If you don’t have a few tricks to reheat leftover french fries at home, then you might mistakenly believe that the fried food is never better than when it’s served fresh. But there are actually a few different methods that can revive french fries to their former glory, arguably making them every bit as good as when you took your first bite. While a couple of the techniques call for special equipment, one is a universal solution almost anyone can replicate at home.
The first method that many people might be able to use requires a convection oven. This kitchen feature uses fans to move air around and quickly heat up the space within the oven. According to The Spruce Eats, you can set a convection oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and place the leftover fries in there for five to 10 minutes, depending on how crispy or crunchy you want the fries to be.
If you don’t have a convection oven, you can also use a regular oven. All you have to do is bump the heat up to 450 degrees and then reheat the fries for the same length of time. For both oven-based methods, you’ll likely need to turn or toss the fries halfway through to ensure even heating. That’s easy enough, but there may be an even better method of reheating those leftover french fries.
This might be the best method of reheating
If you are lucky enough to have one of the trendiest kitchen appliances of the last few years — that would be an air fryer — then you are in the perfect position to reheat your leftover french fries. According to Kitchn, the air fryer is quite possibly the fastest and best way to reheat fries. That’s because it is equipped to do just what the reheating process really needs — crisping those fries up again without using any extra oil.
To reheat french fries in an air fryer, set the kitchen appliance to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then place the fries in a single layer inside the basket for just three to five minutes. Unlike a microwave, reheating fries with the air fryer keeps them crisp. The only trouble with using an air fryer, as The Spruce Eats points out, is that you will have to work in batches if you have a lot of leftover fries, since air fryers tend to be small.
