Premium Solar Oven, Portable Outdoor Solar Cooker & Camping Oven, Reinforced & Foldable with Support Rods, Carry Bag & Full Guide on Outdoor Cooking with Beginner Solar Camping Recipes

I rarely leave reviews but I had success with this oven, so happy. I was hesitant to buy this after reading some of the reviews saying it doesn't cook. I took a chance as I want to make solar cooking kits. Outside of making my own, this price was hard to beat in comparison to some very similar. Having been in numerous disasters, multiple ways to cook food is a must. Solar cooking is one of the best if you have sun. So after cooking daily, usually 2 meals per day, breakfast and dinner, I decided to buy several more for family, friends etc.My meal temps reached 190- 208F inside the food; safe temps. On average my cook time 1 -6 hrs. I also heated canned goods which took 1/2 hr. -40 minutes depending on volume of food. All were steamy hot, soups, veggies, beans, chili, spaghetti sauce etc. In emergencies I wanted to see if canned goods could be reheated rather quickly with no fuss. I'm satisfied.I love to bake in this oven. I've made several recipe variations of corn bread, banana bread, muffins, brownies, oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies, biscuits. My first cornbread I over baked a tad, see pic.I've also made a small pot roast, meat loaf, chicken breast, chicken thighs, hot dogs, ham/sausage n eggs, diced potatoes, oatmeal n raisins, all turned out great, fully cooked. The one food I haven't cooked in this oven is frozen food, so not sure about those foods.I have a Haines 2 solar cooker. In comparison the Haines 2 comes to higher temps, 350F for me. It does cook faster, a superb solar cooker, more expensive. Even so I'm glad I have both solar ovens.I live in a dense forest, 2700 ft elevation. The day temps have been 65-95F, some days little cloudy with a cool breeze, always filtered sunshine due to trees. That's my biggest challenge, finding the sun. The corn bread in the pic was cooked during the one cool day we had, 65F.PROSPortable, packable; can easily be carried, stored anywhere.Mid size oven, not too small or too big, takes a 5 quart Dutch Oven no problem.Reflective material is very reflective. (wear sunglasses)Temps are within safe cooking (for me)Reasonably pricedPerfect for emergency back up cookingAn inexpensive gift for anyone, homeless etc..I didn't have any condensation issues. In any glass lids that had a steam release hole, I cut a Q tip placed it in the hole. This kept steam in the pot, not on the plastic. See picture, can barely see it in the lid hole.CONSPlastic cover does become pliable after several uses, oven can fall in with plastic touching the pot, so can melt the cover and ruin the pot * easily fixed...see note belowZipper was really difficult to line up correctly, once started works greatThe reflective material isn't as sturdy/ thick as I like. My trivet left indentations in the bottom, so with repeated use will eventually tear the material.Back supports while they do keep the oven from completely falling in, they need to be adjusted often, so can tear the oven.Opening the plastic cover to check food is a bit trickyIs light weight can blow away if windy.TipsFood pot should be elevated at "minimum 1-2 inches" off the reflector bottom with a trivet ( cooks best if there is radiated heat all around the pot)Place oven on a table or above ground on cement, not directly on the ground unless insulated, because Mother Earth will take the heat for herself.Black trivets are best with silicone protectors on feet. ( I used an Instant Pot stainless steel egg trivet, the feet began making dents in the bottom reflector, see pic. I now use my round open stainless steel wok base, more sturdy, no dents, works great, gives more elevation to pot, better heat circulation.)Use glass lids on a black thin walled stainless steel pot (See Haines 2 pot for reference)Use black Granite Ware, or similar thin walled roasting pan, 3- 4 quarts, bean pot etc.Use Turkey oven bags over trivet and pot if needed, increases temp, lowers cooking time.Preheat cooker, especially preheat with pot if using heavy cast iron pots. (I don't use cast iron in panel cookers, so I don't preheat my pots, but many do)Use your regular black pots / pans with glass lids, best if no long handles such as sauce pans.Dark baking pans with no lids; bread/brownie/cake pans, can be placed in 2 tempered glass Pyrex bowels/dishes; 1 bowel for top, 1 for bottom with pan in the middle, pan is sealed completely by the bowels...The round cake/pie pans fit great inside these round bowels, baking is so fast!Follow the sun, in this oven you do need to move it at a minimum every hour.NoteSee Picture of CornbreadTo fix the falling in of the plastic cover and oven I cut/ sanded the tip of a wooden dowel placing it to the middle top of the back panel of the oven, extending it out over the pot to the middle bottom front near the zipper. It has not interfered with cooking evenly. It does keep the oven upright, sturdy and the plastic from touching the pot. The dowel is not touching the pot, nor has it indented or punctured the oven panels. A round thinner dowel would be better, but this is what I had on hand, works great.

This solar oven works great, if you give it time to work. It is light weight, so it is easy to carry around verses the more rigid and metal outdoor/camping ovens. This has the advantage of being silent, containing the cooking smells within the unit, and gives you full visibility to the food while it is cooking. Remember to wear your sunglasses when you look into the oven, because it is highly reflective. Common sized pans fit, too... so not special pan purchases are required. I baked a 9x9 cake in about 90 mins. Denser foods (like meat) will clearly take longer. Inserting a thermometer while you cook the meat helps ensure it reaches the desired temperature.

I haven't left it in the sun for MANY hours in a row yet, but I have for a few hours, it never broke 200*f but got hot enough to do stuffing in a couple hours, could have done easily probably instant rice, instant mashed potatoes, ramen, etc. and of course to heat up something canned etc. Would easily wilt/steam veggies that you don't want overdone that you would just do a few seconds in a pan on the stove (like fresh green beans, cabbage, spinach, chinese style veg not overdone, etc). Something like couscous with veggies etc. I can see easily being done in this. I intend to give it a try with pizza, will try baking the dough a bit first with the sun oven with nothing on it yet, then will add toppings, I am sure this will easily melt cheese, another thing I intend to try on it is nachos, but the meat would have to be pre cooked probably on a different heat source because I'm not sure it would cook quick enough or thoroughly enough with just the sun cooker, I'm nervous about food poisoning. But I can see using like a can of red kidney beans or chili, diced sweet white onion, fresh jalapeno etc over tortilla chips and cover with cheese and salsa, it would definitely heat everything up and melt the cheese. Or if there were like frozen burritos or chimichangas that needed to be heated up and cheese melted on top I think this would work fine for that. I also used it to quick thaw some things that had been in the freezer that would have taken all day or all day and all night to thaw otherwise. Useful for creating hot water for tea, hand washing, dish washing etc. too. Thinking about getting a pot with spigot that would fit this just for that (with a basin and a separate tank of unheated water as well, add a little hot water and as much cold as necessary to the basin to be the right temp for doing dishes, washing hands, or for doing a standing bath while standing in a wide basin, a small load of hand laundry, etc. same concept as when people keep a large pot of water with spigot on top of their wood stove). Definitely useful for keeping the electric, gas, or propane bill down, not heating up the house any more when it's already hot outside, etc. and definitely for camping to minimize using open flame sources, use less firewood charcoal or dangerous compressed gas etc. for both personal safety and fire risk and when there is a burn ban. Useful for RV or boat to not unnecessarily use up batteries or propane, etc. I used to have an apt with a south facing deck that got very hot in summer, this would have been great for that. If you have kids you don't want using the stove or fire etc as long as there aren't any dogs bears etc and it's safe for them to be outside using it, they could use it to make themselves a snack without using the stove etc. Don't aim it anywhere you don't want your neighbor or a passerby could notice, it's a bright beacon and the outside is bright yellow. If you were camping with it people would be able to see you from a mile away unless you dug a pit first to put it in. It could also be helpful as an emergency beacon if stranded, on a boat, camping, etc. I'm sure it could be seen from the air or across water etc. Not a bad idea to keep one of these in car, RV, backpack, boat, cabin, etc.

It has to be really sunny and hot. I tried it in the desert at 75 deg outside, beautiful sunny day, and it didn't cook at all.

Worried about how to reheat that roasted feral cat soup you want to eat for supper? Effortless set up in any sunny, zombie free area. Just give it an hour to warm up and use it like you would a slow cooker. 2 hours in the sun and it got up to 200 degrees. Enough to concentrate heat to my iron cast Dutch oven. It is heating veggies as I write this review. I put the Dutch oven on a pie tin to protect the mylar material inside the cooker. It comes with a handy carry bag, support poles, an easy to ready guide and menu ideas, and the cooker itself. You can unzip and pack it quickly enough to scramble back into the safety of your bunker. So lightweight and small it will hardly burden a toddler to pack out of your bug out location.

Tried to make slice and bake cookies. After 8 hours in the hot (90 + F) Georgia sun, the cookies were still not cooked fully thru. Uncertain how this oven could cook anything of real substance if these thin cookies were still raw after so much time in direct sun.