You made yourself some shredded chicken for dinner. Great job, that’s a healthy choice! I love shredded chicken with salsa added as the basis for tacos. It’s super easy to drop some into a tortilla and make a tasty meal from it. What if you made enough that you have leftovers, and you’d like to have them for a lunch the next day? Don’t worry–it’s easy to reheat shredded chicken.

Here are some simple steps to do it right, and ensure that your leftover shredded chicken comes out tasting great.

Use a Ceramic Bowl

I like to store my leftovers in meal prep containers, but I don’t like to reheat things in plastic. For that reason, my first step for reheating shredded chicken is always to place it in a ceramic or other microwave safe bowl.

Microwave in Small Increments

To make sure your shredded chicken doesn’t dry out while you’re reheating it, I recommend heating it in small increments. Keep in mind, though, that shredded chicken is pretty dense. You’re probably not going to be able to heat it all the way through in one go without also drying out the outside of it.

I like to start by heating it for one minute. That gets it pretty hot and gets a good start on the reheating process, but doesn’t tend to dry the outside.

Next, I like to take it out and give it a stir with a fork. That helps to eliminate cold spots.

Then, I heat it for additional increments of 15 seconds each. After each increment, I remove it from the microwave and test how hot is it. I repeat that process until the shredded chicken is heated all the way through.

Now the only thing left to do is drop it on some tortillas and make a leftover lunch from it!