The Simple Way To Reheat Your Leftover Burger Straight From The Fridge

Remember yesterday when you had the best burger while you were out with your friends? You were so full that you decided to save the rest for tomorrow, and now it's sitting in its clamshell container in your fridge, just waiting to be finished. The problem is, while you could go for that leftover burger right now, how exactly do you reheat it? 

Your first instinct may be to toss the whole thing in the microwave, wait a few minutes, and you'll have a hot burger ready to eat. While it's true that the microwave is good for reheating leftovers, it's not the best method. If you put your burger in the microwave as it is, you'll wind up with dried-out vegetables, chewy and hard buns, and a hot patty on the outside but cold in the middle. Rather than rely solely on the microwave, you need to focus on the oven. The oven's dry heat will provide much better end results than sticking your leftover burger in the microwave.

But you can't exactly put the whole burger in the oven as is. Before you even think of preheating the oven, you will have to dissect your burger down to separate components first.

While the microwave may seem like the easiest method, considering the burger is already cooked, it's not the best idea to microwave the entire thing. According to Smashburger's directions, you need to disassemble the burger and reheat only the patty. If there is other meat on the burger — like bacon — include it alongside the patty. Once your burger has been disassembled, put the patty and any other proteins into a 350-degree oven for 7 minutes, flipping the patty halfway through to ensure even consistency. When the patty is reheated to your liking, reassemble the burger and eat.

This method is good for several reasons. Not only do you avoid drying out the produce of the burger — the lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and so on — you also get the burger cooked much more evenly than you would in the microwave. You can also do this with other burgers or leftover sides, such as French fries, to reheat everything on one tray. Unfortunately, this may not be the quickest method, considering you need to wait for the oven to preheat. If you're particularly strapped for time and want your burger now, you can use another part of the oven to reheat your burger faster: the stovetop.

To reheat your burger with a frying pan, you must first go through the process of disassembling as you did with the oven method. Set your burner to medium-high heat and place your well-oiled frying pan over it. Once the pan is hot enough, add your patty and a few tablespoons of water before covering for one minute. The water is added to prevent the already-cooked burger from drying out. Toast your buns in the pan with a little bit of butter in case they taste too chewy from their stint in the fridge.

This method is less time-consuming as you don't need to wait for the oven to preheat. So long as you have a good frying pan and a little bit of water, you're all set to reheat your cold burger so it's moist and tender again.

These methods don't apply to just burgers. If you instead have leftover pizza, French fries, or other takeout, there are plenty of other good methods to reheat them too.