Hi All,
Tonight I roasted some bone in, skin on chicken thighs with herbs and seasoning and ended up with some incredibly moist chicken thighs with crispy awesome skin. Problem is, we can’t eat all of it tonight no matter how much we would like to.
So, I’ll want to store them for a day or so and then reheat them. I’ve read that I can reheat them in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes to help keep the skin crispy, but I fear that storing them in the fridge in a plastic baggie will cause the skin to get soggy and lose that crispiness I so badly want to preserve.
They’re still warm right now and I assume I need them to be completely cool before even thinking about putting them into the fridge - do you have any advice on how to store and how to reheat so they’re as close as possible to as good as they were tonight!
For the record, I was inspired to cook tonight’s dinner based on Prince William and Harry’s favorite chicken dinner:
I used more spices and herbs (if you must know, it was Emeril’s Poultry Magic plus dried Italian Seasoning). I cooked this on the rack the way he cooks his and that made a huge difference in the texture of my finished product! Definitely a technique I’ll be using in the future…
Alas, it’s a weeknight and it was boxed Velveeta Mac and Cheese and frozen steamed veggies for us - but I have no regrets…
Air fryer toaster oven is the easiest way. Fry it for 5-10 minutes depending on model, then bake another 5-10 minutes at slightly lower temperature or with ambient heat. You can do the same thing in a pan and oven with less convenience.
Sadly no air fryer yet, but I’ll need to get one! You mention a pan - do you just heat it skin side down in a pan for a few minutes then back it to finish heating the rest of the way?
I’m no expert. I would heat some oil or butter, when hot put the chicken skin side down for a few minutes (when golden but not burnt), flip if needed. Depending on the thickness I might then put it in a 350 (toaster) oven for a bit (which could be preheated while starting). I would also consider using the pan to make diced potatoes and the oven to roast a worthy vegetable - if already going to all this effort.
Microwaving it would be quicker but not as good unless the skin stayed crispy.
I’d toss them under the broiler, myself. My oven has a low and high setting for the broiler, and I’d use the low setting. (or move the rack a bit lower).
Yep, when our boring old one-setting toaster oven died on us, we picked up a combo toaster oven / air fryer, and we love it. I air-fried leftover Chinese takeout egg rolls just yesterday and they were like fresh out of the fryer.
I watched the first part of the video. He hardly seasoned that chicken at all! Each thigh got about 3 grains of salt. No wonder you used more seasoning!
There’s a recipe for cooking seasoned chicken thighs (with skin) in a hot non-stick pan for several minutes without flipping, till it develops a nice crisp skin. (then you flip and cook the other side - test with an instant read thermometer to make sure it’s 165 degrees inside)… Now I just cook them in the air fryer and they are SO so good. I reheat them in the air fryer if I want them warm, I guess you could heat them in a pan, too.
I may be doing it wrong but my solution to this is microwave briefly to get the insides up to a warm temperature. I don’t usually fully reheat it because I don’t want to overcook the chicken. I finish by recrisping in a hot oven (400 or 425) briefly.
That’s exactly what I do, and I do it fairly often.
Using only a standard oven, if you reheat the chicken at a high temp the skin can burn before the thighs are heated through, and if you reheat at a lower temp and just turn it up to 425 at the end (for crisping) you run the risk of drying it out. Microwave plus a brief time in a hot oven is the way to go.
