How to Reheat Chicken Tenders – 4 Easy Ways

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Wondering how to reheat chicken tenders? You’ve come to the right place! Learn how to reheat your leftover chicken tenders in the oven, air fryer, microwave, or toaster oven.

If you don’t know how to reheat chicken tenders, you can quickly end up with rubbery, dry, or overly crispy tenders. The good news is that with a few simple techniques, you can easily reheat chicken tenders in several different ways and restore them to their original glory!

This quick guide can also help you if you want to reheat chicken wings, fried chicken breast or chicken thighs, or any chicken cooked meant to have a crispy exterior. 

How to Reheat Chicken Tenders

You want those tasty chicken tenders or leftover fried chicken pieces to be as crispy and delicious leftover as they were when they were fresh. That’s totally possible with any of the reheating methods below.

For the crispiest leftover chicken fingers, I would skip the microwave oven method. But if you’re looking for speed, you’ll spend less time reheating if you use the microwave. 

Air fryer chicken tenders are the best, in my opinion, so that’s also my favorite method of reheating. Whatever your preferred method turns out to be, you’ll have delicious chicken tenders in just a couple of minutes. Follow the step-by-step guide for the method of your choice below. 

Air Fryer: 

1. Preheat the air fryer to 375°F. 
2. Place chicken tenders into the air fryer basket. 
3. Cook for 8 minutes, flipping the tenders halfway through. 

Oven: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. 
2. Place chicken tenders onto a foil-lined baking sheet. For extra crispy chicken strips, put them right on the rack with a layer of aluminum foil or a baking sheet on the rack below to catch any mess or grease that drips from them. 
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. 
4. Flip the tenders over and bake for an additional 5 minutes. 

Toaster Oven: 

1. Preheat the toaster oven to 350°F.
2. Place chicken tenders onto a baking sheet, or for even crispier tenders, just put them right on the wire rack.
3. Bake in the preheated toaster oven for 7 minutes. 
4. Flip the tenders over and bake for an additional 3 minutes. 

Microwave: 

1. Place chicken tenders onto a microwave-safe plate. 
2. Heat the tenders in the microwave on high heat for 1 minute. 
3. Flip the tenders over and heat them for another minute. 

Tips for Reheating Chicken Tenders

• Cooking time will vary depending on your conventional oven, toaster oven, microwave, and air fryer. Make sure to keep an eye on your chicken leftovers as they’re reheating. 
• Cook time will also depend on the size of the chicken tenders. Larger pieces of chicken will take longer to reheat than smaller pieces.
• Don’t overheat your chicken tenders, or they’ll get chewy and tough to eat.
• Use moisture to keep chicken tenders from drying out in the microwave. Lay a couple of damp paper towels over them while they’re heating. It’s also important not to let your microwaved chicken tenders cool completely after you’ve reheated them.
• It’s a good idea to eat them as soon as they are cooled enough not to burn you. Something about the microwave makes cooked chicken gets tougher as it cools after being heated. You might experience this with different methods of reheating as well, but not nearly as much. 
• For large chicken tenders, use a meat thermometer to make sure the tenders reach 165F.

Crispy chicken tenders make a delicious meal and can make even better leftovers when you know how the right reheating process. Whichever of these you find to be the best reheating method, I hope you found this guide useful!