Secura Electric Food Steamer, Vegetable Double Tiered Stackable Baskets with Timer 1200W Fast Heating Stainless Steel Digital Steamer 8.5 Quart

My son is grown and now in his own place. He said he needs a steamer so since I love my steamer, I'd buy him the same one. When I got back here on Amazon I realized I had not left a review. Well, 5 years later and this is the best steamer I ever owned. Still works great no issues. I highly recommend it. I really like the stainless steel.

My wife and I used the Secura electric food steamer, it was easy to setup and use. What I like about the Secura electric food steamer: 1. Easy to use. 2. Easy to setup. 3. Timer control is easy to use. 4. Lid is made of glass and not plastic, the plastic will not leach into the food. 5. The trays are made of steel, so the steel will not degrade with time and heat and will not get brittle and break. 6. The heating coils are not exposed to the water, so you can use tap water or hard water, so you don't have to worry about calcium buildup on the heating coils. 7. Easy cleanup. 8. Not too large or small, if it is too large you have to put in a lot of water and wait longer to heat up. If too small you cannot accommodate the amount of food you need to heat up. This size is good for 2 people and you can use it for 4 people cause it has a 2nd tray, assuming you want to steam up one food type item. 9. Packaging was real good. 10. Not too heavy, it is actually light. 11. Plastic is used but is on the outside of the unit, handles and base is made of plastic so these should last a long time since they are not exposed to extreme temperatures. 12. Top and bottom trays are interchangeable. 13. The plastic lid knob and the plastic tray handles are screwed on so if they should break you can order handle replacements separately without replacing the whole unit or you can have custom handles made up. 14. The bottom unit with the heating element has handles, this may not sound like a big deal but it helps lifting the whole unit when you need to. Note, does take around 6 to 8 minutes to heat up the water, you need to add this time to steam food time if you are using the timer.

My wife, being a practical person, wanted a steamer for Christmas. After many hours of searching and reading reviews, I decided on the Secura steamer. Obviously, the online reviews were the main factor for selecting this brand and model. I know I wanted stainless steel and a digital timer, so those boxes were ticked, too. The price was in my budget so all things added up to making Secura my choice for her gift. Washing was easy and the steel felt thin, but not flimsy. In fact, it almost felt like aluminum. Like most bases with electric heating elements and digital displays, it had to be washed with care to avoid wetting anything that could be damaged by water (ironic, isn't it, that the component that could be damaged by water is also the component that holds the water!). After its first use, the mineral deposit was evident over what I can only assume to be the hotter side of the element and had to be washed with a 50-50 blend of water and white vinegar to de-scale it. So two observations from this: 1) the element does not heat the base evenly since only one section appeared to have the mineral deposits from the intense heat; 2) the steel is not the thickness of my steel pots and pans that I can put tap water in, boil and wash clean without any mineral build up. The steamer started fast, but the built in timers for food are a bit optimistic. We tried steaming tamales and some frozen dim sum using the "chicken" setting (14 minutes) and it was about 3 minutes too short for the dim sum and about 5 minutes too short for the tamales. The timer, in my opinion, should start AFTER the steamer reached full steam temperature and efficiency and not just when the water starts to boil. BTW, it starts to boil after 30 seconds or so. It's amazingly quick. Also, like other reviewers, a built in timer audible alarm to indicate the end of a cycle would make this steamer 5 stars. As for cooking, this is GREAT! After you get the timer settings down for your various types of food, the results are amazing. We had some left over tamales that were kept in the fridge for 3 days. You just can't microwave tamales to reheat it. They get all dried out and heat unevenly. But in the steamer! Wow, the tamales were warm and moist. Delicious! Frozen dim sum was similar. Unlike boiling or microwaving, the dim sum had a texture to it where the wonton wrapper was moist and not overly saturated like when boiled or randomly dry and overcooked when microwaved. Frozen and fresh veggies we're crisp and not soggy and had more flavor where we used less salt to season it (always a good thing). We're looking for more excuses to use this thing and steam more in 2021 and eat healthier, too.

This is an excellent product. Can be used for steaming everything! I love that it has the option to use one steamer basket or two at the same time. We steamed raw vegetables in the lower basket and heated up a previously cooked chicken breast in the upper basket. Both turned out perfect. The programmed setting is perfect - the vegetables were cooked just right - not too much and not too little. Everything that comes into contact with your food and water for the steaming is stainless steel so no issues with microplastics! I am so happy I bought this!

Update: We have now had this over two years. I can say it has held up well, we still love it and use it frequently! __ I looked everywhere for a stainless steel food steamer to try to avoid having food touching plastic, hard to believe most of the steamers are plastic. I found this one and have been using it a few months now, it has performed well. I like the multiple levels to allow for cooking more food at one time. I usually only steam vegetables, so I cannot comment how this does with things like fish. I can say that vegetables turn out well in this and the trays are easy to clean. I had read concerns about the knob detaching from the lid, so I am always careful when I remove the lid. So far, so good (knocking on wood). I also like the auto "stay warm" feature in the event you need this to sit a minute while the rest of your meal finishes cooking. The only thing I'm not crazy about is having to wash the base, as this is also where the electrical plug goes in so you have to be really careful. And you do have to wash it, as food particles from the trays fall down below as things are cooking. I am just careful to avoid getting water in the little plug area. Other than that, I really like this steamer and am thankful to have one that is stainless steel.

su eficiencia

The steamer we had for years died. I bought a new one off here, cheaper and plastic and when it arrived, I couldnt get past the strong smell of plastic and decided this was not something I wanted to cook food that would go in my body in so instead, I splurged on this stainless steel model, and am so glad I did! Food tastes better. Clean it after every use and its likely to last forever. Its lightweight and durable. The only cheap part on it is the lid, which broke in half on mine, but is still functional. I love it and would recommend. Eat clean! Cook smart.

Pre-set timer for morning cooking, saved me lots of time.

Buena calidad y funciona muy bien

I love the fact that the steamer parts are made of metal with glass cover! Healthy and safe material for cooking or warming food at high heat like steam, which contrary to any plastic steamers. It boils water quickly, and for me having a ready warm meal in 7-10 min is very reasonable. I use it to soften dry or cold bread pita/submarine in 2-3 min, that is awesome. Parts are light weight and easy to mount, and I feel safe with the auto-shutoff feature when water level is low. I do have few remarks/reservations though: 1) it has excellent container size 9.25 inch diameter, allowing my full size 8.75 inch diameter plate to fit in with no problem, but I would have much preferred to have it in oval shape (rather than circular), with the longer axis being larger at 1.25x ratio. This would have been more universal to fit in elongated plates, and simpler in handling plates/cookware (please don't make it in a smaller diameter!) 2) I dislike the fact that the screen has to stay illuminated reading OFF all the time when not in use. Either make it to auto turn off completely in few minutes after being not in use, or better, use that screen to display the time hour:minute; that is more useful. 3) the feature of "keep the food warm for 1 hr" after end of cooking is nice, but it should not be "by default". That is a waste of energy and water, and it spoils my bread when I forget to monitor it! I would much prefer to have this feature as optional, where I choose to activate it manually by pressing the feature button, or I leave deactivated by default. 4) one last remark is that I would have liked it better if the metal containers were a bit deeper, like having a height of 4 or 3.75 inches instead of 3.25 inches. It is still great, and it takes in a lot of my cookware, but some of my high edge pyrex or glass ware that I usually use for heating food do not fit in. I like this product a lot as is, I do recommend it as a much healthier option than a microwave (I don't have one for over 7-8 yrs), and I would have said I fully love it except for the 4 remarks listed above. There is a lot of room for improvement.