What we found

Top steamers

Breville electric food steamer

We tested 7 electric food steamers. Each rated "good" or better in its overall score; and all except the Cuisinart FP2207A produced “very good” or “excellent” results in the cooking tests. With a bit of trial and error to get the timing right, you may do even better than our testers.

Because food steamers are a single-purpose appliance and most can steam food well, our overall score gives more weight to ease of use than cooking performance.

Steaming performance

Complete meal
All steamers except the Cuisinart – which produced uneven results – cooked a complete meal of salmon, broccoli and rice evenly. But they all required more cooking time than we expected.

None did an outstanding job of cooking rice: they took a long time (30-40 minutes) and the results were only average. We think you’d be better off using a rice cooker or microwave – or the “absorption” stovetop method.

We expected there to be some mingling of flavours when three foods were cooked at the same time. But very few of our tasters found the flavours migrated from one food to another.

Tip: Place stronger-smelling foods in the lower baskets so flavours don't drip down from above.

Baby potatoes
The Kenwood FS470 and the Sunbeam ST6820 VitaSteam Electronic were the best at steaming baby potatoes: all their baskets produced perfectly cooked potatoes.

The other steamers – apart from the Cuisinart – were “very good” but each had a small number of slightly overcooked potatoes in its bottom basket. The Cuisinart left a few potatoes in the top basket undercooked.

Ease of use

Controls
Controls on all the steamers were easy to use and understand – although we had to reach for the user manual the first time we set the George Foreman GF3TS timer: it’s a little confusing when you’re not familiar with it.

Storage
All steamers had three baskets, so they’re bulky to store. But the baskets in all except the Sunbeam can be stacked inside each other to make them more compact.

Cleaning
The steaming baskets can be fiddly to clean, particularly if they have removable bases like the Sunbeam and the Cuisinart do.

All the baskets have small holes where food can become trapped.

The baskets in the Breville BFS400, Cuisinart FP2207A, George Foreman GF3TS and the George Foreman GF3TSM can be washed in the dishwasher. However, they take up a lot of dishwasher space and (because they’re plastic) they need to be air- or hand-dried. It may be easier to handwash them.

All base units were fairly easy to wipe clean. The stainless-steel finish on the Cuisinart needed extra attention to keep it shiny.

General ease of use
The baskets on the Sunbeam can fit into any position; the top and bottom baskets on the Kenwood and Breville models can be swapped around.

Having interchangeable baskets can be useful – foods at different levels cook at different speeds. When the lower baskets are removed the top basket can fit on to the base and continue to cook without having to transfer food from the top basket to the bottom basket.

The external water inlet (which lets you top up the steamer’s water during cooking) was easy to access and fill on all except the George Foreman GF3TSM – its inlet was narrow and so it filled slowly.