How to reheat French fries

I’ve discovered the secret to bringing leftover French fries back to life. Want to know what it is?

First, the backstory: When my parents were in town last weekend, we wanted to go out for a steak dinner. When in Omaha, right? Since we couldn’t get reservations at my favorite restaurant for steak, The Drover, we decided to try Johnny’s Cafe, Omaha’s “original steakhouse since 1922” (with decor that hasn’t been updated since the 1950s).

The strip and ribeye steaks we ordered were tasty enough, but they couldn’t top The Drover’s whiskey steaks in terms of flavor. However, Johnny’s French fries were delicious. My family always orders our fries extra crispy (my grandpa started that trend!), but restaurants typically don’t prepare them well-done enough for us. When eating well-done fries, your dinner companions should be able to hear you chomping, and I’m telling you, the fries at Johnny’s made an audible “crunch” when I bit into them.

We packaged up our leftover fries and decided to eat them with sandwiches for dinner the next evening. To reheat French fries, we usually pop them in the toaster oven. Sometimes we’ll nuke them in the microwave first, and if we’re warming up a large batch, we might bake them in the oven. Although they warm up nicely, they’re never terribly crispy.

Eager to bring back the crunch from the previous night’s dinner, we tried something new — and it worked. If you’re reheating leftover French fries, try cooking them on the stove. Yep, the secret is that simple! We tossed the fries around in a non-stick frying pan sprayed with some Pam, although you could also use a bit of olive oil in a saute pan. Voila!

It’s also worth nothing that besides French fries, Johnny’s Cafe made some outstanding Oreo cheesecake that we also enjoyed as leftovers. Is that not a thing of beauty?

PS: Curious about how my parents deal with long-distance grandparenting? Well, I interviewed my mom all about it for Lifetime Moms, and you can read it here.