I say “CAN be one of life’s greatest gifts,” IF you know how to reheat it so it actually tastes as good as when you first experienced it.

You all know what I’m talking about. Leftover pizza that’s reheated in the microwave—limp, gooey, mushy, soggy, and way too hot. Or reheated in the toaster oven—dried out and overdone, at best. Same with the oven—it will also dry out and overdo it. What’s the answer, then?

The folks at www.food52.com wondered the same thing, and here’s what they found (after polling several pizza experts) to be the very best way to reheat these glorious leftovers (and I’ll quote):

“The recommendation was almost unanimous: Use a skillet!”

Hands down, they recommended putting your slice in a non-stick skillet on medium-low for a couple minutes. Once the bottom is crisp, add a couple drops of water to the pan, turn the heat to low, and cover with a lid. In about a minute, you'll have fluffy crust and melted cheese. Also, any other toppings will be crisp-tender (rather than mushy). With some pros, the skillet preference was a cast-iron skillet (as opposed to non-stick) to reheat their pizza. But whether non-stick or cast iron, SKILLET is declared the way to go.

There was one other favored option for reheating pizza, and that was the air fryer. Most air fryers have a "reheat" button that will automatically set your temperature for you—all you need to do is set the time. A 4-minute air fryer reheat can give any leftover pizza that fresh-from-the-oven texture. But, the pros all agreed—no air fryer? Turn to your skillet!

I’ll close with one of my own ideas that relates to when you’re either baking your own homemade pizza or you’re baking one you brought home from a take ‘n bake shop (think Papa Murphey’s). The key to that pizzeria crispy crust is a pizza stone.

This is placed in a cold oven just before you preheat the oven. When up to temperature, you slip your pizza onto the scorching stone using a pizza peel. After bake time is complete, you remove the pizza with the afore-mentioned pizza peel.

While you can certainly find all sorts of pizza stones at specialty cooking and restaurant supply stores, you might want to consider (and here’s my idea) opting for a terra cotta floor tile found in most home improvement stores (Home Depot or Lowes, for instance).

I suggest this because you’ll have the exact same thing (only square instead of round). And a terra cotta floor tile is less expensive and crisps the crust beautifully. I’ve been using mine for over fifteen years and it’s never let me down.

It’s hard to imagine actually having “leftover” pizza, but if you ever experience this, now you know how to prep it so it truly will be one of life’s greatest gifts.