Best Way To Reheat Frozen Food So You Can Enjoy Your Leftovers

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Freezers are the real MVPs. They save you time and money and they barely affect the taste of your food when you store it correctly.

In order to give your food the best chance at survival in the freezer, you should store it flat in air-tight bags. By storing your food flat, you can minimize the time it takes for it to freeze, which means there’s less of a chance that you’ll end up with a mushy lunch. The longer your food takes to freeze, the more likely it is to develop ice pockets, which will completely mess up the texture of your food once it’s time to defrost.

Speaking of defrosting, here’s how to thaw that perfectly frozen food evenly so it tastes just as good as it did when you popped it in the icebox in the first place.

The Microwave

While we can’t control the wavelengths of the microwaves — this is a bigger issue that manufacturers should probably try to solve sooner rather than later — we can control the amount of surface area that gets heated. If your food is lying flat in an even layer, there’s a better chance it’ll all heat up at the same time. But if you’re trying to reheat a bowl of dense leftovers, those microwaves might have trouble reaching the food that’s buried underneath and in the middle. So the flat freezing method serves a purpose when it comes to reheating the food as well.

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If you’re not happy with the microwave results, try defrosting your food first by placing it in an air-tight freezer bag and then in a large bowl of cold water. Since water conducts heat more effectively than air, your food will defrost quickly this way. And cold water will actually prevent bacteria growth, which you definitely want to do. Once it’s no longer frozen, you can pop it in the microwave and heat it for a shorter period of time.

If you have the time, we suggest thawing your leftovers with cold water first. This way, you can keep the integrity of your food intact and heat it uniformly without an issue.

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