This Is the Best Method for Reheating Fried Chicken (2024)

Is there anything more satisfying than perfectly crispy, extra-tender fried chicken? Whether you're ordering it from your favorite take-out place or making some classic buttermilk fried chicken at home, fried chicken is always a treat. (If you avoid making it because of lingering odors, here's how to get the lingering smell of fried food out of your kitchen.) When ordering or making this all-American classic, it's always a good idea to buy or make extra so there are leftovers.

To be honest, a piece of cold fried chicken, right out of the fridge, makes a great late night snack or lunch and can be a total pleasure all by itself. (It's also a great picnic food.) But sometimes you've got enough for a whole new dinner, and you'd rather eat it warm. So is it possible to reheat fried chicken, you ask? It is! And luckily, reheating fried chicken is pretty simple and straightforward. Here's what you need to know.

In short, yes. Reheating leftover fried chicken is safe, provided that it was fully cooked the first time and was well wrapped and refrigerated promptly (within a couple hours) after it was originally cooked. In fact, eating leftover fried chicken cold or even room temperature is safe as long as it hasn't spent more than two hours in the "danger zone," which is the USDA's term for temperatures between 40°F and 140°F, when bacteria grow fastest.

The trick to reheating any kind of meat is to keep the moisture levels in balance. Some methods—such as the microwave, which works by heating up the water in a food—will keep meat moist, but make it unpleasantly soft. Other methods, such as the oven, can dry meat out if you're not careful, making it tough and chewy.

There's no reheating method that can get leftover fried chicken to taste as good as it does when it's freshly cooked, but it's not terribly difficult to get something close to a return to glory as long as you're careful. Here's what we suggest. (Note: this method should work well with other fried foods as well.)

1. Bring it to room temperature: Take the chicken out of the fridge 20 to 30 minutes before reheating.

In order to reduce the amount of time the chicken spends in the oven (and thus, reduce the chances that it will dry out), you want to let it come up to room temperature.

2. Give it some air: Place chicken on a wire rack and preheat oven to 400°F.

We recommend using a wire rack on a sheet pan to keep the chicken raised up off the pan. This will let air circulate and will keep the bottom of the breading from turning mushy. If you need to purchase a wire rack, here's one we recommend.

3. Go high and fast: Bake chicken for 12 to 15 minutes.

In general, we've found reheated chicken is ready when the internal temperature reaches 120°F. This will take between 12 and 15 minutes in a preheated 400ºF oven. That's hot enough to taste good without drying out. And as long as you eat it right away, it won't be in the danger zone for long enough to be unsafe.

If food safety is your biggest priority, the USDA recommends cooking all leftovers to 165°F, however we find that leaves most fried chicken far too dry. Either way, smaller pieces will cook faster and be ready sooner than larger pieces, so we recommend checking the temperature of each piece with an instant-read food thermometer and removing it from the oven as soon as it's ready.

That's it! Once the chicken is hot, it should be perfectly crispy on the outside, and ready to eat. Enjoy with some freshly made summer sides, or all by itself.

Though it's safe to reheat fried chicken in the microwave, we don't recommend it. This is because the chicken quickly gets soggy.

Microwaves work by heating the water in a food — essentially by boiling the water molecules in a food, the rest of the food becomes heated. But it tends to leave foods soggy.

If you do want to microwave your fried chicken, do it in short bursts of 20 to 40 seconds, and turn the chicken over after each round. Placing the chicken on a paper towel will help absorb any excess water, as well.

You can also reheat your fried chicken by essentially cooking it again. While this leads to undeniably crispy and well cooked chicken, we don't recommend it only because it forces you to recook the chicken, and is nearly as much of a labor and mess as cooking fried chicken from scratch.

If you want to try this, however, you can follow the instructions on our buttermilk fried chicken recipe, particularly step 4. It works best if you let the chicken come to room temperature first. And since the chicken is already cooked, you don't need to cook it in the oil for quite as long — about 2 to 3 minutes per side should do it, but it's safest to use an internal thermometer and make sure the meat has reached 165°F.

If you don't want to use your oven, the second best way to reheat fried chicken is with an air fryer. In fact, you might say that an air fryer is basically a microwave for making things crispy.

We recommend letting your chicken come to room temperature, and then cooking it at about 375°F for 3 to 5 minutes, until an internal thermometer shows the meat has reached 165°F. Make sure not to crowd the chicken in the tray. Letting enough air circulate will ensure it cooks evenly and quickly.