Wow, I’d never live without one. I find it essential for reheating leftovers - as others have said, why dirty more dishes by doing it on the stove - and also for quickly defrosting frozen stuff. Not so much prepared food like TV dinners or snacks, but for thawing meats, frozen stock, etc. It’d take FOREVER to defrost a quart of frozen chicken stock, for example, without a microwave. I don’t want to have to plan ahead for hours in order to make chicken soup.
Is there some other way to cook food?
I don’t buy any microwave prepared foods, but I still couldn’t function without a microwave. Shit, combined with a french-press, it’s my coffee maker! I use my microwave many times a day for a wide variety of uses. I eat a lot of string cheese - just pop one from the fridge into the 'wave for 11 seconds, and yummy, gooey cheese!
I did try to live without a toaster of any kind, for a while. When I occasionally wanted toast, I’d just put the bread on the bottom rack, right next to the element of my full-sized oven cranked to full heat - not the most energy efficient solution, but it was effective if I was really careful with the timing. But then I was thwarted by Walmart and their insanely cheap Chinese-sweatshop supplied goods.
Dopers, I ask you: If you were striving to live a toasterless life, could you ever pass up the temptation of a brand new toaster for $5.97?!
Mostly we don’t have leftovers… Pizza is really the only thing, and as has been mentioned, that is much better reheated in the oven. I am enough of a food snob (and enjoy cooking) enough to go with the takes-longer-tastes-better option, anyways.
I’d like to have a microwave, but I don’t have counter space for both that and a toaster oven, and I opted for the latter.
I have one, but only because my current apartment has one of those “embedded above the stove” models. Before that I hadn’t had one for years, and I never missed it.
I have to admit though, I do enjoy the popcorn. And also microwaving my icecream to soften it up.
Yeah I have a microwave. They’re so useful. You can cook vegetables quickly and deliciously in them, reheat, save energy when cooking small things and… defrost things in minutes!
I don’t get anti-microwave snobs. Do you think only cooking methods invented before the 20th century produce good results? That food and science don’t match and everything will taste like a horrible diet version of itself before it irradiates your innards and makes all your hair fall out? I mean of course it doesn’t work perfectly for everything, but neither does frying. You don’t throw away your frying pans just because you used one to cook a turkey and it sucked. You keep them for their prowess in producing the most delicious of all eggs - omelettes.
Do you realize how easy it is to make hot chocolate with a microwave? I mean with milk. Did you know you can make chocolate brownies in minutes with one of these magical devices?
Oh, and as Johnny Bravo wisely pointed out, the popcorn.
My microwave rarely gets used to reheat; we’re terrible at ever actually eating leftovers.
It sees constant use steaming veggies, melting butter, and doing 101 other small culinary tasks.
Microwaving ice cream? My brain just short-circuited. Does Not Compute.
Yes, my apartment came with a fancy microwave. Too fancy, actually. It defaults to this annoying Express Cook setting where pressing 3 gives you 3 minutes, etc. You have to hit “Time Cook” and then the numbers if you want to just heat something for 30 seconds. Is it really so much work to just hit 3-0-0 if you want 3 minutes? It’s a maximum of 4 digits, not 10 like for a speed dial feature.
That minor issue aside, I couldn’t live without the microwave. Preheating the oven adds extra minutes to whatever it is I want to do, and then reheating something in there takes longer anyway. Though it does make it less soggy.
I’ve gone the last 20 yrs without one and have no desire. I hate the way it makes food taste and generally ruins the consistency. I use a regular oven, stove top and toaster oven.
My current place has no dishwasher… Now that is a real pain in the ass.
Yes. I don’t use it for much, though - heating milk for the likes of hot chocolate, defrosting or reheating food, and jacket potatoes is about it.
I don’t think my lack of use is down to food snobbery, it’s more down to not really eating pre-prepared meals and my having a stove-top steamer that improves even on the microwave for vegetables. Best tool for the job is my kitchen motto 
Don’t have one yet. Prefer the slow method of cooking.
I may buy one in future.
I have one, use it every day.
For me it’s the uneven cooking/warming part.
When I heat on the stove I know each bite is going to be exactly the same temp as the next.
I DO likes my MW though. I just don’t use it as often as the average person.
I like my ice cream soft! 8-10 seconds in the microwave is perfect.
Nuking thread from orbit…I mean, moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.
Got two. When we redid the kitchen, we set up a temp kitchen in the utility room. It just of stayed there and we bought a new one for our new kitchen.
Works well really, I heat up my tea in the morning, and give the dogs their treats in the utility room. They don’t slobber all over our new floor in the kitchen. And I can go outside to start my car without tracking snow back in the house. Melts nicely on the heated concrete floor.
Oh, so do you put it out for half an hour or so before you want some so it doesn’t bend/break spoons (yes, I actually broke, as in two pieces, a spoon before trying to get out hard ice cream) when you try to dig it out? 15-20 seconds is enough to soften it up but not start melting it (depending on your microwave; mine is an Amana Radarange that is older than I am but still seems to run fine); just put the entire container in. But otherwise, yes, I use a microwave just about every day.
Also, people who think that microwaving changes food in ways that make it less nutritious or even toxic should realize that regular cooking is worse in almost all cases because it produces higher temperatures which destroys more nutrients (of course, any cooking or heating destroys nutrients), and also due to a longer cooking time, as well as producing toxic chemicals (you’ve probably heard the warnings over charred food causing cancer; or even uncharred for starchy foods, which should be kept below 250 F).
We use our microwave constantly, mostly to reheat leftovers.
Husband uses ours constantly for reheating leftovers. I don’t do leftovers so I use it to make tea.