The One Step To Never Skip When Warming Bread In The Microwave

Whether buying it at the local bakery or baking your own, bread is a staple in many cuisines and meals. Although you can use bread to make homemade croutons, breadcrumbs, or bread pudding, many of us enjoy it sliced fresh and warm in a bread basket to accompany a delicious meal to soak up the dishes' flavors. You may have learned the hard way that microwaving bread can quickly dry it out if you're not careful; luckily, there's a simple fix that will leave you with soft and fluffy results every time.

Before microwaving your bread, cover it with a dampened paper or kitchen towel — just make sure the towel touches the bread directly. This will prevent it from drying out, as the water in the towel will lock in the bread's moisture. You can also cover the entire bread with a second layer of dry towels while microwaving. Not only will your bread be warm, but its texture will be similar to freshly baked bread; whoever is eating it won't know the difference.

The water in the paper or kitchen towel will retain the bread's moisture, but microwaving it with too much heat or too long will zap the moisture right back out. That's why you should heat your bread on the low power setting for no more than a minute, checking in every 10 seconds. The trick is to heat the bread until it's just warmed through. If you overheat it, the consequence will be chewy or dry bread. If the bread you're planning to warm up is frozen, give it time to defrost before microwaving, as this will allow it to regain its natural moisture.

Microwaving an entire loaf? Slice it first before covering each piece with the moistened towel so the bread warms through evenly. Keeping your microwaved bread warm on the table is also possible, as you can use microwaved rice in a paper bag as a makeshift warming base for your bread basket. Microwaving bread correctly is a skill that's definitely worth having, as freshly warmed bread has the power to win over hearts — or at least some eager-to-return dinner guests.