If your food is unevenly heated it's probably because you need to adjust the cook time and power settings. Heating it longer at a lower power setting will let the heat spread more evenly.
Alternatively, check your microwave's wattage. I always have to adjust microwave instructions to be about 10% longer because my apartment's microwave is weaker than companies assume the standard microwave is.
That's why you lower the power. Leave enough time for entropy to distribute the heat before dumping more energy into the food. The more heterogenous the food is, the more you need to lower the power (down to maybe even 200-400 W for mixed leftovers). And make sure all your foodstuffs are touching each other to allow heat to homogenize.
Among the other suggestions people have made in this thread, I'd like to add that just covering something and allowing the food to steam-heat makes a big difference. For instance I will usually poke a well in the middle of leftovers, put a tiny bit of water in (especially with rice, which dries out) and cover it with a plate. The water boils and heats it much better.
PROTIP: Whenever possible, shape/place the food you're heating like a donut. ( O )
Microwaves need to penetrate the food; if it's a big lump, it's hard to reach the stuff in the middle. By using a "donut" shape, you are creating more surface area, and spreading out the "middle" so it's easier for microwaves to reach all the parts of the food equally
Yeah but how exactly would you improve upon them. They do tell you how to do it properly, people just never bother and press the +30s button until it hits a few minutes, then complain their food is badly heated and the plate is piping hot instead.
Almost as if, and hear me out here, that's not how you reheat food with a microwave!
It's like if you want to bake something with an oven, and all you do is set it to 250°C, Fan, and leave the door open, then complain it doesn't work. And those don't even offer automated programs you could be using instead!
(now don't get me wrong, on the cheaper end there's also a whole lot of shit microwaves, but I'm assuming we're talking at least a somewhat respectable model here)
I dunno. I'm not a microwave engineer but you point out that misuse is rampant. I almost never cook anything above power 50, but I didn't even figure that out until my late 20s. Maybe a quick photogrammetry scan to determine size of food stuff, a scale to determine mass could help with some basic settings. Maybe even just a cook (default, 50% duty cycle) and power cook (full on, boil water etc.) to direct users. What about multiple magnetrons? Would that help with dead spots? What about a magnatron on a servo that raster scanned your food? Test pauses during cooking where infrared thermometers sample progress and make adjustments? I know Amazon made a pretty decent little smart microwave but I haven't even seen basic smart features cooked into very many of them. I'm just spitballing here, but with proper use and a sometimes some repositioning microwaves can do a pretty decent job, but I'm surprised they have evolved pretty minimally.
Some have sensors that will really help heat food evenly and will adjust times and power levels depending on what you're doing. Most are just default cook times, but if you haven't tried it out, it's worth it.
I watched a video the other day discussing the sensors in some Microwaves for popping popcorn. Most lower end units don't have these sensors but the ones that do, can actually make pretty good popcorn.
I watched that same video, and it inspired me to upgrade my microwave game. I've had the same one for like a decade and it sucked. New one has all the bells / whistles and does air frying too. It's night and day compared to the old one
Not directly, but they improve the low-power modes substantially, and using the low-power modes for longer times is the solution. Inverters aren't strictly needed, but they do make it better.
No, that's the magnetron. Normal microwave magnetrons have 2 power settings, on and off, and reducing the microwave's power just means switching the magnetron on and off at different intervals.
An inverter just allows to keep the magnetron running at a lower power. Whether that has a better effect than just on/off-switching the magnetron I do not know, but it's probably more energy efficient over long usage periods.