Reheating That Leftover Pizza

Don’t microwave a good slice of pizza! There is a better way!

How do you reheat that pizza from the other night? Are you in the microwave camp, or do you have another method?

There are many ways to reheat pizza, but which is the best?

Before I get into other ways to reheat that pizza and which one I feel is the best, I want to bring you back in time.

Going Back to My Youth

Growing up in Catania, Sicily, at my grandparent's home afforded me some great things in life, mainly dough, all types of dough to cook daily.

We had pasta dough, pizza and bread dough, and dough for the pastry, but my all-time favorite dough to work with was pizza dough.

Why pizza dough, you ask? It was the most versatile and always left room for leftovers once that pizza was done, but not all the time.

I will admit that we often finished a pizza or two during the day, but every once in a while, there would be leftovers, and that next day we would beg my grandmother to warm it up for us.

Back then, this was the '60s and '70s we didn't have a microwave. We had a wood oven and stove that turned out some of the best bread and pizza in the village. Villagers from Catania would always come over when my grandmother was baking something, especially when it was pizza or bread.

To me, her way of warming up that slice of pizza the next day is still the best way, not just because she did it this way, but once you try this method, you'll never use that microwave again.

She would take a frying pan and get it hot, place the slice or two in it, pour some water around the edge, and cover the pan with a cover. Then the magic would happen.

The steam would work wonders, and the pizza she served out of that pan tasted just as good as the day before. It stayed fresh, hot, and tasty while you devoured it. It didn't get hard around the edges if you didn't eat it as fast enough as a microwaved piece of pizza gets.

Which brings us back to today!

In most cases, and I have been guilty of doing this, we often turn to the truth old microwave to reheat our pizza from the day before. It's fast and reliable, and it tastes pretty good. Of course, if you don't eat it quick enough, it starts to get tough and hardened, which is the issue we need to correct.

Now you could turn your overnight on and place it on a rack or a pan and warm it up there. This isn't a bad method; it improves the texture and taste of that slice, but it takes time and energy to warm up an oven for maybe one or two slices.

There are toaster ovens, of course, which work the same as a bigger oven, and they do a good job using less energy, but it still isn't the best way, in my book.

You can also just plop those pieces into a frying pan and fry them until they are tender and the cheese begins to melt again.

I still go back to y grandmother's way, and if you check out some of the chefs online that care about their reheated pizza, they'll tend to agree with her method.

A little water to create some steam is the best alternative to reheat that pizza and enjoy an almost fresh experience as the day before.

Buon Appetito!

Mark & Patti