Deep Dish 101 EXTRA:
Leftovers / Reheating Deep Dish
** Originally Published on Jul 28, 2012 **
This is not really a part of Deep Dish 101, but while it was on my mind,
I thought I’d share with you my methods for saving leftovers and reheating deep dish pizza.
SAVING LEFTOVERS:
This isn’t rocket science – Wrap leftover deep dish pizza in heavy duty aluminum foil and store it in your refrigerator for up to a week. You can also freeze it, but then you’ll want to thaw it in your refrigerator before trying to reheat it.
REHEATING:
I use my trusty black & decker toaster oven*, but you can certainly use a regular oven for this.
Preheat your oven to 425-450 degrees F.
Cover your toaster oven baking pan (or a sheet pan) with aluminum foil, or re-use the foil you wrapped your pizza in.
Add a light coating of cooking spray onto the foiled pan (you can also use baking parchment to prevent sticking).
Place your leftover deep dish slices onto the prepared baking pan, keep the slices apart for more even heating.
This part is optional, but I recommend it :
Spray a little water on top of your pizza slices, as the pizzas have already lost moisture from the first baking.
Cover the pizza with a loose sheet of aluminum foil (you can make a tent if you like).
You do this to keep the pizza from burning while it is reheating.
Bake for about 20-30 minutes or until the pizza is hot.
Stay tuned for more Deep Dish Stuff… um… eventually. 🙂
*One day after I wrote this, my toaster oven died.
Rest in peace, Toasty.
You (and the Deep Dish I made in you) will be dearly missed.
Other toaster ovens will come after, but none will ever replace you
(because you were a discontinued model).
** JUST ADDED: How to Reheat Your Deep Dish Pizza: The Video!
Here’s a streamlined version of the reheating process, with my co-host Watersaurus Rex.
Fat Daddio’s Aluminum Round Cake Pan, 2″ Deep
from: Kerekes kitchen & Restaurant Supplies
Hey, your instructions are great if one owns or uses a toaster oven. But as I was seeking information about reheating in my stove’s oven, caveat emptor
Thanks for visiting the site! 🙂
Yes, reheating works best in a toaster oven, mainly because it’s a smaller area to heat and toaster ovens heat up very fast compared to a conventional oven. If you are using a conventional oven, you may want to adjust your oven temp so it does not reheat your pizza too quickly, leaving warm outside and a cold inside.
Also, sometimes people fail to preheat their ovens before putting their food into them. For a toaster oven, this is not as much of a problem because of it’s compact, fast-heating nature.
Like everything on this website, I recommend practice. Everyone’s oven is a little different.
Your oven is just one more piece of kitchen equipment you need to become familiar with.
If you don’t understand how your oven bakes, it can often cause your food to not reheat (or cook) as you intended.