Unusual Ways to Keep Food Warm During a Gathering

by Alison P.

You’re hosting for the holidays, it’s almost time to serve dinner, but you need to keep all the ready foods heated while you take care of some final mealtime tasks. You’ve already used every burner on your cooktop, every interior inch of your oven, your slow cooker, even your toaster oven. Are you completely out of warming space? Is there no hope? Are you just going to have to resign yourself to serving some courses ice cold? NO! If you’re willing to think outside the box, there are plenty of unconventional ways to keep foods warm before serving them that do not require an oven of any kind. Here are three unusual methods for keeping any overflow foods warm this holiday season!

An Electric Blanket

Obviously the food will need to be enclosed in some kind of container, but an electric blanket is a great choice if you’re in a pinch for heat and are okay with going the cocooning route. Just plug it in, wrap it around and over your food that needs warming, then turn it on. This solution is best suited for non-spillable fare, but as long as your food is inside a covered baking dish, it can be blanketed!

A Cooler

“But the word COOL is in the name!” we hear you protest. It may seem a little counterintuitive to use a cooler to keep something warm, but don’t be so quick to dismiss: Insulation is insulation, and the coolers of today offer more thermal security than ever! If your cooler has been stored in a basement or garage, it needs to come up to room temperature before it can be used as a warmer. You can turn up its internal temp by putting a hot water bottle or a pot of hot water inside, closing the lid, and leaving it for a few minutes. Once the interior is warmed, you can place any hot food inside and then close it up to keep it sealed in a container of still, warm air.

The Dishwasher

If you’ve accepted the cooler idea, allow us to take you to the next level of unconventional food warming: the dishwasher. No, it won’t involve soaking your food with hot water, and it will certainly not require soap. All you’d need to do is load your foods that need warming into the top rack of your otherwise-empty dishwasher, close the door, and turn on the “Dry” cycle. The interior will heat right up, turning your dishwasher into the kitchen multitasker you’d never realized it could be.

There’s a solution to virtually every culinary problem, especially if you’re willing to get creative! Keeping any (or all) of these warming solutions in mind means having plenty of toasty-warm aces up your sleeve for the holidays and beyond. Here’s to heaps of piping-hot food to make your holiday season extra delectable!