Does It Really Do That? Healthy Chef Baking Mat

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Elaine McDonough and her friend Coreen Musser are active and they try to take care of themselves. So, the idea being about to have favorite fried foods every now and then without extra grease or mess sounds good to them.

"It's appealing. We'll see if it works," Elaine said.

The Healthy Chef Baking Mat is a silicone mat with some different features - 351 raised points that are supposed to allow any fat and grease to drain to the bottom of the mat; saving you calories and clean up, but not sacrificing the crispiness or taste.

The commercial says the Healthy Chef Baking Mat turns your oven into a fat-free fryer without turning, without burning.

Does it really do that?

KDKA-TV News Anchor/Does It Really Do That? reporter Jennifer Antkowiak worked with Elaine and Coreen to find out.

Elaine normally lines her baking sheets with parchment paper, and she wanted to see how the mat would compare.

The squishy, bright green mat seemed a little strange.

"It certainly has a different feel to it," Elaine laughed. "But, I guess if it does its job, it's worth it."

Elaine rolled the Healthy Chef Baking Mat on one tray, and her parchment paper on the other. Then, she and Coreen placed fried chicken, onion rings, French fries, and fried shrimp on each one.

The instructions say you don't need to flip the food, and it's still supposed to cook evenly and give the food a crispy texture. At the halfway point, Elaine and Coreen like how the food cooking on the mat is looking.

"I think they're even better. It's browner, they're more even, and you can tell it's done from the underneath. So far so good!," she said.

When the food was cooked as directed on the packages, everything on cooked on the Healthy Chef Baking Mat looked brown and evenly cooked, without any flipping. The food is crispy, too.

The directions say you may need to cook food a little longer in some cases, and Elaine and Coreen did find that to be true with the onion rings. They could also see that the points on the silicone mat did keep food from the grease---some of that from the chicken drained down into the base of the mat, while the chicken sat in grease on the parchment paper.

Elaine remains partial to her parchment for baking some things, but, overall she says the Healthy Chef Baking Mat stacks up to its claims.

"I would be willing to buy them," she said.

We bought the Healthy Chef Baking Mat online, and got two for about $15.