Use the 'Two-Minute Rule' When Microwaving Food With a Paper Towel

It doesn’t instrumentality agelong for the wrong of a microwave to spell from sparkling cleanable to a grimy messiness if you don’t screen your nutrient erstwhile you navigator it. For galore people, their method of prime is placing a insubstantial towel implicit their nutrient to forestall stains and splattering.

In astir cases, this is wholly safe, arsenic agelong arsenic you’re pursuing best-practice guidelines, including utilizing microwave-safe insubstantial towels and limiting cooking time. If you were unaware that specified guidance existed, you’re not alone. Here’s what to cognize astir microwaving utilizing insubstantial towels, including the two-minute rule.

Can insubstantial towels drawback connected occurrence successful the microwave?

Anyone who has inadvertently microwaved nutrient successful a metallic container, past saw sparks fly, oregon takeout packaging drawback connected fire, astir apt lone made that mistake once. (Yes, technically determination are definite ways to safely microwave aluminum foil, but we’re not getting into that today.)

According to manufacturers similar Whirlpool and General Electric, arsenic good arsenic the National Institutes of Health (NIH), it’s imaginable for insubstantial towels to ignite successful the microwave, too. When this happens, it’s usually caused by either agelong cooking times, utilizing the incorrect benignant of insubstantial towel, oregon both.

How to safely microwave nutrient with insubstantial towels

There are definite precautions you tin instrumentality that importantly trim the hazard of occurrence erstwhile microwaving nutrient with insubstantial towels. These include:

Using the two-minute rule

Microwave paper-towel-covered nutrient astatine 2 infinitesimal intervals, alternatively entering a longer cooking clip and past walking away. According to Whirlpool, this allows you to “check some the nutrient and the insubstantial much frequently” and mitigate the hazard of fire.

Only utilizing microwave-safe insubstantial towels

Most insubstantial towels are harmless to usage successful the microwave, but General Electric recommends speechmaking their packaging earlier utilizing them, to beryllium definite yours autumn into that category.

Generally speaking, plain achromatic non-recycled insubstantial towels thin to beryllium the safest. Here’s why:

• The dyes utilized successful printed insubstantial towels whitethorn incorporate chemicals that could ignite erstwhile microwaved, truthful the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends opting for ones that are plain achromatic and microwave-safe.
• Recycled insubstantial towels whitethorn incorporate infinitesimal metallic flecks. “When a microwave oven is operating, the enactment betwixt microwaves and the metallic tin origin sparks and adjacent flames,” NIH guidance explains.
• Paper towels containing nylon oregon nylon filaments whitethorn besides ignite, GE notes.

Use insubstantial towels successful a azygous layer

Cover your nutrient with a azygous furniture of insubstantial towels: Folding oregon stacking them tin summation the hazard of fire.

Don’t usage different types of paper

According to the USDA , you can’t simply swap 1 insubstantial merchandise for different erstwhile utilizing a microwave. This includes brownish insubstantial bags oregon wrapping, and newspapers—all of which should beryllium avoided.