Why does my omelet with Velveeta froth up in the microwave?

Question

I like to make a quick cheese omelet in the microwave, in a bowl (no pans to clean up). I had the technique working well, but one day switched from shredded cheese to some Velveeta. The amount of cheese was comparable, but the omelet boiled or frothed up and overflowed the bowl (by a lot).

It does not matter whether I cube the Velveeta and mix in well, or just lay it on top in slices. In the latter case I've also tried adding the slices at the end (the last minute, on 50% power), and it still froths up. The eggs themselves to that point were bubbly but contained. Once the cheese gets hot it takes about 10 seconds to make it froth, after a 15 second cool-down period, so just stopping the microwave and stirring would add several minutes as well as requiring lots of intervention from me, which kind of defeats the purpose of fast and easy.

I like the taste of Velveeta in the omelet, but am tired of dealing with the mess. (Putting a plate under the bowl now gives me something else to clean, plus I want to eat the cheese, not wash it down the drain. Using an over-sized bowl also worked--though I still had to stop & stir a time or two--but I only have one of those so what do I do until it's time to run the dishwasher again?)

Does anyone know why this happens, and/or what I can do about it?

Answer 1

Microwaved eggs was probably one of the first things that I learned to cook -- I don't know I'd consider it an 'omlette' necessarily -- it was just a bowl, oiled, broke an egg in it, a touch of milk or water, mixed, and then microwaved.

When you're rushing to get out the door in the morning, it's a dead simple breakfast; I was recently out of town, and the place I was getting my breakfast in the morning (a bagel joint) did basically the same thing -- put a laddle of egg into a container, microwaved, put it on the bagel, and you were out the door.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that velvetta melts at a low enough temp that if you're using the pre-sliced stuff, you'd probably be okay just cooking the egg, putting the cheese-food on it, leave it in the microwave (off) for ~30 sec, and it'll have started to melt.

(but then again, I like to know cheese is there ... not be some runny molten filling that runs out when you're eating something, so I don't want it too melted)

Answer 2

Velveeta is a processed 'cheese' (I believe the package says something like 'processed cheese food product, which is about as far from real cheese as you can get), which means it has a much lower melting point than real cheese. In fact, I would be astonished if the melting point weren't lower than the coagulation point of eggs.

Use real cheese. And a pan. Your tastebuds will thank you for it.