What can you cook in a commercial steamer?

What to Cook in a Commercial Steamer

Steamers can cook many different dishes, including vegetables, proteins, and even desserts. Steam cooking provides a healthy, energy-efficient alternative to traditional burner-based cooking appliances.

Key Takeaways

  • Steamers preserve the nutrients, moisture, and flavor of multiple food types
  • Operators can prepare vegetables, proteins, grains, shellfish, and desserts simultaneously, quickly, and consistently
  • Steaming reduces product shrinkage, improves yield, and lowers labor costs
  • Commercial steamers range from countertop models to combi ovens

Why Use a Commercial Steamer?

Commercial steamers utilize steam's high energy and efficient heat transfer, quickly cooking food at consistent temperatures. Because steam expands, it surrounds food products and leads to more even cooking. It also eliminates the need for oil or butter, enabling fat-free cooking.

Foods You Can Cook in a Commercial Steamer

While vegetables are popular for steaming, numerous food groups perform well with steaming equipment.

  • Vegetables: Even cooking, nutrient retention, and bulk preparation
  • Proteins: Retain moisture in chicken, fish, beef, pork, and eggs, with reduced shrinkage and faster throughput
  • Seafood and Shellfish: Delicate cooking for lobster, crab, and shrimp
  • Grains and Pasta: Large-batch rice, pasta, and couscous without sticking
  • Dumplings and Breads: Cook bao and dim sum, or reheat baked goods
  • Desserts: Custards, puddings, cheesecakes, or bread puddings

To learn more about how to steam with commercial steamers visit our learning center.

What Foods Are Not Suitable for Steaming?

Certain foods will not work in a commercial steamer. Avoid cooking these foods in equipment that only uses steam:

  • Fried foods meant to be served with crispy textures
  • Breads that need dry heat to rise and brown
  • Foods that rely on caramelization, such as steaks, stir fries, and seared proteins
  • Items that require browning for flavor, like large pizzas or large cuts of meat

Benefits of Steamers in Different Operations

  • Restaurants: Faster prep, expanded menu options
  • Schools: Bulk vegetable, grain, and protein dishes for consistent portions
  • Healthcare: Nutrient retention and texture control
  • Catering: High-volume reheating and holding

Types of Commercial Steaming Equipment

Steam-cooking equipment is a broad appliance category that's expanded in recent years because of developments in technology and mechanics that have improved steam's efficiency. Below are the main styles of steam-cooking equipment found in commercial kitchens:

Commercial Steamers

Commercial steamers typically hold multiple steam-heated pans simultaneously. Models can be boiler-based units, which receive steam from a separate boiler, or boilerless units that generate their own steam.

Countertop steamers mostly come in boilerless configurations and provide convenient access for quickly steaming sandwiches or melting cheese. Floor models have higher outputs, often utilizing more than 10 pans per cabinet. Because they are continuously vented, pressureless or convection steamers can cook different types of food in each pan without flavor transfer.


Combi Ovens

Combi ovens combine dry and wet heat in one appliance. On a basic level, they provide three cooking modes: steaming, convection, and a combination of the two. This customization enables users to cook items that would not otherwise work in a traditional steamer, such as roasts and cookies. Combi modes use convection heat and superheated steam to achieve fast results with the ideal mix of browning and moisture retention.

Steam Kettles

While steam doesn't directly contact food in a steam kettle, it is still considered a steam-cooking appliance. Steam kettles have a sealed cavity that surrounds a kettle, which is typically sized between 20 and 140 gallons. Superheated steam heats the inner walls of the cavity by conduction, providing even heat across the entire kettle and avoiding burning delicate foods like soups, sauces, and candy mixes. Steam kettles are also ideal for large batch cooking, as many of the larger models come with tilting mechanisms.

What Can You Cook in a 3-Tier Steamer?

Steamer baskets and pots enable steaming on a burner and can be referred to as multi-tiered steamers. Three-tiered steamers enable the cooking of multiple foods simultaneously and without cross-flavor transfer. They are:

  • Ideal for prep lines, buffets, and catering where efficiency matters
  • Able to serve small-scale operations without a floor-model steamer

Shop Commercial Steamers at KaTom

Steam cooking equipment has many applications. Whether you're looking for a steam kettle to cook soups and sauces or a countertop convection steamer for vegetables and proteins, KaTom offers top brands in every steaming category. Shop steamers from KaTom to find one that fits your operation's needs.

Learn more about commercial steaming equipment to find the best option for your business.