Martin Lewis issues advice for anyone using microwaves over Christmas

As Christmas Day looms, many of us will be starting to devise our plan of action in the kitchen.

Turkeys, nut roasts, sprouts and all the trimmings - whatever it is you’re rustling up on the big day - kitchens up and down the UK will be jam packed come 25 December.

Which is why Martin Lewis’s latest advice on the cost of using certain kitchen appliances is so important.

The consumer experts over at Which? have also given some tips on using air fryers.

Simon Kirwan / Alamy Stock Photo

Speaking on his podcast, Martin warned against the use of energy gobbling microwaves, telling listeners: “The problem with the equation for heating equipment is an oven is going to be about 2000W.

"A microwave I believe, from memory, a best guess explanation, a microwave gives you consistent heat whereas an oven is warming up to full temperature and then topping it up so it isn't running at full power the whole time."

He went on: "But if you're doing a jacket potato for 10 minutes it's going to be far cheaper [in the microwave] than doing a single jacket potato in an oven and keeping it on for an hour and a half.

“However if you were doing a full roast dinner and you were cooking many of them, that is where it's probably cheaper than putting five or six jacket potatoes in a microwave because each additional object you put in a microwave, you need to keep it on longer because a microwave just heats the individual object.”

The money saving expert continued: "General equation is, find the wattage of an item, then work out how many kilowatts or what fraction of a kilowatt it's using, then multiply that by 34p per hour of use.

"If you had a 1000W microwave and you put it on for 10 minutes, one KWH for a sixth of an hour, a sixth of 34p is about 6p, shall we say? So it's 6p turning the microwave on for that amount of time. So yes it's a very useful equation."

As Manchester Evening News pointed out, the same equation can be applied to ever-popular air fryers.

The outlet also spoke to an expert from Which?, with the consumer experts publication’s Energy Editor saying: “There has been a surge of interest in air fryers and smaller cooking appliances in recent months, and our research shows that the hype could be justified in some cases, as we’ve found these products cost less to cook certain foods than conventional ovens."

However, they did add: "The cost savings will soon be lost if you have to cook more than one batch though, so it’s still better to use your oven if you’re cooking large quantities."