The Absolute Best Way to Reheat Every Type of Leftovers

This story is part of Home Tips, CNET’s collection of practical advice for getting the most out of your home, inside and out.

With inflation at a decades-long high, many of us are trying to stretch a dollar these days. Whether it’s buying a cheaper cut of steak, switching to store-brand groceries or learning how to spot a great value wine, every little bit helps.

Making sure food doesn’t go to waste is another way to keep money from flying out the kitchen door. When it comes to best reheating leftovers, there are excellent methods you may not have considered that will make last night’s food feel like the first time, every time. 

Whether it’s a takeout classic such as pizza, curry, noodles or tacos, some leftover steak you took home from the restaurant or last night’s homemade chicken with wine sauce, using the best way to reheat each type of leftover cuisine will ensure they don’t end up in the garbage or dog bowl. Oh, and all of the techniques outlined below work perfectly for heating meals from an easy preapred meal delivery service. (Here are my favorite meal services in 2022.) Read more: Find the Best Meal Service for You With CNET’s Meal Delivery Quiz

Break free from the microwave

The microwave is probably the most commonly employed to reheat leftovers, but I’d also contend that it’s the worst.

Aside from foods like soup, plain rice or mashed potatoes, anything that comes out of the microwave is almost certainly going to have a degree of rubberiness that it didn’t have when it went in.

Move away from the microwave and towards better leftovers.

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“But it’s so much faster!” you say. Is it though? Most of the methods outlined below take less than two or three minutes.

Plus, microwaves are prone to messy explosions. If you have to clean your microwave after reheating food, it’s definitely not a time-saver. 

Pasta, rice, curries and stir fries: Nonstick skillet

This wide-ranging category of classic takeout cuisines includes Italian pasta dishes, Indian curries with rice, Thai, Vietnamese and Korean noodles and Chinese stir-fries. Really we’re talking about any dish featuring a starch like rice or noodles with diced vegetables, protein and a sauce.

The one thing they all have in common is that they’re best reheated in a nonstick skillet or wok. 

A quick spin in a nonstick skillet is the best way to reheat pasta, noodles and rice dishes. 

Kilito Chan/Getty

A microwave tends to overcook pasta and noodles and will likely turn your chicken, shrimp or sliced beef into rubber. Instead, just throw the whole thing 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.

And nonstick pans typically take all of 15 seconds to rinse clean.  For rice dishes, consider a stainless-steel, carbon-steel or cast-iron skillet to get the crispy rice. Read more: Is Teflon Nonstick Cookware Safe to Use?

Pizza and flatbread: Air fryer

There are a good handful of reasons I love my air fryer but none is more notable than reheating leftovers.

Microwaves absolutely destroy pizza so let’s cross that one off. Even toaster ovens take far too long, in my experience, and end up drying the pizza out by the time it’s heated through.

Why so sad, cold pizza?

David Watsky/CNET

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 personally won’t heat leftover pizza any other way, and I suggest you don’t either. And if you didn’t have enough reasons to spring for one, air fryers use way less energy than a big oven.

Two minutes in the air fryer: Now that’s more like it.

David Watsky/CNET

Read more: The 5 Best Air Fryers for 2022

Fried chicken, french fries and other fried foods: Air fryer

Leftover fried foods have historically been one of the most difficult to bring back to life. Enter the air fryer, which can revive fried chicken, fried dumplings, mozzarella sticks and even french fries like nothing else in the kitchen.

Similar to pizza, it’ll take only a few minutes to heat through and you should have a crispy outer shell just like when the fried food was initially cooked.  for thicker pieces of chicken, use a lower temperature around 325 to 350 degrees F for three minutes or so to ensure you don’t burn the outside before the center has time to warm through.

The Instant Pot Duo Crisp air fryer will make and reheat fried chicken as well as any other appliance you’ve got.

David Watsky/CNET

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

Steak, pork chops, burgers and grilled meats: Cast-iron skillet

Cuts of meat including steak and pork chops are another food that can be tough to resuscitate. Fear not, because there is a way.

While reheating steak in an air fryer or oven isn’t impossible, you’re likely to dry the meat out. Instead, I suggest re-searing it quickly in a covered hot cast-iron skillet for no more than one minute on each side. The hot surface of the skillet should give life back to the meat’s crust.

Keeping it covered will help warm it through before the pan heat has time to overcook it. 

Often, the way in which food was cooked is also the best way to reheat it. For steaks, pork and burgers, be sure to cover the skillet so it heats through faster.

David Watsky/CNET

Fair warning: These types of reheated foods will never be quite as good as when you first pulled them from the grill or plancha, but this method should leave them more than edible. 

Braised meats: Covered skillet or Dutch oven with chicken stock

Braised dishes such as chicken in wine sauce or short ribs should be reheated in a way that mimics how they were cooked. Just heat them gently for a few minutes in a covered nonstick or stainless steel pan with an ounce or two of water or chicken stock.

The hot liquid will warm and revive the meat, giving it back its tenderness. 

A covered skillet with a splash of chicken stock is the best way to reheat leftover braised food.

All-Clad

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