Aroma Housewares 5-Quart Food Steamer, Stainless Steel

The Aroma Steamer-- with manual timer is much easier to use than electronic steamers. I like being able to interchange the top basket with the bottom to balance cook time with faster cooking bottom basket. Both upper & lower baskets come with 1/8" holes along with eight additional 1/2" holes in the bottom of both baskets that allow cut corn, peas, diced carrots or anything smaller than 1/2" to fall through & end up in the drip tray. I resolved this problem by tracing the bottom of the basket on a piece of plastic shelf covering Then put both pieces together & folded them in half and heated the point of a nail held with vice grips using a torch to burn hundreds of small holes in both pieces of plastic at the same time. I then I put a sheet plastic in each basket. I would have rather used SS hardware screen but just made do with what I had on hand. Hope this helps. John P. Adams

Exceptionally well-designed and well thought-out product. The plastic is BPA-free, or so the manufacturer claims. The plastic parts are not the clear brittle type like I have seen on other steamers, they are soft and opaque, similar to Tupperware, and seem very unlikely to crack or break.Boneless skinless chicken and broccoli could not be easier. I marinate the chicken in some olive oil, garlic, salt and soy sauce for a few hours. Put the chicken in the bottom tray and steam for 10 minutes, then add broccoli to the top tray and steam for 10 more minutes. Everything is tender and perfectly cooked. Steamed chicken breast turns out moister than you could ever get by grilling.The design allows the chicken fat and oils to collect in the "drip tray" away from the heating element. The actual heating element is located in the bottom most section where the water reservoir sits. This water stays clean, which avoids a lot of unpleasant clean-up. Drip tray is black plastic, which avoids staining. It's still a good idea to drain the water from the reservoir when you're finished cooking, but that's all I have found I need to do, other than rinse off the trays.About the only downside is that there's no way I can see to cook rice, but I plan to experiment with that, as it's my understanding that older models of this steamer came with a rice bowl. Also, the timer is a little noisy, sounds a little like the "60 Minutes" stopwatch ticking away.But all in all, this is one of the best designed products I have bought in quite some time. I've only had it three days now, so I can't vouch for long term durability, but it's such a simple product, the only things I could see possibly breaking are the timer or the heating element.

I have cooked some of those frozen steamer bags and the vegetables were tasteless and rubbery. So I thought I would absolutely hate all steamed veggies. One day we ate at Cracker Barrel and I had steamed broccoli and it was fabulous. I came home, did research on brands and decided on this one which was in the top 3 of my research. The no. 1 steamer was way too expensive, the no. 2 was a Hamilton Beach. Found it here but it wasn't the model that was BPA-Free (if the model #ends in "Z" it's supposed to be BPA-Free, the one on Amazon ends in an "A". Another reviewer said they called Hamilton Beach, and they said both the "Z" and the "A" were NOT BPA-Free!!! So I went with the no. 3 of the top 10 steamers, and that was THIS ONE HERE, The Aroma 5 Quart.I received it, and immediately washed it, and put in raw broccoli, cauliflower, and baby carrots. In 18 minutes it was done, and I had the best steamed vegetables I've ever eaten. I just put a little butter (not margarine, ugh) and a little salt and ate until I was stuffed. It was heavenly! Perfectly steamed, tender, flavorful, and I know nutritious since nothing was boiled or cooked out. I wish I had this years ago. And, clean up was a snap. You can put the top parts in the dishwasher, but it was so easy to just wash by hand, and I didn't want to take the chance my dishwasher's heating/drying element might warp it, even though it said dishwasher safe.I'm in love!!!!!!

Indispensable product when taking care of my 90 year-old. WORKS FAST & WELL. We had to turn off the stove after he burned many pots. This was the solution to getting his meals done when the microwave could not cook all of the meals simultaneously. The only flaws are that you cannot turn off the clock & it must run down on its own should you take the food out sooner than a designated time, and another improvement would be to make the stacking trays higher to accommodate larger bowls as I prefer to cook on bowls sitting on top of the plastic grating. Some of my food has gravy so I need to use a bowl or plate for this reason so it does not run into the other food. But I get around this by using a paper plate that I cut.

I got it from my oldest daughter's birthday and she loves it cuz she said it will help save a lot of time.

Hopefully mine was just defective but it took over half an hour to cook broccoli to the degree that my Oster did it in about 16 minutes. The overall design feels flimsy if you are used to the Oster style baskets. This does not have baskets, there are two steam trays, a wall piece, and a lid that you assemble however you need. I can live with the design, it did not leak any steam or water. The capacity is actually pretty good and its nice and compact but mine simply did not get hot enough to cook very well. On the plus side, the return process was fast and easy.