How Long To Reheat Pizza In The Oven

We’ve all had days when we crave a few slices of pizza, and if we’re in the mood, we end up baking a lot or ordering much more than we can finish in one go. And like other foods, they become leftovers. 

So can you prevent your leftover pizza from quickly getting stale and tasting weird the next day? Yes, you can, and you need the right storing and reheating techniques for this. Let’s look at how you can properly reheat them using an oven and, most importantly, how long you need to keep them in the appliance.

Is Leftover Pizza Safe For Eating?

Nothing but your previous day’s habits can determine if your leftover pizza is safe for consumption. If your pizza made it to the fridge within 2 hours of being baked/delivered to your home, your pizza is good to go.

Cold pizza isn’t so delectable, nor has the cheesy elements that all pizza should have. So, reheating is your answer to making your leftover pizza deliciously aromatic, flavorful, and chunky.

How Long Should You Reheat Pizza In Oven?

When you’re reheating pizza, you want to ensure you use the right temperature and don’t overcook it. The way to do this is by reheating the leftover pizza in a 350° F oven.

The taste can vary depending on how long you reheat the pizza, but let’s look at how it performs based on three 5-minute timestamps while using an oven:

• Five minutes: Warm outside but not warmed through and rubbery texture.
• Ten minutes: Crispy crust and evenly reheated.
• Fifteen minutes: Dried out and tastes almost crunchy.

On days when you aren’t in a hurry to have meals, go for the 10-minute reheat. And never go any further toward the 15-minute pizza, no matter how much time you have on your hands.

While overcooking your leftover pizza is a complete no-no, the opposite is somewhat acceptable and sometimes the only option left. A 5-minute reheated pizza won’t be enough to impress your palate as it did the day before, but it surely will be a thing of significance to an empty stomach.

Some tips will make your reheating processes much easier with an oven; they’re listed below to help you out. 

• Preheat the oven. This keeps your oven ready and ensures that your pizza starts its reheating process right when you pop it inside the appliance. And it also prevents overcooking.
• Place the pizza on a foil-lined wire rack. The foil will prevent your crust from getting too dry and crispy, while the wire rack will provide even heating from the top and bottom.
• Use a preheated baking sheet for a crispy crust. Not everyone likes their pizza the same way; some like their crusts super crispy. To solve this, simply place a baking sheet inside the oven while preheating. Then, place the wire rack over the sheet and reheat the pizza.
• Add extra cheese. Pizzas are never complete without a generous amount of melting cheese. Adding them to the cold pizza before reheating will also hint at when it’s time to turn off the oven.

An oven may not be your best friend when you have just a slice or two of pizza to reheat. But if you have a lot of leftover pizza, this appliance will make it much easier. And cooking your pizza uncovered for the last 2 minutes will do the trick in preventing a soggy pizza.

Storing Leftover Pizza

There’s a simple rule to storing pizza: if you’ve had takeout pizza, don’t store it in the box, and if you baked it yourself, place it in a new container. And remember to store different flavors of pizza separately.

Firstly, let your pizza cool down to room temperature, then wrap each pizza slice in foil and put them in an airtight container. If you store your pizza in the fridge while it’s still hot, you’ll find it soggy the next time you take it out to eat.

Once refrigerated, the pizza can last up to 4 days, but you can extend its shelf life even further by using the freezer.

To freeze pizza, store them in a heavy-duty freezer bag once you’ve wrapped them in foil. This will last up to 3 months, but remember to label the date.

Using Leftover Pizza

Sometimes we don’t like eating leftovers the way we last ate them, it can get boring, or you might just want a different way to enjoy your meals. You can add a fun twist to pizzas using these ideas:

• Pizza lasagna: One simple way to spice up a pizza lasagna is to cut the pizza into strips and layer them in a lasagna dish with the cheese side down. You can add some extra cheese and seasonings to make it taste better.
• Pizza panini: Too lazy to cook complex dishes? Simply get a panini maker to make this delicious treat. All you must do is press two slices of pizzas with their crusts outside, add some toppings, and press them until the cheese melts.
• Pizza croutons: Another easy way to switch up your pizza game is to fry them into croutons. Get two pizza slices and press them together with the cheese side in, cut them into small squares, and fry or bake them until they’re crunchy.