Method for preventing overheating of microwave oven

A method for preventing overheating of a microwave oven including a controller for controlling an output level of a magnetron, the method comprising the steps of:

• a) receiving information of cooking conditions and a cooking start command input by a user, the cooking conditions comprising an output level of the magnetron for subsequent cooking;
• b) detecting a pausing period of time from a time of finishing preceding cooking to a time of starting the subsequent cooking if it is determined that the output level of the magnetron is greater than a preset output level thereof;
• c) increasing a counter value for changing the output level if the pausing period of time is a preset pausing period of time or less, and initializing the counter value for changing the output level if the pausing period of time exceeds the preset pausing period of time;
• and
• d) operating the microwave oven at the preset output level after changing the output level of the magnetron to the preset output level if the counter value for changing the output level is a preset value or more, and operating the microwave oven at the preset output level after changing the output level to of the magnetron the preset output level according to the detected pausing period of time if the counter value for changing the output level is less than the preset value.