or two pieces each, depending on the size of the carrot or slice them into small chopped slices.
2. Add the Carrots and 2 Tbsp Water to A Microwave Safe Dish
For this step, it’s best to choose a large, microwave-safe dish with a fair bit of space. Ensure your carrots aren’t too tightly wedged in, and 2 US Tbsp of water to the container (30 ml for you metric users).
Note that the bowl you’re using should be either ceramic or glass. If you’re using a plastic bowl, check the underside to make sure it’s microwave-safe.
3. Cover the Carrots With A Lid or Plastic Wrap
Covering the container is an essential step many people forget in their hurry. After you’ve put the carrots and water into the bowl, cover it with the lid or a plastic wrap. This makes sure your carrots are correctly steamed.
4. Cook the Carrots on High Power for 3 – 5 Minutes
The next step is to cook the carrots. For microwaves of about 1000 watts, 3 ½ minutes are enough to cook soft steamed carrots properly. If your microwave is higher, reduce by about half a minute for 2000 watt microwaves.
If you own a small 800-watt microwave, increase the time to 4 minutes. You have to be slightly intuitive since you can’t open the microwave and check how well they’re cooked like you can for other microwave dishes.
5. Stir, Re-Cover And Keep Cooking The Carrots Until They’re Tender
Hold on a second, we’re not done yet. After your timer runs out, remove the lid and stir the carrots around. Turn over slices that look like they’re half done.
Re-cover your carrots with the lid and cook them for another two to three minutes. When they’re done, check how well they’re cooked by piercing them with a fork: it should pierce easily, with little to no resistance.
Of course, depending on the type and quality of the veggies, you might have to keep cooking them longer. Usually, even carrots of tragically poor quality should be done in under 10 minutes!
6. Serve the Steamed Carrots Hot With Spices and Herbs
The last step is, of course, serving the baby carrots hot. The best thing about knowing how long to steam carrots in microwave? is that you don’t need to be a gourmet chef in spicing: a little salt, pepper, rosemary, and butter makes this easy-to-cook dish an absolute wonder!
Conclusion
At the end of the day, all microwaves operate differently. How long the steaming takes will depend entirely on things like the wattage, volume, make, and model of even the smallest microwave oven. You hardly need to worry, though: after steaming your carrots for three to five minutes, you can keep checking every minute until your carrots are as tender as you want them to be!