Believe it or not, you can actually cook meals in a dishwasher. It sounds kinda gross, but it’s a surprisingly popular cooking technique and actually produces decent results!

Dishwasher cooking has apparently been around since the 1970s, but the trend ‘caught steam’ in 2013, after Italian food writer Lisa Casali, a self-proclaimed dishwasher-cooking expert published a book on the subject. Cucinare in lavastoviglie (Cooking in the Dishwasher) was a big hit, and Casali also posted a series of videos online demonstrating how the technique works.  “It’s an easy technique within everyone’s reach and you can gain great advantages from it,” she says in one of her instructional videos. “All you need is a dishwasher and the will to experiment.”

Photo: Fine Dining Lovers

You start by packing food in a vacuum sealing bag or airtight container. Then, pop the container your dishwasher and run it at the highest setting. The appliance will work like a steam oven that goes up to a maximum of 75 degrees C, cooking the food inside. And thanks to the packaging, the food will remain untouched by dirty water or cleaning agents. Casali insists that this is an environmentally friendly way to cook, because you’re cleaning your dishes and cooking at the same time, thus saving energy.

Photo: Serious Eats

Other food experts, like The Telegraph’s Xanthe Clay, are vouching for the bizarre technique as well. She says the best food to cook in the dishwasher is fish, because it steams rather well in the heat of the water. Salmon, for instance, requires a relatively low temperature to cook when compared to raw meat like beef or lamb. So it might be difficult to get lasagna right in a dishwasher, but steamed veggies and fish will turn out great.

As more and more people turn to cooking their meals in the dishwasher, an increasing number of recipes are being posted online. Oprah.com recently offered recipes for an entire lunch menu of noodles, asparagus, and salmon, while some of Casali’s recipes include couscous, roast veal in a mackerel sauce, sea bass fillet, and apple pie.

If you’re thinking of giving Casali’s dishwasher cooking a go, you should know that her book is only available in Italian, but you’re still bound to find plenty of info and instructional videos and even a Wikihow tutorial online. As the Italian cook says, all you need is the will to experiment.

 Sources: Daily Edge, The Telegraph