Product Review: Microwave Omelet Maker

I don’t know about you all, but I struggle mightily with making an omelet (and I also struggle with which spelling version of “omelet” to go with). I like to think I can make pretty tasty scrambled eggs or a basic fried egg and even an egg sandwich, but an omelet? I’ve never been able to quite get the right shape and texture for it. I have watched a number of how-to videos, which I find oddly relaxing, and thought I followed them diligently, but nope. My omelets look like a deflated egg tire.

So, when I was at the grocery store last week, I saw the Culinary Elements product, Microwave Omelet Maker. I’m a sucker for a gimmick and even though I was skeptical, I picked this up. It was about $4 and some change.

The basic idea is, the product is split into two “halves.” You crack eggs into a bowl and whip ’em up like normal. Then you evenly distribute the egg mixture across the two “halves.”

You keep the sides open and microwave according to the number of eggs you used. In my case, I used three large eggs and thus, I microwaved for 90 seconds.

At that point, you take it back out of the microwave and let the omelet set. I wasn’t exactly sure what the instructions meant by “set” or how long it takes an omelet to do that. But I figured by the time I added my fillings, that would be good enough. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of any fillings to work with, so I added a tiny cup of guacamole. You only need to add the fillings to one side since you’re about to fold it over.

Then you close the “cooker” by placing one half on top of the other. Since I was making three eggs, I microwaved for an additional 60 seconds.

It’s done!

To recap, for four dollars, I bought a re-usable omelet-maker that takes a total of five minutes at most to use? Two and a half minutes of microwave time and another two an half minutes to beat the eggs and prepare fillings. Depending on the fillings, like if you were cutting mushrooms or tomatoes, it could take a few seconds longer. That’s certainly quicker than trying to do it right on stovetop with a pan.

That’s not too shabby at all. But that brings us to the elephant in the chicken house: Ew, microwave, is it still as good as stovetop? The honest answer is I didn’t notice a difference between the eggs I’ve had stovetop and the omelet here, nuked by a microwave. And better yet, the tagline for the product goes, “Fast and easy way to make perfect, fluffy omelets.” It was fluffy! Fluffier than a lot of the scrambled eggs I make.

And again, the best part is that it’s actually the shape and texture of an omelet. Once I get better toppings, even just some shredded cheese, this will be even more exciting to use.

The gimmick worked. It lived up to its minimum amount of hype and functionality. More benefits of this nifty little omelet gimmick are:

• The cooker doesn’t require oil or butter on the “halves.” I was worried once I poured the egg mixture in there that, Whoops, I should have used some spray or oil, so it doesn’t stick. It didn’t stick! Even when I’m proactive with pans on the stove, whether using spray, butter or olive oil, the egg mixture always sticks. So, that was a pleasant surprise here.
• They promise no mess and this was extremely easy to clean. It’s dishwasher safe, if you’re into that, but for my handwashing needs, I thought this was even easier to clean than a pan.
• Most importantly, you don’t have to worry about egg-flipping or doing the correct technique and temperature in the frying pan with this; the cooker and microwave do all the heavy-lifting here.

If you dig a high-protein breakfast via eggs and particularly, omelets, I highly recommend picking up this nifty little gimmick. I was pleased.