The Kenmore 73773 Is No Longer Available as of Early 2020
REASONS TO BUY
Great for frozen burritos
Easy to use
Fantastic for frozen lasasgna
REASONS TO AVOID
Subpar at defrosting
Kenmore 73773 Review
The best model you can get without breaking the bank
The Kenmore 73773.
Credit: Kenmore
By David Wise ⋅ Senior Review Editor ⋅ April 3, 2017
Contributions From: Austin Palmer
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Our Verdict
Our Analysis and Test Results
The Kenmore did a great job throughout our testing process, doing well in the majority of tests and not displaying any glaring flaws. This model made some of the best frozen burritos and lasagnas of the group. If you are trying to save some cash and make a lot of prepared frozen food, then this is the microwave for you — college students, I'm looking at you.
This is a great budget option.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
The Kenmore did a fantastic job at heating up a small frozen lasagna.
Credit: Austin Palmer
Heating
The Kenmore performed exceptionally well at heating an individual portion of lasagna, actually tying for the best result among the entire group with the Oster.
There was only about 3.8°F average temperature variation between different areas of the lasagna, and all areas hit the required temperature listed on the package direction. The Kenmore also did very well at heating up a frozen burrito, making the second-best burrito of the group — just narrowly being beat out by the Sharp.
The Kenmore was the overall runner-up in our frozen burrito test.
Credit: Austin Palmer
All areas of the burrito exceeded the required temperature, but the left side and center were noticeably hotter than the right, averaging about 10.7°F temperature difference. However, this model didn't do as well at heating up our plate of leftovers, consisting of green beans, mashed potatoes, and chicken tenders. We found that the Kenmore did a below average job, in some cases finding discrepancies of up to 20°F between different chicken tenders.
The Kenmore did a little better with the chicken pot pie, doing the third-best behind the Panasonic NN-SD745S and the LG. It only had an average temperature difference of 10°F, with all regions of the pot pie exceeding the required temperature stated by the package of 165°F.
Though the center was a bit cooler, all regions of the pot pie exceeded the stated minimum temperature.
Credit: Austin Palmer
It did about the same with the Hot Pocket, averaging a temperature difference of 6°F between the different areas. This put it in a tie for fourth-best Hot Pocket with the Breville and the LG. The Kenmore finished out this metric with a solid score in our heat map test.
You can see a thin outer ring of solid chocolate that didn't transfer to the parchment paper when we placed it on top.
Credit: Austin Palmer
This model has one of the best interfaces of the whole group.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Ease of Use
The only aspect of this metric where the Kenmore scored below average was stability, as it slid slightly on the counter when the door was opened or closed. This model has a great interior light, making it easy to keep watch on your food while it's being heated, and has a good keypad. It can also be used as a kitchen timer — you can even run a separate timer while you are heating up food. We particularly liked that this model has a “+30 seconds” button that will automatically start the machine, as well as quick buttons. For example, pressing “2” on the keypad will automatically put two minutes in the microwave and start it.
The interface on the Kenmore.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
The Kenmore did about average in terms of preset buttons, doing slightly better at baking a potato than microwaving a bag of popcorn. The middle of the potato was still a little on the firm side, but perfectly edible, and the side was perfectly baked. The thermometers showed an average of 9.9°F of variation across the left, right, and center areas of the potato, a little bit more than the better scoring models. The popcorn produced was mediocre — about 60% of it tasted fine, though a little dry, and the remaining amount tasted distinctly burnt. It also left behind a decent number of kernels, about 5%.
The Kenmore left very few kernels unpopped, but the popped ones tasted slightly overdone.
Credit: Austin Palmer
Defrosting
The Kenmore features a typical defrost-by-weight option, commonly found on most machines, where you enter the weight of the food item and it estimates the required time. Additionally, it offers a defrost-by-time option, allowing you to enter the desired time manually.
The Kenmore estimated 11:28 to defrost and stopped in the middle, beeping to notify you to flip the turkey. It didn't do an amazing job, only sufficiently defrosting about 7 ounces of turkey. However, you could break apart the remaining semi-frozen section without too much effort, and it didn't inadvertently cook any of the turkey.
The remaining semi-frozen section of the 1 lb roll after defrosting in the Kenmore.
Credit: Austin Palmer
The Kenmore performed slightly below average at defrosting the muffin, heating the bottom much more than the top, worse than the evenly heated muffins produced by the Panasonic NN-SD745S, Panasonic NN-SU696S, and the LG.
The Kenmore was a decently fast microwave.
Credit: Austin Palmer
Speed
The Kenmore boosted the temperature by 35°F, just slightly less than the 37°F of the top model.
Value
This model is a fantastic value, earning the second-highest overall score of the group and having a list price that is under a hundred bucks.
Conclusion
The Kenmore is a great pick for those shopping on a budget, doing decently well across the board. This model particularly excelled at making some of the prepared frozen food items, such as Hot Pockets, burritos, lasagna, or pot pies. We would recommend this model for someone who doesn't want to spend a ton of cash on a microwave, performs well, and is easy to use.
—David Wise and Austin Palmer
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