There's a Better Way to Reheat Leftovers Than the Microwave

Eating leftovers is a great way to stretch a meal for a few days and save money in the process. However, reheating leftovers in the microwave can leave them tasting overcooked, crunchy or downright funky. There are other quick and easy ways to reheat those leftovers, but you’ll want to pick the right method for the specific food you’re heating back up.

I abandoned microwave reheating some time ago and never regretted the switch. While microwaves offer speed, they drain flavor and texture from most foods. These days, I use an air fryer, toaster oven or skillet for reheating, and the results are dramatically better.

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You’ll achieve crispy exteriors, evenly warmed interiors, and leftovers that rival their original quality — occasionally surpassing it. The additional time investment pays off significantly. If your reheated food typically turns out soggy, rubbery or unappetizing, these techniques will revolutionize your approach to day-old (or older) meals.

Best way to reheat: Nonstick skillet

This wide-ranging category of classic takeout includes Italian pasta dishes, Indian curries with rice, Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean noodles, and Chinese stir-fries. We’re discussing any dish featuring starch, such as rice or noodles, diced vegetables, meat or plant-based protein, and a sauce. The one thing they all have in common is that they’re best reheated in a nonstick skillet or wok.

While you can probably get away with nuking simple fried rice, a microwave tends to overcook pasta and noodles, and will likely turn your chicken, shrimp, or sliced beef into rubber. Instead, just throw it all in a nonstick skillet on medium heat. Toss intermittently and in a few minutes, you’ll have something nearly as good as when it first showed up at your table or door the night before. Nonstick pans typically take all of 15 seconds to rinse clean.

Consider a stainless-steel, carbon-steel, or cast-iron skillet for rice dishes to get crispy rice.

See Misen pan at Amazon

Pizza and flatbread

Best way to reheat: Air fryer or toaster oven

There are a handful of reasons I love my air fryer, but none more notable than reheating leftovers. Microwaves destroy pizza, so let’s cross that one off. A toaster and convection oven do better, but they still take longer to heat and can dry the pizza out by the time it’s heated through.

The quick blast of an air fryer’s superconvection will reheat your pizza to crispy perfection in about two minutes at 400 degrees F, depending on how large and thick it is. Be sure to use the basket or grate or else the hot, flat bottom of the air fryer basket could burn the bottom of your slice. I won’t heat leftover pizza any other way. If you didn’t have enough reasons to spring for one, air fryers use less energy than a big oven.

Fried food

Side note: Beyond reheating fried chicken, a good air fryer makes delicious “fried” chicken and other foods with less oil than traditional methods.

Steak, pork chops, burgers and grilled chicken

For more tasty tips, see how to find cheap wine at the grocery store and how to cook a perfect whole chicken in the air fryer.

The microwave is rarely the best way to reheat leftovers

Is there any food you should reheat in the microwave?

Although most dense foods shrivel up or dry out in a microwave, some softer foods handle the microwave heat better. Items such as soup (covered), sauce, plain rice, or mashed potatoes won’t lose too much oomph if you nuke them.

The microwave is also a great place to quickly soften butter, make popcorn, or warm water, baby formula and other liquids. It’s even one of my favorite ways to poach an egg, so it’s far from a useless appliance.

Source: CNET.