Update: Alive again!
Update: DEAD!
Originally posted on 3/13:
This was selling for $59.99 yesterday and is now the lowest price ever from Amazon.
Also on sale is the HotLogic Mini in blue for $37.39.
After several DDF users wrote that HotLogic ovens were a must have office and travel item, I went ahead and bought a HotLogic Mini and a HotLogic Casserole oven. A standard takeaway food tray, like if you buy a travel meal from a place like Pomegranate, will fit in the Mini oven. The Casserole oven will fit 2 meals.
I typically travel with a small toaster oven when I go to places without kosher food and have shlepped one to places from Hawaii to Iceland to the Maldives. It really opens up the world when you’re not limited to destinations that have kosher restaurants. The nice thing about a small toaster oven is that you’re not beholden to begging a hotel to warm up your double wrapped meals. The downside is that it’s a shlep to bring with, though I have sometimes just ordered them to be delivered from Amazon or Walmart to my hotel.
The HotLogic oven on the other hand folds down next to nothing, making it an ideal travel mate. However while a toaster oven will warm up cold food in 20 minutes or frozen food in an hour, the HotLogic will take an hour to warm up cold food or a couple hours to warm up frozen food. That means you’ll have to plan your meals ahead of time.
On the plus side, you can put plastic or foil in the HotLogic without issue and you can put in food in the morning and leave it in there until evening and it will be fine. That’s because the HotLogic only gets up to 165 degrees, so it won’t melt plastic or overcook your food, but it will get your food hot with enough time.
As you only need 45 watts to power the mini or 100 watts to power the Casserole oven, you can use a basic converter to use them overseas.
On the downside, you won’t be making crunchy nachos in a HotLogic like you can in a toaster oven. And you’ll need multiple HotLogic ovens to heat up meals for a whole family.
Last month I flew from Cleveland to Los Angeles on a United 737 and was upgraded to first class. United didn’t load my kosher meal and the flight attendant offered me a tapas snack box with several kosher snacks and a $250 United electronic travel certificate! Plus, I brought along some blintzes and a Hot Logic Mini, so I plugged that into the AC power at the bottom of the seat, and within an hour, I had piping hot blintzes. They can forget my kosher meal every day with an offer like that. Using a HotLogic on a plane is not something that airlines are likely to encourage, but it was easier than gambling on whether I’d be able to persuade the flight attendant to warm it up in the plane’s oven. It’s a real game changer!
Note that airplane outlets supply 60-75 watts of power, so that will likely only work with the Mini, though I didn’t try it with the Casserole.
DDF members also report using a power inverter to have hot food while driving!
Have you traveled with a HotLogic oven?
- Ideal for preparing healthy meals and warm comfort food for a group, at home and at parties, potlucks, or gatherings
- Evenly cooks or reheats fresh or frozen meats and vegetables – even leftovers – without burning or drying your food
- Compatible with most flat-bottom containers with sealable lids, including glass, plastic, Tupperware, metal, aluminum foil, and cardboard – up to 9x13x2.25 inches
- Requires no monitoring – just place your meal inside, plug it in, and go about your day, whether it’s work or play
- Backed by our make it right guarantee and a customer service team that has one job: to leave you utterly and completely overjoyed
Won’t food/meat left out all day at that temperature spoil? I’m happy to be wrong about this!
No, danger zone is 40-140.
if it was bigger then worth it. not worth buying 3 of them for the family vacations
Beats 2 toaster ovens.
This is great for warming up food on flights etc. but to use in the hotel a Betty Crocker Pizza maker is likely your best bet. Great for most food varieties, cooks instantly and much more compact than a toaster.
That’s good as well, though it takes up a lot more real estate.
The Betty Crocker runs on about 1400 watts, meaning that no travel size transformer is adequate, in which case it is useless in all countries that have 220v outlets requiring a transformer (Europe, Israel etc.).
Great for use in hospitals as well!
Anyone have experience using it over a shabbis? Can it remain on for 25 hours?
It will remain on.
Is it Muttar for use on Shabbos? Is it a prob. of Hatmana?
You can take the heating element out of the bag so that it’s just a hot plate.
i meant to leave it on with, say, a chulent inside for shabbos lunch. would that be ok?
Should be fine if you don’t fully zipper it closed. AYLOR.
betty crocker pizza oven all the way
No issue of toiveling? especially as you say you buy it from amazon directly to you
No, as the food doesn’t touch the heating element.
It’s a great product.
I was recently in the hospital with the family member and I brought this warmer it was literally a life changer. Just make sure that if you bring it to the hospital either they allow it or they don’t see it.
My son uses the mini in Yeshiva, it is great; my wife sends the food weekly, and he’s all taken care of. Except for when he is really really hungry!