Product Review: Ziploc Zip ‘N Steam Bags
The package promises us that we can cook healthy meals in minutes from either fresh or frozen foods. Ho hum. Recipes included inside the package. Ho hum again.
A full bag of asparagus takes 5 minutes to nuke in this new microwave bag, broccoli 6 minutes. Two hot dogs will be steamed to perfection and ready for your culinary enjoyment in 45 seconds. Hot dang, I’ve been doing it all wrong! I have only been nuking my hot dogs for 30 seconds after wrapping them up in a piece of paper towel! I simply must try hot dogs cooked in these new bags and see how they taste.
They tasted the same. Ho-hum.
I read the other recipes and cooking time chart to figure out how I wanted to use my remaining 6 steam bags….let’s see…14 minutes to steam potatoes? No thanks. 11 minutes for a chicken breast? Nah. 12 minutes to steam baby carrots? I decide to munch on the baby carrots raw while I continued to read the bag. (That was a sad statement, ‘I read a bag’.) I did use the remainder of the bags over the next few days, trying out various fresh veggies from my garden and a piece of fish. I was not happy with the results. While the idea of throwing everything for a meal into a bag, then microwaving it and serving it to your family minutes later, is a good idea. The idea of it will probably sell a lot of consumers one package. A few of those consumers will like the bags and buy more. The reality of these steam bags is that they cook food unevenly and take as long or even longer than it would for you to steam the food using your favorite stove top method.
Unless you utterly and completely despise washing the pot and steamer used for stove top steaming, this product will not save you time or produce a better end result with the food. You will still have to go through the same process of prepping the veggies and/or meat prior to steaming and depending on the food steamed, you might even have to clean your microwave after using these steaming bags.
I will just steam my veggies the old fashioned way and spend my $3+ on the next unnecessary, over-priced item that hits my super market’s shelves. Ho-hum.
