How to Reheat Chips Without Them Going Soggy

Chips are great for an indulgent snack or as part of a meal, but what happens if you want to save some for later? Real chip shop chips are great, but the portions are huge, so you decide to keep the leftover chips and warm them up the next day in the microwave or oven. You wait in anticipation for some more of that crispy goodness that tasted so great last night, only to be disappointed by the soggy, lifeless heap of chips on your plate when you go to open the microwave…

Help is at hand, though. Chip expert Magda Ganea, whose café won second place at the National Fish and Chip Awards 2018, reveals the secrets to perfectly reheated chips.

You need to remove as much moisture as you can from them before you start reheating them, and Magda advises using a paper towel to pat them dry before reheating them. Then cook the chips on high heat in a pan or under the grill.

Never try microwaving cold chips, Magda says. Potatoes retain moisture that comes out when they are reheated, and if they’re in a microwave or a conventional oven, that steam can’t escape. The result – soggy chips!

The best way to keep them crisp and tasty while reheating is to deep-fry them again, but frying them in an ordinary frying pan with a little oil is also good. You can grill them too, if you don’t want to add more oil to them, but you have to move the chips around regularly to stop them burning.

To store leftover chips, Magda suggests the best way is to cool them down as quickly as possible, and keep them covered loosely in the fridge. Sealing them tightly can cause bacteria to grow, and you don’t want a side serving of that with your chips!

Once you’ve twice-cooked your leftover chips to perfection, you can do one of the weird food combo things with chips that only the British seem to do, such as smothering them in gravy or melting cheese over them for a tasty artery-busting snack. Or how about a chip butty with ketchup for a carb overload?

Here’s some strange but true facts about chips for you to read while waiting for your chips to reheat:

• Fish and chips were the only takeaway food items to be rationed during the Second World War.
• Stealing your partner’s chips in a restaurant is said to be the number one cause of arguments while eating out.
• The United States Department of Agriculture classified batter-coated French fries as a vegetable in 2004. An appeals court upheld this ruling. Now that’s a strange but tasty addition to your five a day of fruits and vegetables!