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

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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.

Noodles, pasta and rice dishes

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.

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

Best way to reheat: Air fryer

Leftover fried foods have historically been among 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. Like 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, cook at a lower temperature of 325 to 350 degrees F for three minutes or so to ensure the outside doesn't burn before the center has time to warm through.

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

Best way to reheat: Cast-iron or nonstick 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 grilled steak or fish in an air fryer or oven isn't impossible, you'll likely dry the meat out. Instead, I suggest re-searing it quickly in a covered hot cast-iron skillet or nonstick pan for no more than a minute on each side. The hot surface of the skillet should give life back to the crust. Keeping it covered will help warm it through before the pan heat has time to overcook it. You might want to use a nonstick skillet for delicate fish to keep the flesh from sticking or falling apart.

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

Braised, roasted or slow-cooked meat

Best way to reheat: Covered skillet with a splash of liquid

Braised dishes such as chicken in wine sauce or short ribs should be reheated to mimic 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 revive the braised or slow-roasted meat, returning its juicy tenderness.

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

The microwave is the appliance most commonly employed to reheat leftovers, and it may be the fastest, but I'd also contend that it's the worst. Most reheated food from the microwave has a degree of rubberiness, dryness, or mushiness that it didn't have when it went in.

Microwaves don't typically heat food evenly, resulting in food that's either too hot or too cold in places -- sometimes both. Plus, microwaves are prone to messy explosions. If you have to clean your microwave after reheating food, it's not a time-saver.

"But it's so much faster!" you say, but is it? Most of the methods outlined below take less than five minutes. The air fryer cooks almost as fast as a microwave and, in my opinion, much better. Adding an air fryer to your kitchen may be an up-front cost, but these budget-friendly super convection ovens are the best first step toward better leftovers. Plus, they'll save money on your energy bill over time.

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.

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