Reheating Roast Potatoes – The Ultimate Guide
Potatoes are yet another versatile food that you can make so many different ways. We’re curious, is your household a meat and potatoes home that has meat and potatoes with every major meal?
Roast potatoes are a great way to enjoy your potatoes. They’re simple and easy and you can change up your seasoning to change the flavors. This is one way to get flavorful potatoes without having to fry them or put in a ton of effort to make them.
Roast potatoes can often go a long way – a little bit is all you need. So what do you do with leftovers?
How do you reheat roast potatoes? The best way to reheat roast potatoes is in an oven set to 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes, but you can also reheat them in a microwave, toaster oven, or air fryer. The reheating process is the same whether the roast potatoes are cold or frozen.
In this guide, we will walk you through the best processes for reheating roast potatoes and let you know the tips to reheat them successfully no matter which method you use. While we prefer the oven, there are other options as well and we will share them all.
Keep reading to learn how to reheat roast potatoes.
The Ultimate Guide to Reheating Roast Potatoes
When we refer to roast potatoes, you might also know of them as roasted potatoes. We’re talking about potatoes that have been washed, diced, spread on a pan, and prepared in whatever way you desire.
These are typically made in the oven and they take quite a bit of time to cook initially. They are simple to make but can take up to an hour to roast in the oven to get them to the perfect combination of crisp and cooked to enjoy.
The best part about making roast potatoes is it takes little prep work. You don’t have to peel them or boil them. You simply wash them and cube them to the desired size. There are a ton of recipes out there for making roast potatoes.
You might find recipes that recommend tossing them in oil or recipes that recommend leaving them dry. There are a variety of ways to season them.
Roast potatoes are pretty versatile and you can pretty much make them to your liking. As we said before, the process is simple and totally customizable.
There are several methods for reheating roast potatoes and the methods could vary depending on how you stored them. They can be stored in the fridge or freezer but there are some things you will want to know to avoid soggy reheated potatoes.
Let’s get down to business.
How to Reheat Roast Potatoes in the Oven
The oven is the best way to reheat your roast potatoes. It doesn’t take very long for reheating purposes. This is the best way to ensure that your potatoes won’t be soggy or mushy when you reheat them.
It’s really a very simple process to reheat them in the oven. You should just plan on a little bit of time. This reheating process certainly won’t work as quickly as microwaving roast potatoes might but the results are well worth the minor efforts.
You just need a good pan, some foil, and about 20 minutes of time to work with.
Essentially, you are going through a process that re-roasts the potatoes in a way. It reheats them and preserves the flavor and texture all at the same time. The biggest challenge to reheating roast potatoes is avoiding soggy or mushy potatoes in the process.
Here are some steps for you to reheat roast potatoes in the oven:
- Line a baking sheet or pan with parchment paper or foil. As an alternative, you can also spray the pan. Roast potatoes might stick so just take precautions for that possibility.
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Spread the roast potatoes out over the pan in a single layer. It’s okay if the pan is full, you just don’t want potatoes stacked on top of each other.
- Cover the potatoes with foil to start the reheating process. This will help maintain form and reheat in the best way.
- Re-roast the potatoes in this manner for 10-15 minutes or until your potatoes are warm all the way through.
- Remove the foil and cook for about 5 more minutes. This part of the process will crisp them back up and make them almost like fresh roast potatoes.
- Serve and enjoy!
This process is not overly complicated but it does take a bit of effort and time.
You can’t just throw them in the oven haphazardly and expect perfect roast potatoes again. These steps are primarily designed to reheat roast potatoes with the best possible success.
How to Reheat Roast Potatoes in the Microwave
Here’s the thing, you CAN reheat roast potatoes in the microwave but we aren’t a fan of this.
This is the quickest way to jeopardize the quality of your roast potatoes. In the microwave, you’re far more likely to come up with mushy roast potatoes or you might even get hard roast potatoes.
It can be quite challenging to microwave roast potatoes and be successful with the outcome. If you have a convection microwave, this could be ideal. We also like toaster ovens for reheating roast potatoes (see the section below).
While we do not recommend reheating roast potatoes in the microwave, we also know sometimes that is the only option.
So here are a few tips if you decide to reheat roast potatoes in the microwave:
- Cover them with a damp paper towel.
- Do not use high power while cooking.
- Do not try to overheat them.
- Use low-medium power for short amounts of time and stir frequently.
- You can try covering with a microwave-safe plastic wrap instead of a paper towel as well.
These tips will help you be more successful when microwaving roast potatoes is the only option you have at your disposal.
How to Reheat Roast Potatoes in a Toaster Oven
When you reheat in the toaster oven, the process is almost exactly the same as when you reheat in the oven. The primary difference here will be that you don’t need to cover your pan with foil.
We do recommend that you cover your pan in foil anyway, however, as this will help with the crisping when you reheat your roast potatoes.
Using the toaster oven is pretty simple. Toaster ovens tend to be a bit more limited on space and will not hold all sizes of pans, so be sure to consider that when choosing a pan for reheating your potatoes.
Here are some instructions for reheating roast potatoes in the toaster oven:
- Line a baking sheet that fits your toaster oven with foil. We recommend spraying a bit of non-stick cooking spray over the foil, very lightly just to prevent sticking.
- Spread your roast potatoes out evenly over the pan. Be sure to spread them out in a single layer.
- Heat the toaster oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Warm roast potatoes in the toaster oven for about 15 minutes. You should stir them every 5 minutes to get them evenly re-heated. If you don’t feel as though 15 minutes is long enough, just adding an additional 5 minutes to the reheating time should do the trick.
- Serve and enjoy.
What you will notice here is that you use the same temperature and the same estimated timeframe for reheating roast potatoes in the oven. You don’t need to cover your potatoes with foil for this process but you should cover the pan.
Much like oven reheating, you are basically re-roasting the potatoes. This helps to heat them but also retain their texture and avoid issues like soggy or mushy roast potatoes in the end.
This process does take a little bit of time. You should plan on 20-30 minutes when you include pre-heating and preparation time. However, if you remember that originally roasting potatoes takes close to an hour, this shouldn’t seem too bad.
The wait is well worth the end result, particularly if you want your reheated roast potatoes to be just as delicious as when they were cooked fresh!
How to Reheat Roast Potatoes in the Air Fryer
Many kitchens are equipped with air fryers now. The air fryer is becoming more and more popular as time passes. It’s important to have all of the relevant methods to reheat roast potatoes with great results.
We love the simplicity and the convenience of the air fryer. It makes everything so easy, and that includes making roast potatoes initially or reheating roast potatoes with good results.
What we love about the air fryer is you won’t have to worry about mushy or soggy potatoes and it takes very little time to reheat roast potatoes this way.
You can even make roast potatoes in your air fryer initially, but we want to point out that not all air fryers are designed to work the same.
You will find that a temperature that works for you may not work well for someone else. Additionally, you might that someone else’s recommendation has to be adjusted with your air fryer.
In this case, however, your potatoes have already been roasted so you are simply reheating. You can use the air fryer to reheat even if you do not have a reheating mode on your air fryer.
Here are our recommended instructions for reheating roast potatoes in the air fryer:
- Place the potatoes in the bowl or on the rack of your air fryer. In the air fryer, it is ok if the potatoes overlap or layer a bit, particularly if you have a basket-style air fryer.
- Use a temperature setting between 350-400 degrees Fahrenheit. Remember that you may have to play around with the temperature to determine just what temperature will work best for you.
- Reheat at this temperature for 3-4 minutes. Add an additional 1-2 minutes if necessary for your air fryer.
- Serve and enjoy.
What you will find is that your potatoes will be nice and crisp and reheated through. If you are concerned that they will not cook evenly, you can stir them after 2 minutes to help them reheat more evenly.
Notice that this process is quick and simple and there is very little work you have to do to prep the potatoes or the air fryer.
Reheating Frozen Roast Potatoes
Remember that earlier we mentioned you can freeze your leftover roast potatoes. This is a great option to save them for later. We’re not here to cover how to freeze your roast potatoes but just know that this process can preserve them for later if you do it right.
The best way to freeze roast potatoes is through a pre-freeze process. You can then store them in a pan or even a freezer bag.
When you’re ready to reheat those frozen roast potatoes, we recommend that you take them directly from the freezer to the oven. We recommend this because your potatoes are more likely to be soggy or mushy if they go through a defrosting process.
Defrosting typically adds extra moisture to items during the process and this could affect your potatoes overall.
Here are steps to reheat frozen roast potatoes. Note that this process is almost exactly the same as reheating cold roast potatoes:
- Prep a baking sheet by spraying non-stick spray or lining it with parchment paper or foil. This will help prevent the potatoes from sticking during the reheating process.
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Spread the potatoes evenly across the baking surface. We recommend that they are spread out in a single layer for the best reheating results.
- Top the potatoes with foil as you start the reheating process.
- Reheat like this for 20 minutes to start with. Check the potatoes and stir them about halfway.
- Remove the foil and bake for another 5-10 minutes.
This process essentially re-roasts your potatoes and the final step, heating without the foil, will help to retain the crispness of the roast potatoes.
It’s so simple!
It’s nice that you don’t have to plan ahead and that you can literally pull those potatoes out of the freezer and immediately reheat them without having to worry about the process not going well.
Related Questions
We hope that you find this guide to reheating roast potatoes to be an intuitive and resourceful guide to help you through the process. There are several different options for reheating and we are quite sure you can have great success with any of them!
We invite you to review the following question and answer section for some information that you may find helpful as well.
Do You Need to Boil Potatoes Before Roasting Them?
This is purely optional. Some recipes will recommend boiling potatoes before roasting them simply to make them more tender.
What you need to know is you are not cooking the potatoes when boiling, but tenderizing them so you will be boiling them for only a reduced amount of time.
What Are Good Seasonings for Roast Potatoes?
You can season roast potatoes to your preferences. Many people like garlic and parmesan seasonings. You can also use fresh herbs like basil, parsley, and thyme.
Do some digging and you can try various recipes and seasonings. The great thing is you can mix it up easily!
How Long Can You Store Roast Potatoes?
You can store roast potatoes in the fridge for 3-5 days and then reheat them with no issues. If you want to, you can freeze roast potatoes for up to 6 months and they reheat very well from a frozen state.
Up Next: How To Reheat Twice-Baked Potatoes
