Heating Cooked Chicken in a Microwave

Heating cooked chicken in a microwave is straight forward – I do it all the time. I mostly cook chicken from raw in the microwave if I just want to cook a meal for one, but at other times I’ll cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker, or cook up chicken breasts.

Clearly I can’t eat all of this in one sitting, so I immediately cool it and put it into the fridge in a covered container, to eat later, or even to freeze.

At other times I’ll pick up a pack of cooked chicken from the supermarket. From this I will make up a quick roast chicken dinner for one, by microwaving frozen vegetables and serving those with roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and gravy – much nicer than buying a ready meal roast dinner for one as I get to choose the quantities and what’s on the plate!

However a chicken’s been cooked, once it’s been chilled properly and kept in the fridge you can reheat cooked chicken in the microwave very quickly and safely. If you want to read more about that, check out this page: Reheating Chicken – Safe? 

The main thing to think about is that the chicken must be reheated thoroughly, so it’s very hot, all the way through. Usually I’m dealing with slices or chunks of chicken. I’ll put the chicken into a microwave safe dish or jug, cover it, then microwave on full power for 2 minutes. Then I’ll give it a stir or a shake, to make sure there are no hot spots, or cold spots, then I’ll microwave it for a further 1-2 minutes. My portion sizes are small though.

If you are microwaving more chicken, or even a whole chicken, it might take you 5-6 minutes. If it’s hot throughout and steaming it’s cooked.

To be safe, the chicken must be cooked to at least 75°C/165°F throughout.  So if it’s steaming hot throughout that’s way above this level.

Just make sure you don’t have any cold spots or warm spots at all.