It might be tempting to think that leftover pizza slices are not good. Many aged foods taste better than just out of the oven. Some leftover slices are tastier, depending on the slice and how it is kept. Overnight aged slices toppings react with the cheese, cheeses emulsify, and the dough absorbs minerals from the sauce leading to a unique flavor. Whether it is a leftover from personal pizza from a nearby pizzeria shop or a pizza catering party and plan to enjoy these slices the next day or two.

These methods are applied to NY-Style Cheese Pizza Slices with toppings, Grandma Pizza Slices, or Margherita Pizza. We are very comfortable to say that Grandma's pizza Slices, Buffalo Pizza Slices, BBQ Pizza Slices indeed taste better the next day, we run the experiment with a real audience. The Plain Cheese Pizza Slices or Pepperoni Pizza not so much. Most prefer it straight out of the oven.

Here are some recommended pizza slices re-heating techniques, pros & cons:

Microwave Pizza Reheat - Easy and Fast

Microwaving a pizza slice is almost identical to microwaving leftover bread. The critical part of using the microwave is setting the Power Lever to 40 or 50%. The desired slice should be warm, NOT HOT. By lowering the power level, you are preventing sugars in the dough from melting then crystalizing. Technically, your toppings, the sauce, and cheese should taste good but unless you lower the power level on the microwave, the crust will be chewie lie rubber. Not all microwaves are made equal. This is by far the easiest method to warm up your pizza, it is far from being perfect. It is acceptable if you have no other options i.e. your at a hotel, or at work and you have no time or other resources.

1 Microwave Power

Depending on your microwave, set your microwave to low power 40% to 50% max

Step 2

Notice the cheese color almost snow white.

Place a very small cup of water on the pizza plate and napkins underneath the slice. As the water boils, it will keep the slice hydrated and prevents it from becoming dry. It's tempting to say we recommend preheating the water for 30 second first and then add your pizza slices

Step 3

We usually cover the slice with a lid to create steam.

The steam significantly help the uniformity of the heating process

Step 4

After about 1min and 30 seconds at 50% power level, it is DONE!

Notice that the cheese melt did not boil, compare the color of the cheese on the first picture with this one. Initially was hard snow-white, now the cheese is much softer, has a different shade, and you could see the red sauce underneath it

Oven Pizza Recycle... better method

This technique requires a longer time but also easy. The first thing to understand is that what heats up your slice is the cheese on top so you want to make sure you do not burn it, however. The other thing to keep in mind is that pizza slices do not have a uniform shape, for a triangular shape the cheese near the tip will heat my much faster than near the crust and there is nothing you can do about that, so watch for tip to decide if it is warm enough. Square shaped slice such as the Grandma or Sicilian does not have this issue and should heat up uniformly. Using an oven is the best technique in particular for the crust which should feel crunchy after re-heating. When using an oven, it is highly recommended to use a plate that mimics a pizza oven stone, a cast iron, or a steel plate. Be it a stone or plate it needs to be pre-heated first. An oven grid like the one shown in the picture is NOT recommended.  Not all ovens are made equal, so ideally preheat your oven and set it to "Broil" upper heating element and keep it inside for few mins. If the cheese becomes bubbly you overcooked your slice but still eatable. Many asked about the difference between Bake, Broil, and Toast settings?.

• First and foremost place a bottom cooking element such as a pizza stone or cast iron plate
• Start with Toast to bring the oven to an even temperature ideally to 420F - to 450F, in particular, the bottom cooking element should be hot, this takes a few minutes (give and take).
• Place the slice inside the oven on top of the cooking element for approximately 2 minutes. A good indicator is the color of the cheese should be near the melting point if the cheese starts bubbling it is overcooked at which point the cheese starts to separate and the dough becomes dry. As described earlier triangular-shaped slices are slightly sensitive to warm up.
• Extra Tip: many switch the oven settings from Toast to Bake immediately before they place a slice and that works as well and usually yields a better-tasting slice.

Stove and Pan - Reheat Method

This is yet again another simple method. Strongly recommended to use a cast-iron skillet with a LID. Pre-heat your skillet to hot. Place your slice and cover with a lid, if available use see-through to monitor the cheese. The lid is critical and should prevent moisture from evaporating and also heat from escaping from the top and activates the convective heat "simulating an oven" to melt the cheese. Understand that heat is coming from the bottom so no matter what you do, the crust will be exposed to much more heat. In an attempt to overcome this issue, it might be a good idea to put some water, in the corner, boil it to create steam before covering it. If done right, steam melts the cheese.

 

• Pre-heat your skillet to hot
• On one side of the skillet, place a bit of water, even on top alum foil.
• Once the water starts to boil, place your slice away from the water and cover with a lid.
• Also, we move the skillet sideways, away from the flame
• Observe the cheese once starts to melt and changes color your done. Cheese should melt not boil with bubbles

Home Oven General Settings: Bake, Broil, or Toast

• Bake: It activates the bottom burner. Usually for a long time cooking processes such as Cookies, Cakes, Baked Lasagna, Mozzarella Sticks. In general, this is to cook the inside and outside of your food evenly
• Broil: This activates the top burner. In general, used to discriminate in the cooking between the top layer of your food and the bottom layer. This is ideal to make the top layer crispy during roasting, or, your chicken wings skin crispy, or to melting the cheese on a slice - but be careful using Broil with pizza. At our pizzeria in Union City, we used Broil Technique to melt the cheese and make it crispy when we make baked ziti, chicken parm, or eggplant parm among others.
• Toast: This setting activates the top and bottom burners simultaneously for uniform temperature and even cooking. It could be used for fast or slow cooking. Depending on your setting the food could be cooked evenly from the inside out if you set the temperature to a relatively low setting.