Best Electric Lunch Boxes

Each model was assessed with cold, cooked foods, which ranged from easy to relatively challenging to heat up split pea soup, kung pao chicken and fried rice, and frozen lasagna.

Then we tested them in temperature-controlled chambers set to 73° F and 95° F to see how well they would keep food chilled when left at room temperature and outside on a hot day.

The Department of Agriculture recommends that cold foods be kept at 40° F or lower and that hot foods be held at 140° F or higher. Foods should not be left at room temperature for longer than 2 hours, or 1 hour in temperatures above 90° F.

None of the lunch boxes were able to maintain an internal temperature at or below 40° F (although none make claims to) after only 20 minutes at room temperature. For this reason, we recommend that users heat up their food within 2 hours or pack their lunch boxes in well-insulated cooler bags with ice packs. Chilling the food tray in the refrigerator before you leave for the day helps keep food cold longer. Freezing your meal would be the safest option if you choose a model that can heat up frozen foods. (Half of them can.)

Members can read on to see which electric lunch boxes came out on top.

A note on lithium-ion battery-powered devices: While rare, lithium-ion batteries can catch fire or explode under certain conditions. Make sure any electric lunch box you buy is certified by UL Solutions. Also, remember to use the manufacturer-supplied charging cord. If your factory charger or cord gets damaged or lost, it can be tempting to buy a cheap replacement that isn’t built to the same specifications as the original equipment, but doing so can damage the battery and cause a fire.

This battery-powered lunch box looks like a mini toolbox (it comes in black, blue, and red) and would fit right in at a construction site. You can intuitively schedule your meal so that it’s hot and ready when you are. It took 2 to 2½ hours to heat up refrigerated and frozen leftovers, but it was faster with soup, heating it up in just over an hour. The lid’s seal is leak-resistant, the stainless steel food tray is easy to clean, the exterior remains cool to the touch, there’s an optional app if that’s your thing, and you can program a maximum temperature (170° F to 220° F) if you don’t want your food to get scalding hot. 

Unlike the other cordless models we evaluated, the LunchEaze can heat your food while charging, so you can use it like a corded lunch box. We also appreciate all the extras you can buy, including extra food containers, ice packs, a car charger, a replacement charger, and a battery. 

The only downside is that the lunch box is slow to heat—it was designed that way—so don’t forget to schedule your meal beforehand. And it is quite bulky and awkward to carry, but the insulated carrying case it comes with helps.

In fact, the manufacturer recommends that consumers always use the insulated bag. “This helps maintain temperatures, both in terms of maintaining cold until heating and then enhancing the heating aspect of the product,” says Uzair Mohammad, LunchEaze’s lead engineer. He also says the company’s custom ice packs help maintain cold temperatures without affecting the heating cycle.

This sleek lunch box by Crockpot has an ample, leak-resistant food container and is pleasantly totable, thanks to a nesting carrying handle that tucks into the lid when you’re not using it. The stainless steel food tray is easy to clean, and the lunch box has cord storage built in.

It took 45 minutes to heat up soup, a little over an hour for stir-fry, and 1½ hours for frozen lasagna. The outside of the lunch box remains cool to the touch. But there are some downsides. You can’t buy additional food trays, and the lunch box comes in only one color: gray. One sample we ordered arrived with a chunk of its plastic shell broken off, so we’re not so sure about the durability of this one.

This superfast lunch box heated soup in a mere 10 minutes and stir-fry in 25 minutes. (The manufacturer says it can’t do frozen foods.) Its heat time is impressive, and we appreciate that it has an automatic overheating shutoff, but we don’t like some other aspects. The nonstick-coated food tray is built in, so you can’t wash it in the dishwasher, submerge it in water, or replace it if the coating gets chipped. On that note, we don’t recommend using metal utensils with this. The food cavity is also very shallow, at 1 inch deep, making it tricky to fit chunkier foods. And aesthetically, the product’s periwinkle and teal color options and retro logo look like it was designed in the 1980s, which might or might not vibe with you. You can purchase an insulated tote bag, replacement lid, and charging cord on the Ondago website.

Props to Steambox for coming up with an innovative way to heat up food. This lunch box comes with a tiny container that snaps to the inside of the lid. You fill it with water, and once you’re ready to heat up your food, you pour the water into the base, and it fills the container with steam as it heats. The benefit is it heats up really quickly—soup and stir-fry in 15 minutes! It couldn’t handle frozen lasagna, though, running out of charge before it could thoroughly defrost and warm it up. The stainless steel food tray is easy to clean, and the silicone lid is leak-resistant.

Steambox says the lithium-ion batteries that power the Steambox are safe for air travel because the heat is steered away from any electrical components. Plus, there is an overheating shutoff mechanism built in for extra safety.

Its look is streamlined and minimalist—it’s beautiful—but it weighs 4.4 pounds; it’s by far the biggest and heaviest lunch box we evaluated. You can purchase additional food trays and silicone lids, but there are no replacement chargers or batteries on the website. (The company says it plans to roll out battery replacements in the future.)

Steambox doesn’t sell an insulated bag or ice pack, but it recommends that consumers use them, especially when taking the Steambox outside in high temperatures. “The ideal placement would be on top of the silicone seal before closing the top lid,” says Amit Jaura, co-founder and CEO of Steambox. “It works extra well like this, as cooling naturally has the tendency to press downwards, unlike heat.”

With color options called salmon, green pea, and sunshine yellow, the Uvi certainly has the most personality. It’s nice to look at, feels good in the hand, and is easy to hand-wash, even though the food tray is built in and not removable. An optional plastic divider that’s adjustable and removable is a nice touch. The manufacturer says not to put soups in the container, but it heated up stir-fry in about 1 hour and frozen lasagna in 1½ hours.

What we didn’t like about the Uvi is that the lunch box and charger get quite hot during use. We didn’t burn our fingers, but they were uncomfortable to handle. To boot, the lid is very difficult to remove. The power cord attaches to the Uvi with a magnetic port, which we initially needed to unplug and plug in multiple times (on one sample) before the heat button would work. The matte yellow exterior of the same sample also arrived with smudges and discoloration that could not be washed off. 

The Uvi has a UV (ultraviolet) feature that the company claim will kill surface bacteria, a function we did not evaluate. When we contacted to the brand for recommendations for how to transport meals, such as packing the Uvi in an insulated bag or with ice packs, a representative told us, “Our UV light kills surface bacteria, so consumers can run a disinfection cycle before heating the food.” Readers, please do not heed this advice! “UV light does kill bacteria but does not penetrate deeply into food, where foodborne pathogens may be growing,” says Jim Rogers, CR’s director of food safety research and testing. “It is strictly a surface disinfectant and works best on nonporous surfaces.”

This crock’s round shape and mini size make it ideal for soups and stews, but you need to give it ample time to heat up. It took 2 hours to warm the soup and just over 1 hour to heat stir-fry and fried rice. It was too small to hold frozen lasagna. The lid’s seal is tight and leak-resistant, and the crock’s outside gets warm but cool enough to handle. The matte pastel colors it comes in make it even cuter, but there are several other color combinations and a glossy finish, too, if that’s more suitable to your taste.

This product evaluation is part of Consumer Reports’ Outside the Labs reviews program, which is separate from our laboratory testing and ratings (though some Outside the Labs reviews may incorporate limited testing data from CR’s labs). Our Outside the Labs reviews are performed at home and in other native settings by individuals, including our journalists, with specialized subject matter experience or familiarity and are designed to offer another important perspective for consumers as they shop. While the products or services mentioned in this article might not currently be in CR’s ratings, they could eventually be tested in our laboratories and rated according to an objective, scientific protocol.

Like all CR evaluations of products and services, our Outside the Labs reviews are independent and free from advertising. If you’d like to learn more about the criteria for our lab testing, please go to CR’s Research & Testing page.