If your food smells alright and it has been stored properly, then heating up leftovers and eating them is no problem. You can also add extra veggies or ingredients to the leftovers. If you can avoid it, be sure never to put your seafood in the microwave because it will destroy the delicate texture of the meat. Frying it in a pan or heating it up in the oven will not only maintain the flavor of the food, but the seafood meat or shrimp will not turn rubbery or hard.

Prepare Your Leftovers

Eating restaurant leftovers is a great way to both save money and prevent waste. When you return from your outing, quickly store your leftovers in the fridge, unless you have been out with your seafood dish for 4 hours. It might not be safe for consumption anymore. If you store your seafood correctly, it can last up to four days later. Although, on the 4th day of storage, the texture of the seafood might be off.

Leftovers are also a great opportunity to add in any extra vegetables that are turning bad, but you don’t want them to go to waste. Go ahead and add any of these ingredients to your seafood:

• Zucchini 
• Spinach
• Garlic
• Eggs
• Chili
• Carrot
• Corn
• Basil
• Cilantro

When to Not Eat Seafood Leftovers

Who among us has not left their leftovers in the fridge for too long? Sometimes, we eat food, and we do not notice that it has a strange taste or a funky smell until it is too late. Eating food that is old and past its prime might be okay if you are eating a chicken base dish, but if you eat red meat or a seafood-based dish, you are in for a world of gastrointestinal pain. So before you take out seafood leftovers in the fridge and put it in the oven, double-check and make sure it is actually okay to eat.

Reheat Seafood on the Stove

When you heat leftover seafood on the stove, do not use an oil that has a strong flavor or will change its flavor. Two oils that have neutral flavors are canola oil and olive oil. If you would like to change your food’s flavor slightly, you can always add a tablespoon of butter to the pan. 

Allow the pan to heat up properly before you add in the leftovers. When you place the seafood in the hot pant, it should make a sizzling noise immediately on contact. If it does not, the pan was not hot enough. Do not cover the pan and walk away. Seafood is easy to ruin, so stay close and stir it with a spatula continuously. Frying your leftovers should take less than 10 minutes.

Also read, What is the Best Fish for Frying?

Reheat Seafood in the Oven

Reheating seafood in the oven is quite easy, especially if you have foil or parchment paper so you can clean up the dirty pan quickly. The oven must be set to 425 degrees and, of course, make sure to clear out any pots and pans that are stored in the oven. When the oven is hot, place your leftovers in the covered dish and wait 15 minutes to heat up thoroughly.

Reheating your leftovers in the oven is a great way to reheat them and between the same texture and flavor. Actually, not many people who eat seafood say that some spices in seafood dishes actually improve the taste the next day. 

Reheat Seafood in the Microwave

Many people do not recommend reheating seafood inside the microwave. Here are a few reasons why:

The smell of hot seafood will stink up the microwave, and, because of the intense smell, anything that is placed in the microwave will also retain the smell of the seafood. Anyone who has tried to heat their seafood leftovers in the microwave knows the unmistakable smell of warm seafood. Also, the microwave does not heat food like a stove or oven wood. Instead, it moves around the water within the food. Microwaves are also known to change the texture of food. This is why people heat leftover pizza in the oven so they can have a crispy crust. Placing it in the microwave will make it hot but also turn the crust rubbery.

It is extremely easy to overcook seafood in a microwave. If left inside a microwave for too long, the fillet, shrimp, and crab meat will turn rubbery and won’t have the same flavor and texture. Plus, water is more likely to leak out of the seafood and create a mess. The microwave also breaks down the good fats within the fish that makes it so nutritious. So not only will you have rubbery, dry food, it will be less healthy for you.

Be Courteous Around Your Co-workers

There is one surefire way to make everybody in your office hate you. It’s not stealing from the company, nor does it involve moving up deadlines or increasing their workload. Some people perform their best when the pressure is on. But absolutely no one, no one in this world, enjoys the smell of hot seafood in a kitchen. Now we’re not talking about seafood dishes that are fragrant and delectable. We’re talking about the smell of hot seafood that has been laying out in the sun.

If you heat your seafood in the office microwave, this is exactly the kind of smell you will inflict on your coworkers who visit around the microwave. The smell is intolerable, and it is one of the banes of working in an office. So if you have seafood, just eat it cold. Nothing good will come from warming your seafood up and making your coworkers suffer.

Conclusion

There’s nothing wrong with heating your seafood leftovers as long as you know how to do it correctly. You can heat them in the oven for around 15 minutes or refry them on the stove. It can be rewarmed in the microwave, but remember that the microwave changes the texture of the fish, and the meat might taste rubbery.