Prepworks by Progressive Microwavable Four Egg Poacher

I would rate this egg poacher a five, if I could get it to make fully cooked egg whites with a liquid yoke. But try as I did dozens of times, I could not. But that is not bad; it is just irritating, because I happen to like dipping my toast in liquid yokes but not liquid egg whites. According to a recent call back on certain eggs brands for contamination of salmonella, having fully cooked eggs is not a bad deal, and this product will give you fully cooked eggs. So the 4 rating is a personal matter.If you can live with fully cooked, non liquid yokes (no pun intended), you have a winner in this product. You will have to experiment to find the right cooking time and power level to get nicely cooked eggs from your microwave. The instructions suggest 30 seconds per egg at a middle power level; that did not work for me. I have an 800 watt oven, and I found that 45 seconds per egg at power level 9 worked best for me. But even that had to be adjusted when I used a different brand of eggs. I found that eggs purchased from Aldi's were larger than those purchased at Walmart's, yet both are rated large. The smaller Walmart eggs take fewer seconds each to cook - about 40 seconds each at power level 9.I have had no explosions from making dozens of poached eggs with this product. I poked holes in the yokes using only a fork, and I puncher the yoke twice. Make sure you puncher the yoke and not just depress it. I found no difference in poking holes in the egg whites or not doing so. Also, I did not put a 1/2 teaspoon of water in the egg cup before putting in the egg as the instructions also say to do. I did put a 1/2 teaspoon of water in with the egg after poking holes in the yoke. I have had no explosions thus far. I do clean the fork before I do anything else with it as a safety measure against possible salmonella in the egg yoke.The instructions say the eggs will drop right out, and they do with a wee little nudge from a small spatula or spoon. Don't use anything sharp or pointed to nudge eggs out to avoid scratching the cup surfaces. They will drop out extra nicely if you use a small bit of cooking spray in the cups before putting in the eggs.The glory of this product is its quickness in making a decent breakfast. I can make bacon or sausage with toast, poached eggs, and juice or milk in under ten minutes. I start the toast or muffins in a toaster, cook the bacon/sausage in the microwave, prepare the eggs in the poacher, remove the bacon/sausage to a plate when done, place the egg poacher it the microwave, pour juice or milk, prepare toast or muffins when they pop up, and the eggs will be done soon after the toast or muffins. I put eggs and toast on the plate, and my breakfast is done in under ten minutes. I can combine the poached eggs with the bacon onto muffins and add a slice of cheese if I like.The poached eggs will not be as pretty as those made in a conventional egg poacher, but you gain about 5 minutes of time or more in the trade off. Works well for rush mornings or any mornings really. When pressed for time, I can do without the liquid yokes; it might even be safer. The under the $10.00 price of this product and its speed of cooking time make it worth trying to find the right cooking time and power level for your poached eggs. I might add, it cleans up nicely, too.

Yes, you can make perfect poached eggs with the Progressive International Microwavable Four Egg Poacher. The trick is: Do NOT use a microwave oven to cook the eggs!If you do, it is likely that the eggs will be unevenly cooked (overcooked in some spots and undercooked in others) and occasionally an egg will explode, even if you follow the instructions perfectly. The idea of just cracking some eggs into this gismo and cooking them cleanly in the microwave oven in just a couple of minutes is very appealing, but it just plain doesn't work.Do not despair. There is a simple solution to the problem that is almost as slick and quick as the initial idea behind this egg poacher: Float the egg poacher in a shallow hot water bath.I use a 10" stainless steel skillet with a glass lid, rather than a microwave oven, to cook the eggs and it works perfectly every time. It takes about 5 minutes for the eggs to cook, another two minutes or so for them to rest before serving them and clean-up is a breeze.Ok, the total prep time is about 5 minutes longer than cooking in a microwave, but you never have to clean up the mess after an egg explodes... And, the eggs are perfect every time (once you get the timing worked out for your set up).Here is the way I do it:Place a 10" skillet on the burner over medium heat. Pour in 2 cups of hot water [this is where you can use your microwave oven – to save time heating the water]. Cover the skillet with a glass lid.While the water comes to a boil, wipe the egg poacher cavities with a bit of butter on a paper towel, crack the eggs (one at a time) into a fine mesh tea strainer and allow the thin part of the whites to drain away (into the sink, where it can be rinsed away quickly) and slide the eggs into the egg poacher cavities. It is not absolutely necessary to separate the runny part of the egg whites, but the moisture content of eggs varies depending on the chicken, the time of year, how the eggs were handled and stored, etc.; So, you will get more consistent results if you do this separation.Place the cover on the egg poacher. Remove the cover from the skillet that contains the gently boiling water. Place the egg poacher into the skillet where the poacher should gently float on the water. Cover the skillet containing the loaded egg poacher with its lid and allow the eggs to cook for about 5 minutes – more or less depending on how hard your water is boiling (it affects the heat transfer, not the temperature) and the altitude you live at (it affects the temperature, not the heat transfer).After the EXACT time for your set up that you worked out by trial and error, with the same burner setting every time, remove the skillet from the heat. Take off the skillet lid. Using tongs, remove the lid from the poacher. And, using the tongs, gently grab the center loop on the egg poacher and remove it from the hot water.Allow the eggs to rest for two minutes, by which time the poacher should be just about cool enough to handle, and then with a large spoon, slide the eggs out of the poacher cavities onto a serving dish. Ta – Dum... Perfect Poached Eggs!This write-up may make the procedure seem overly complicated, but it is really quite simple once you try it a time or two. You will find that your purchase of the Progressive International Microwavable Four Egg Poacher was not a waste of time and money. The darn thing really is useful and does work – just not in the microwave oven.

I love egg & muffin sandwiches for breakfast but I didn't want to get up early enough to fry up some eggs on the stove. Instead I purchased this little poacher and I can now have egg sandwiches every morning before work with little time and effort. After some experimenting, this is the best recipe I've come up with (makes 2):1) Gather up 2 slices of American cheese, 2 English muffins, a carton of "Egg beaters" egg substitute, some pre cooked bacon, and salt & pepper2) Slice the muffins and pop them into the toaster3) Pour the Egg beaters egg substitute into two of the wells and sprinkle with salt and pepper4) Break 3 pieces of pre-cooked bacon in half and then in half again and place in the other two wells5) Place the egg poacher in microwave for 1.5 minutes on high (this is what works in mine, yours may be different).6) Take muffins out of toaster, place 1 slice of cheese on each muffin, pile on half of the bacon, top with one of the cooked egg discs and cover with muffin top.Even on the worst of mornings, I can make 2 egg sandwiches in under 5 minutes from start to finish and it keeps me full for hours.In my opinion, real eggs fried in butter make the yummiest egg sandwiches but egg substitutes cooked in this poacher in the microwave are still *very* tasty and much healthier. I'm not a huge fan of cooking real eggs in this egg poacher however, but that is just a matter of personal preference. I like eggs, but not when they taste too much of sulfur.All in all, I use this on an almost daily basis and I've really enjoyed it. I'm back to buy another one just to enusre that I have a clean one to use every morning ;)

I used this product for the first time to poach egg whites and whole eggs over the weekend and it worked perfectly.The microwaving instructions are a bit sparse considering that I was worried about the eggs splattering all over my microwave. But it worked like a charm with my microwave (1000W) at 50% power for about 2 minutes for four eggs. I think sprinking a teaspoon water on top the eggs before microwaving helped keep it from splattering too. The eggs were easy to remove (they practically slide right out) and left no eggy residue.This is a great alternative to the "non-stick" metal version where you have to use cooking spray or butter and a lot more kitchen equipment (= more cleanup).This product promises less cleanup and no added calories from cooking spray or butter! Win-win all around!

Not as big as i expected... you will need english muffin or bagel to fit... bread are simply too big unless u want to cut corners. don't forget to put 1 teaspoon of water on each pouch and put eggs and put 1 teaspoon water again. and dump her in microwave and done after leaving it one min after done.

I love poached eggs but I did not want to buy an egg poacher for the top of my stove. I figured I would give this a try, but not once was I able to get my eggs poached just the way I like them. I prefer a soft poached egg where I can dip my toast into the still-runny yolk. I could get a runny yolk with this but the rest of the egg wasn't cooked either, no matter what I did. If I wanted to make sure the white were cooked then I had to deal with a solid yolk as well. If you don't want to dip toast into your yolks then this is likely a good product for you, but not for me. I ended up giving mine away.

I works, this is just one of those items that is cooler in theory than in practice.

It does the job. . .no complaints