If you’ve got yourself stuck with a day-old sandwich that’s been chilling in your fridge overnight and have no idea how to reheat it, you’ve come to the right place.
While this isn’t a difficult or tricky thing to do by any means, reheating a chilled sandwich can be delicate. If you’re not careful enough, you’ll end up with dry bread and shriveled meats and wilted veg.
So, how do you reheat a sandwich? The quick answer: wrap your sandwich in aluminum foil and heat it in the oven and 325 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15-20 minutes.
While this may be the best option in terms of convenience plus quality retention, there are still other methods you could use should you find yourself without an oven.
This isn’t the ideal way to go about warming up your sandwich. The microwave can change the taste and texture, and leave you with soggy or dry bread.
If you want to reheat your sandwich in the microwave, it’s best to wrap a paper towel or two around the sandwich. This absorbs any moisture from the veggies and sauces, to keep your sandwich as dry as possible.
Worthy of note, try to avoid using plastic or cling wrap. While most cling wrap is safe to microwave these days, it can trap moisture and end up flooding your sandwich.
Wrap your sandwich in a paper towel
Place it on a microwave-safe plate and pop it into the microwave
Heat your sandwich for 90 seconds
If the interior is still cold, put it back in for 10-15 more seconds
This is by far the best method. It’s easy and convenient because just about everyone has an oven in their home. It’s equally as common as the humble microwave.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit
Roll the sandwich in aluminum foil – being sure to seal it up tight and cover all the sides
Place the wrapped sandwich in the oven, either on a baking sheet or directly on the rack
Heat for 15-20 minutes, depending on how large your sandwich is
Remove the sandwich from the oven and let it cool for 2 minutes
Serve immediately
Toaster oven
The toaster oven may not be something everyone has, but this is as easy to use as the conventional oven. Though it definitely has more options for temperature.
This method may be just as simple as the oven, but the toaster oven is much faster due to the air circulation. It gets the food warmer quicker.
Like the conventional oven, the best strategy here is to wrap it in foil and cook at a low temperature.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit
Roll the sandwich in aluminum foil – being sure to seal it up tight and cover all the sides
Place the wrapped sandwich in the oven, either on a baking sheet or directly on the rack
Heat for 5 minutes on one side
Flip to other side and heat for 5 more minutes
Remove the sandwich from the oven and let it cool for 1 minute
Serve immediately
Air fryer
This is definitely a bit niche, but if you’ve got an air fryer and are feeling a bit lazy, but don’t want to potentially ruin your sandwich in the microwave, an air fryer is a good option.
The air fryer and the microwave are both incredibly easy to use and are very fast at heating up food, but the air fryer beats out the microwave by a landslide when it comes to preserving food quality.
An air fryer will leave you with a toasted sandwich on deliciously crunchy bread.
Preheat the air fryer
Lay in the bottom half of your sandwich
Heat on medium for 3-5 minutes
Add the rest of the sandwich
Heat for an additional 30 seconds
Remove then serve immediately
Stovetop
This is a good method to use is your sandwich isn’t too moist with condiments.
You can get a nice even toast on your bread, some butter for extra flavor, and a fast way to reheat your meats.
Heat burner to medium
Add butter or oil to a small skillet
Place one piece of bread in the skillet
Toast it for a few minutes until the edges brown
Do the same to the other bread
Reapply butter or oil to skillet
Rebuild sandwich and place inside the skillet
Toast sandwich on both sides
Remove from heat and serve immediately
Tips to keep it from drying out
You keep the bread from drying out by retaining moisture during the reheating process.
The easiest method would be to simply wrap your sandwich in aluminum foil or cling wrap, as this will trap the moisture inside and keep that sandwich nice and moist.
With the moisture from the sandwich being trapped, wrapping your sandwich is the easiest way to guarantee you don’t end up with a dry sandwich.
So long as the mayo doesn’t reach room temperature and then sit there for many minutes or hours. Getting your mayonnaise hot won’t form any harmful bacteria like letting it sit at room temperature would.
Can you reheat a sandwich twice?
No.
In general, it’s advised to never reheat any food items more than once.
Reheating food twice or more can cause seriously harmful bacteria to start to fester in your food, putting you at risk to develop a serious foodborne illness.
Always finish your reheated food, or throw out what remains.
Final thoughts
Reheating a sandwich and keeping it at the perfect quality like it was fresh may seem like a daunting task to some, but it’s really quite easy.
Thankfully there are many options to suit anyone’s cooking style or kitchen.
