How to Reheat Pizza in a Toaster Oven
Want your leftover pizza to taste almost as good as fresh? Reheat it in your toaster oven! In this quick step-by-step guide, we’ll walk you through the best temperature and functions to use for any toaster oven. It’s so easy (and tasty), you’ll never eat soggy microwave pizza again.
First, let’s talk temperature. Unless you want a rock-hard crust and overcooked cheese, resist the urge to blast your leftover pizza with high heat.
Instead, we like to use a lower temperature (325°F) to gently warm things up. The result: a hot slice of pizza with melty cheese and a nicely re-crisped crust.
Also, you don’t need to preheat the toaster oven to reheat pizza.
1.) It takes longer.
2.) If you start in a fully heated oven it’s easy for the toppings and crust to get dried out before the middle is warmed through.
We just pop the slices in, set a timer, and let the oven do its thing.
Toaster Oven Functions
The Reheat or Leftovers function is the BEST choice for reheating pizza.
That’s because the heating elements are (usually) programmed to operate in a way that warms your food without browning it.
On our toaster oven, this function does not preheat and the convection fan is automatically selected.
If your oven doesn’t have a Reheat function, no worries. The standard Bake function does a really good job too. Especially if you pair it with convection.
In a convection toaster oven, a fan circulates the oven’s warm air. When it comes to reheating pizza, this helps to remove moisture and keep the outside of the pizza crust light and crispy.
Related Reading: Everything You Need to Know About Convection Toaster Ovens
Many newer ovens come with an Air-Fry function. This function operates with a convection fan that is set at a higher speed resulting in more powerful heating/air movement inside the oven.
Whenever we use the Air-Fry function, the pizza tastes delicious but I do have to pay attention and check on the slices earlier. Otherwise, it’s easy to overdo it and end up with a crust that’s more like a cracker.
How to Reheat Pizza in a Toaster Oven
1. Start by adding the leftover pizza slices to a pan in a single layer. I prefer a slightly softer crust so I use a baking rack inserted in a sheet pan or the basket that comes with most Air-Fryer toaster ovens.
For a really crisped crust, place the pizza directly on a pan.
2. Next, adjust the toaster oven rack placement to the middle or lower position. *If you’re using the Air-Fry function, refer to your manual for the recommended rack placement.
3. Select your preferred function (Reheat, Bake, or Air-Fry) and set the temperature to 325°F with the convection fan on (if your oven has one).
4. Pop the pan in the toaster oven, press Start, and heat until the cheese and toppings are warmed and the crust is crisped, about 5 to 8 minutes.
The total amount of time will depend on the type of pizza and your specific toaster oven.
For the best results, start checking your pizza after 4 minutes (earlier for thin crust). That way you can lower the temperature a few degrees if it looks like the pizza’s over-browning.
Toaster Oven Tips
Thin Crust pizza will be ready faster. Our thin-crust slices heated using the Reheat, Bake, and Air-Fry functions were ready after 4 to 5 minutes.
Toasting works but doesn’t taste the best. Short on time, we’ve used a medium-dark toast setting to warm up single slices. It’s very quick (about 3 to 4 minutes) but something about the flavor is kind of flat.
Some toaster ovens heat slower. In our larger toaster oven, hand-tossed slices are usually ready after 6 to 8 minutes. In our little non-convection Oster they can take almost 10 minutes.
Do you have any tips on cooking a frozen pizza in a toaster oven? When I use the baking pan the bottom stays soft and doughy. When I don’t the cheese will drip and burn making a HUGE mess! Thanks
Hi Eryn,
A good tip a reader shared with us for getting a crispy crust was to bake the pizza (fresh or frozen) on the pan until the edges were set and the cheese wasn’t going anywhere, so about 2/3 through the cooking time. Then they would carefully slide the pizza off of the pan and onto the rack to finish cooking.
Another idea is to brush the bottom of the frozen pizza with olive oil before baking it on the pan. I haven’t tried this one yet but have it on our to-do list as oil is a great heat conductor and encourages browning when roasting veggies and baking bread plus it makes things taste great too.
Hope these ideas help a little and thanks for taking the time to comment. I think baking up a few frozen pizzas in the toaster oven would make a great follow-up to this post.
Thanks!
Brie
Wanted to pop back in and say thanks for your question, Eryn. It led to us eating way too many frozen pizzas and a fun post that lots of readers are enjoying!
We tested a bunch of hacks and tips for cooking frozen pizzas in the toaster oven and rounded up the best ones here: https://toasterovenlove.com/toaster-oven-frozen-pizza-tips/.