Pizza (reheating) in an air fryer
Leftover (reheating) — the short answer
150°C (302°F) for 5–10 min
- For
- 120g per piece, 2 pieces, From the fridge
- In
- Basket air fryer, single layer, pieces not touching
- Preheat
- Not needed
- Part way
- check on it at about 3 min
- Check
- Steam rising from the centre and not only from the edges
- Safety
- Cool cooked food and get it into the fridge within one to two hours, keep the fridge between 0 and 5°C, and eat leftovers within 48 hours. Full rule below.
The clearest case where an air fryer beats every other tool in the kitchen.
Leftover (reheating)
Before anything else
From national food-safety authorities, not from us. These take precedence over any cooking time below.
Requirement — Food safety (microbiological)
Cool cooked food and get it into the fridge within one to two hours, keep the fridge between 0 and 5°C, and eat leftovers within 48 hours.
How to tell, without a thermometer
- There is no sensory test for this rule, and that is the point: food held too long at the wrong temperature does not necessarily look, smell or taste different
If it has not got there: Throw it away. This is the one rule in this catalogue where the remedy is not 'cook it longer', because cooking does not reverse it.
Important: Cooked rice is the sharpest case: Bacillus cereus toxins form at room temperature and survive reheating. Rice left out for more than an hour goes in the bin.
Requirement — Food safety (microbiological)
Reheat leftovers until steaming hot all the way through, and only reheat them once.
Target: 70°C in the thickest part, or an equivalent from the table below.
How to tell, without a thermometer
- Steam rising from the centre, not just the edges
- The middle is hot to the touch, tested after removing it from the appliance
If it has not got there: Keep going, and break dense food up or spread it out so the heat can reach the middle. If it will not heat through evenly, a microwave to get the centre hot followed by the air fryer to crisp the surface is a better tool for the job than the air fryer alone.
Important: Cooked rice and pasta left at room temperature can develop Bacillus cereus toxins that reheating does not destroy. If cooked rice has been out of the fridge for more than an hour, discard it rather than reheating it.
| Temperature | Held for | Measured at |
|---|---|---|
| 70°C | 2 min | the centre of the food |
| 75°C | 30 sec | the centre of the food |
The quick answer
150°C (302°F) for 5–10 min
Two manufacturers publish the same reheating instruction — 150°C for up to 10 minutes — as a general reheating method rather than a per-food figure. Five minutes is enough for a thin slice; ten for something dense.
- Assuming
- 120g per piece, 2 pieces, From the fridge
- In
- Basket air fryer
- Loaded
- Single layer, pieces not touching
- Preheat
- Not needed
- Result
- Heated through
Preparation
Straight from the fridge, in one layer. No oil. Anything dense should be spread out or broken up so the heat can reach the middle.
No oil needed.
How to load the basket
Single layer, pieces not touching. The reference condition. Air reaches every surface, and times are the shortest the food will achieve.
While it cooks
At about 3–6 minutes: Check on it
The surface reheats far faster than the middle. Checking the centre rather than the edge is the whole difficulty with reheating in this appliance.
How to tell it is done
- Steam rising from the centre and not only from the edges
- The middle is hot to the touch once it is out of the appliance
- The base has re-crisped rather than gone leathery
Change the result
Each of these moves the outcome in a known direction, and most cost you something. The trade is stated so you can decide whether you want it.
- The centre hot without drying the surface
- Use a microwave to get the middle hot and then thirty seconds in the air fryer to crisp the surface. Two appliances is the honest answer for anything dense.
Where these figures came from — leftover (reheating)
- Applies to
- Specific to this type of appliance
- Why this rating
- A cross-manufacturer synthesis. Two companies converge on reheating being a materially lower-temperature operation than cooking, one stating 150°C explicitly and the other enforcing a lower ceiling in the firmware. The governing safety rule, not the manufacturer, decides when the food is hot enough.
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-13
What this does not cover
- The published instruction is a general reheating method, not a figure for pizza specifically.
- THE TIME IS ONLY HALF SOURCED. The ten-minute ceiling is published by two manufacturers; the five-minute floor is AirfryerHQ's estimate for a thin slice and has not been measured.
- Reheating is governed by the food-safety rule, which requires the centre to be steaming hot. No manufacturer figure overrides that, and a time that ends before the centre is hot has not finished.
Sources (3)
Tower T17067 4L Digital Air Fryer — Safety and Instruction Manual (PDF)
RKW Ltd (Tower Housewares) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: A general reheating instruction of 150°C for up to 10 minutes.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from argos-support.co.uk
Retrieved from Argos's manual library for Argos product 947/6769. The document carries no revision code.
Tower T17038 Xpress 11L 5-in-1 Air Fryer Oven with Rotisserie — Instruction Manual (PDF)
RKW Ltd (Tower Housewares) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: The same general reheating instruction of 150°C for up to 10 minutes.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from argos-support.co.uk
Retrieved from Argos's manual library for Argos product 363/6653.
Instant Vortex 4-in-1 Air Fryer — User Manual (PDF)
Instant Brands (EMEA) Limited — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom and European Union)
Relied on for: That the Reheat programme has a lower temperature ceiling of 182°C than the cooking programmes' 205°C, and a default of 138°C — corroborating that reheating is a lower-temperature operation.
AirfryerHQ's interpretation of what it says
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from argos-support.co.uk
Retrieved from Argos's manual library for Argos product 936/1104. Covers the Vortex 4 and Vortex 6 in one document.
Chilled
No time or temperature for this, and not by accident
Pizza (reheating) is sold and cooked chilled, so the question is a real one. AirfryerHQ holds no published figure for it: not one of the manufacturer manuals read for this catalogue gives a chart row for this food in this state.
We are not going to produce one by adjusting the leftover (reheating) figure above. A time arrived at that way would appear on this page looking exactly like a time somebody measured, and you would have no way to tell the difference.
What we do hold for pizza (reheating): leftover (reheating). Those are a different question, not a starting point for this one.
What usually goes wrong
Burnt cheese over a base that is still soft. Set too hot: the topping is already at serving temperature and only the base needs work, so heat that browns the cheese is heat the pizza did not need.
Running the appliance safely
These apply to every food and every air fryer, so they are here once rather than repeated under each state above. They come from Electrical Safety First, from UK product-safety notices and from the manufacturers’ own manuals.
- Plug an air fryer directly into a wall socket. Do not run one from an extension lead.
- An unusual smell, an unusual noise, or scorch marks on the plug mean stop using it and contact the manufacturer.
- Do not overfill. Food touching the heating element is a fire risk, not a cooking problem.
- White smoke from fatty food is usually normal. Black smoke means unplug it immediately.
- Do not leave an air fryer running unattended.
- Leave clear space above and around the appliance, and never cover the air intake or the outlet.
- Aim for a golden yellow colour or lighter on starchy foods such as chips and roast potatoes, rather than a darker brown.
- Buy from a reputable retailer rather than a third-party marketplace seller.
- Clean the drawer, the plate and the element after use. Accumulated grease is what smokes, and then what burns.
- Register the appliance with its manufacturer. It is how a recall reaches you.
- Do not rely on the appliance's own thermal protection. A UK recall was issued because it did not operate.
Each links to its own page, with what it means in practice, what to do if it has already happened, and the source it comes from. Every safety rule AirfryerHQ holds.
Why pizza behaves this way
A cooked base has already lost its surface moisture once and reabsorbed some from the topping in the fridge. Dry moving air drives that moisture back out and re-crisps the base, while the topping needs only to reach serving temperature. The failure mode is the cheese browning before the base has dried, which is a temperature problem rather than a time one.
Where to go from here
The pages that answer the questions this one tends to raise.
- Using a thermometer, and where to put itThe times above are for a piece that is not the one you are holding. This measures yours — and it is the single change that fixes most dry pizza (reheating).
- How food actually gets crispyWhy patting it dry, spacing it out and a little oil are all the same instruction — so you can apply it when a page runs out.
- Reheating leftoversA different question governed by a different rule — steaming hot throughout, and only once.
- Why published timings differIf another chart says something else, this is usually why — and which one to believe.
- Do you need to preheat an air fryer?The manufacturers disagree, in writing, in their own manuals. That is the answer, and this page shows you which of them is talking about a machine like yours.
- Air fryer versus ovenFaster and cheaper to run for small quantities; no advantage at all for a full tray, and worse at several things.
- What air fryers are good at, and what they are bad atAn honest list, with the conditions attached. Most claims about air fryers are true for one or two portions and false for a family meal.
- Air fryer or microwave?They heat food by unrelated mechanisms and are bad at opposite things. This is not a choice between two appliances so much as a rule for which to reach for.