The Best Halogen Cooker Reviews Recipes and Tips (2024)

2022 Update.

Hi, I hope this site (now in its tenth year) will help you decide about these unusual products, without being conned into buying whatever the local store happens to have piled up in stock. You can read the manufacturer’s own glowing descriptions, then when buying it online, you find it just isn’t what was promised. It’s no good after you’ve bought a lemon, Googling it online at forums and finding hundreds of posts complaining about the same thing. So I decided to do some real research into Halogen Ovens and give you my findings… which is the best value Halogen Oven? I have compiled my findings on the review pages:-

• Uk Halogen Oven reviews
• US Halogen Oven reviews

AND since starting this site back in 2011, other major kitchen cooking gadgets have come along, I present my findings on those here as well.

• Uk Air-Fryers
• US Air-Fryers
• Uk Dehydrators
• Uk Multi-Cookers
• US Multi-Cookers – coming soon
• Uk Slow Cookers

When I got my first Halogen Light powered Cooker I was very skeptical about the performance of a machine that cost so little against my trusty Gas oven which had served so well over years and years of cooking.

Believe! these little units are extraordinary

• Save money
• Save time
• Save time cleaning afterward
• Get the very best results every time with very little effort

The halogen oven is as cheap as a microwave oven, but cooks like a conventional oven, browning meat perfectly. It is also as quick as a microwave but doesn’t suffer with cold spots , the heat is distributed very evenly. It will also cook straight out of the freezer! No thawing necessary. Plus there is no pre-heating like your gas oven, it reaches top temperature almost instantly.

How do they Work?

So simple, a powerful Halogen lamp heats the air,which is blown round the glass bowl with a fan and turned on and off by a temperature sensor and timer to maintain a very accurate temperature for a pre-set time. So it achieves its speed and efficiency in two well proven ways: 1) Convection or fan assisted cooking, which has been used in conventional cookers to give a reduction in heat required of up to 25% and a reduction in the cooking time of around 20% in most cases and 2) The efficient and instant heat of halogen lamp, which cuts your fuel bill.

Advantages

With the glass construction of the Halogen cooker, your food can be seen cooking, easily, without opening an oven door, which of course gives a sudden drop in temperature.

Chicken Browns well in a Halogen Oven

Perfect for cakes that need watching carefully so as not to overcook them.

They dont suffer from hot and cold spots like microwave ovens, like me , you’ve probably used a microwave and found a frozen centre when the outside is fully cooked. With the halogen, the food is cooked very evenly and with a speed to match the microwave but with better results and so versatile.

• For Vegetables you can use the Halogen to Steam with the perforated steamer tray
• For Roasting meat use the lower rack
• For Grilling you can use the upper rack
• For frying use the upper rack and with none or very little oil/fat
• It will bake . For example large potatoes on the lower rack
• For the very best chips use theairfryer attachment
• For larger birds like Turkey, use the extension ring toadd 5 extra litres of capacity

The design leads to healthy advantages , thefats tend to drain away.Have a look in the bottom of the glass bowl after cooking a chicken, a lot of the fat renders away.

If you cook for a large family, the Halogen is absolutely ideal, for sharing tasks out ,for example, while your large conventional oven is busy with the turkey, use the Halogen for those lovely crispy roast potatoes

Well it does a surprising variety of different foods very well, but the opinion of a lot of reviews show that Chicken, potatoes, bread, cake, chops, sausages, bacon, steak, oven chips, pies, cheese on toast are the most frequently cooked foods and the best results.

Here is the first tip, if you’re new to Halogen cookers, don’t try to cook food as it is shown on many manufacturers website pictures, with say a chicken sitting in the base of the glass bowl, it won’t work, you need to give the hot air room to circulate under the food – so always use the rack.

If you are on your own, cooking for one can be expensive with conventional ovens and microwaves are fine but don’t suit all foods, the Halogen cooker is impressively fast, easy to use and you will soon find that you get more adventurous with your menus, when you discover how easy some of the more ‘difficult’ meals are to prepare. One great advantage that saves time, is the ability to cook meat from frozen.

In the vast majority of cases reviewers comments indicated that they had noticed a reduction in the electricity bill ( where the Halogen was used to replace electric cookers of course! ) Whilst you have to take some as subjective, in my own tests and calculations cooking on a regular basis with these cookers, will definitely reduce the bill. Because the oven reaches its working temperature so quickly, there is no need to pre-heat it, which you see in a quite a few recipes done in the conventional oven, this alone saves a good amount of your energy needs

I grew up in the sixties and lived in a world where dad came home at the same time every day week in week out, year in…….. so despite muchtime consuming steaming, roasting or boiling , mum could have dinner on the table at the exact right time every day. However reheating was difficult and would ruin a meal very quickly. That world that has given way to one of convenience and quick cook foods, in such a busy world you can still maintain healthy living easily and not give in to fish fingers every night ( although the Halogen does Fish fingers perfectly ! ) or expensive and nutritionally suspect, ready meals

Top Tips!

*Every time you remove the lid during use, wipe it with a damp cloth, saves a lot of work with hard baked on food.

*Maximum Heat: make sure you choose one with a top temperature of 250 degrees, some only reach 200 degrees and that is a little short of the heat required to cook some recipes.