Not All Food Steamers Are Built The Same. Here's What You Need To Know

From delicate vegetables to fish, dumplings, and even some desserts, steaming is an easy way to delicately cook food without adding any extra fat or flavor. If it wasn't for the discovery of steam cooking, we might never have created Chinese xiaolongbao, or French moules frites, for example so it's probably no surprise that there are multiple different types of steamers, and they are not built the same. Whether they're made with metal, glass, plastic, or even bamboo, each style serves a different function.

While it's not required to own every single kind of steamer in your home kitchen, there are bound to be at least one or two that you might find useful. Traditional bamboo steamers are essential if dumplings are a big part of your diet, for instance, and a simple metal collapsible basket should be standard issue for any vegan or vegetarian. Here is a look at five different styles of steamers, including baskets, pots, inserts, racks, and electric appliances, including how they work and what types of food they cook best.

Steamer baskets fall into two camps: bamboo and tray-style steamers. Bamboo models are all the same, but the tray category has a number of different styles. Regardless, they are all designed to be used with a pot or pan on the stove, and hold the food in, essentially, a perforated basket.

Bamboo baskets are round hoops of bamboo with a flat layer inside and a bamboo lid. They are designed to be stackable so that you can steam multiple types or big batches of food at the same time, and they're the go-to tool for steaming dumpling and bao buns, as well as delicate greens, fish, and white or brown rice.

Tray-style steamers include collapsible, perforated models, which are most often made of metal like aluminum or stainless steel, although there are some models made from heat-resistant silicone. This style of steamer is a workhorse for cooking vegetables, but they're also great for making hard boiled eggs and steamed shellfish.

Steamer pots are pieces of specialized cookware that are designed just for steaming, and have lots of space so that you can cook large batches of food. These pots come with a bottom pot, which is filled with water, and trays with handles that fit inside the pot, plus a lid. These pots come in a pretty big range of sizes, from just a few quarts for steaming a couple of spears of asparagus, to models that are as large as a stock pot that can hold a handful of live lobsters. This is also the go-to pot for steaming a pile of mussels or clams. Steamer pots are also great for making frozen dumplings, bulky batches of leafy greens like kale and collards, and tackling a pile of corn on the cob.

Steamer pots are typically made with the same materials as regular cookware, including thick aluminum and stainless steel, but you can also find clay and ceramic models. While you can buy a steamer pot on its own, they are often included in cookware sets so that they match the rest of your pots and pans.

Steam inserts are perforated metal attachments with a pot handle (or handles), which are designed to fit inside an existing pot or pan. They are mostly made from aluminum or stainless steel and they are almost always sold as part of a cookware set because they are designed to fit the diameter of specific pots or pans — typically the stock pot or largest saucepan in the set.

Because there is only one layer to a steamer insert, these are more like collapsible metal steamer baskets, so they're not the best choice for cooking more than one kind of food at the same time. However, anything you can cook in a steamer basket you can also cook in a steam insert, including any kind of vegetables, fish, shellfish like crab legs and dumplings. This style of steamer is great for cooking anything that doesn't mind being piled on top of other things, like a lobster with corn and potatoes, for example. Steamer inserts are also very sturdy, which makes them great for holding delicate ramekins of creme brulee and other types of flan, as well as carefully-wrapped tamales.

Steamer racks are metal or wire shelves that are a bit like the bridge between a steamer basket and a steamer insert. Like collapsible metal basket, they are designed to sit on the bottom of a pot and elevate the food over the boiling water. Like bamboo baskets, they are often available in stackable models, so you can cook more food than you would with a single layer insert. They are also flat and sturdy like an insert, so they can hold a variety of food.

These thin, metal racks are great when you need to steam things that can't be piled on top of each other, as you might in a steamer insert or steamer pot. Racks can tackle a big batch of handmade dumplings, for instance, or multiple styles of bao buns without letting them touch. They are also ideal for cooking multiple layers of different foods to make a complete meal, like fish on the bottom and vegetables on the top.

If steaming is more of a lifestyle than an occasional event in your kitchen, an electric steamer might be the way to go. These stand-alone appliances are sort of like the air fryer of steaming. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but the gist of the device is a glass or metal bowl on top with racks inside, and a heating element in the base that heats the water to make the steam.

This style of steamer is designed to do it all, and depending on what size you choose you can make anything from a couple of servings of sliced carrots to a whole steamed fish. The main attraction of these machines is that you can load them up with food and then just set a timer and flip the switch. Busy cooks will appreciate this hands-off approach, but they can be pretty pricey — as much as $100 or more for a decent model, which is quite a lot more than a simple basket steamer, which can be had for just a few dollars.