Wrap the tamale in a damp paper towel and heat it on high in short bursts. Give it a minute to sit before you unwrap it.
The towel holds steam against the husk, which keeps the masa soft. It suits a few precooked tamales, refrigerated or frozen, when pulling out a steamer feels like too much work.
Microwaves leave cold spots, so a single reading can’t be trusted. USDA FSIS (2020) tells cooks to check reheated food with a food thermometer at 165 F in more than one spot.
A timer won’t tell you whether the middle of a dense tamale has caught up with its edges.
How do you microwave tamales?
Wrap each tamale in a damp paper towel and set it on a microwave-safe plate. Heat at high power in short rounds, flip it halfway, and let it stand a minute before you unwrap.
The towel traps steam against the husk. Short rounds keep the masa from drying out before the center catches up.
A microwave-safe plate and some white paper towels cover most of it. The instant-read food thermometer is the part people skip.
- Take the tamales out of any foil or plastic bag and leave the corn husk on.
- Wet a paper towel, wring it out until it stops dripping, and wrap it loosely around one tamale.
- Set the wrapped tamales on a plate with about an inch between them. When you heat 2 or more, arrange them in a ring with the narrow ends pointing toward the center.
- Microwave on high in 30-second rounds, using the times in the table further down.
- Flip each tamale halfway through to break up hot spots and cold spots.
- Let them stand about a minute, then check the center with the thermometer.
- Peel off the towel and husk, and serve.
USDA FSIS microwave guidance (2011) says to rotate or turn food midway because ovens leave cold spots where bacteria survive. It also says to allow standing time, since cooking continues after the oven shuts off.
A full tray does better in a steamer or the oven than on a plate in the microwave, and the other ways to reheat tamales get their own walkthrough.
Microwave time and power level for a few tamales
Figure on about a minute per thawed tamale at high power. Frozen ones need a full minute more. Check in 30-second steps either way.
| Setup | Time | Source |
|---|---|---|
| One tamale, thawed or refrigerated | 1:00 to 1:15 | Del Real Foods spec sheet (2024) |
| One tamale, frozen | 2:00 to 2:15 | Same sheet, frozen adds 1 minute |
| Pouch of 4 tamales, thawed, heated in the pouch | 3:30 to 4:00 | Del Real Foods school SOP (2020) |
| Canned tamales in sauce, 15 oz | 3:00 on high | Hormel (2025) |
Del Real’s pouch time works out to 52 to 60 seconds per tamale, so each extra tamale costs close to a minute. Two tamales fall between the first and third rows, so start at 2 minutes and check.
The Hormel row covers canned tamales heated with their sauce in a loosely covered dish. It does not transfer to wrapped tamales.
On power level, Hormel’s recipe calls for high (100% power). Del Real’s directions give times without naming a power setting at all. The 30% power setting in USDA FSIS guidance (2011) is for defrosting, not reheating.
Wattage matters more than people expect. Read the label inside the door. Both manufacturers call their times approximate because ovens heat at different rates, so a lower-wattage oven needs the long end of each range plus extra 15-second rounds.
Both also close with a 1-minute stand before serving.
Reduced-power advice for reheating shows up in plenty of online guides. Neither manufacturer writes its directions that way.
Frozen and refrigerated tamales: thaw first or heat straight through?
Either works. USDA FSIS confirms that frozen leftovers are safe to reheat without thawing, though the heating takes longer.
The same agency sets the storage window: refrigerated leftovers keep for 3 to 4 days and frozen ones for 3 to 4 months (USDA FSIS, 2020). Frozen leftovers stay safe past that point but can lose moisture and flavor.
Wrapping and container choices that protect the masa are covered in a separate piece on storing tamales properly.
Reheating from refrigerated
Refrigerated tamales take the base times in the table with no adjustment.
A frozen batch moved to the fridge the night before counts as refrigerated by morning. USDA FSIS says refrigerator thawing takes the longest, but the food stays safe the entire time because it stays cold.
Thaw it on a plate with the husk still on, and heat it inside the refrigerator storage window. There’s no need for a defrost round.
Reheating from frozen
- Straight from frozen, add 1 minute to the thawed time, heat in rounds, and flip between them.
- If you’d rather defrost first, run the defrost setting until the tamale gives slightly, flipping halfway, then finish at high power in short rounds.
Ice absorbs microwave energy poorly, so a frozen center lags while thawed edges keep heating. The defrost step narrows that gap.
Food Network’s reheating guide has you re-wet the towel after the first round and heat only one or two tamales at a time.
Anyone warming a whole freezer batch is better served by the steamer and oven routes for frozen tamales.
How to keep tamales moist in the microwave
For one or two tamales, a damp paper towel does the job. Past that, a vented glass dish holds steam better. Leave the corn husk on either way until the tamale is hot.
Which cover works best
The damp towel is what Del Real Foods prints on its spec sheets, and it needs no extra dish. It sits tight against the husk, so the steam stays at the masa. On long rounds it dries out and needs re-wetting for frozen tamales. Use plain white towels, since USDA FSIS (2011) recommends white, unprinted ones.
A covered dish holds steam around several tamales at once. A Pyrex or other glass dish qualifies, and Hormel’s canned tamales go in a loosely covered dish. The catch is that the lid or wrap must be vented, and plastic wrap cannot touch the food (USDA FSIS, 2011).
A bowl of water beside the tamale humidifies the oven with no towel to wet. But the water soaks up part of the oven’s energy, so times stretch, and the bowl comes out scalding.
The towel wins for 1 or 2 tamales. A vented dish wins past that. The water bowl rarely earns its place.
Husk and wrapping
Leave the husk on while heating and remove it after. An exposed husk tip dries first, which is why the towel covers the whole tamale, and Del Real’s directions end with unwrapping after the stand.
Take aluminum foil off before heating. USDA FSIS (2011) lists food completely wrapped in aluminum foil as unsafe in a microwave oven, because the food cannot absorb the microwaves.
Plastic wrap is fine only if it’s the microwave-safe kind, vented, and held off the food.
Foil is the one that does real damage, since food sealed in it will not heat and wrinkled foil can arc inside the oven.
Checking that tamales reach 165 F
Push an instant-read food thermometer into the center of the tamale once it has rested and look for 165 F, the reheating target USDA FSIS sets for leftovers.
Edges that burn your fingers prove nothing about the core.
Probe the thickest part of the masa and filling, not the tip. Take readings in several spots, since microwave cold spots make a single reading unreliable, and read after the rest, because dense food keeps cooking longer than light food (USDA FSIS, 2020).
A low reading means another short round, another rest, and another check.
The target itself is 165 F (74 C), the minimum internal temperature for reheated leftovers (USDA FSIS, 2020). A cold center sits in the range where bacteria grow rapidly, 40 F to 140 F (USDA FSIS, 2020). On top of that, microwaves only reach 1 to 1.5 inches into food, so the core of a thick tamale heats by conduction from the outer layers (Hong Kong Centre for Food Safety, 2010; USDA FSIS, 2011).
A thermometer beats every printed time, because tamale size and oven wattage change the answer.
Why microwaved tamales turn dry, rubbery or cold in the center
Bad microwave tamales usually fail in one of a few ways: dry masa, a rubbery or gummy texture, a cold center under hot edges, or a scorched husk. Nearly all of it comes down to timing and moisture, with plate layout mattering now and then. Each has a quick fix.
Dry or stiff masa
A Texas A&M University master’s thesis on corn tortillas made from nixtamalized flour found heavy amylopectin retrogradation within 24 hours of storage, leaving the product brittle, and found that reheating restored the texture (Fernandez de Castro, 1998).
Tamale masa starts from the same nixtamalized corn, so a stiff tamale straight from the fridge is most likely starch chemistry, not a failed batch. Heat reverses it.
Re-wrap it in a freshly wetted towel and give it one short round. Rest it before you check again.
Rubbery or gummy masa
Rubbery masa usually means overheating. Every round past hot-through squeezes more water out of the masa, and Hatch Chile Store (2026) notes that a short overrun without a towel is enough to harden it.
Gummy masa is mostly a water problem. A dripping towel or a sealed lid leaves the surface pasty, and resting the tamale uncovered lets the masa firm up again.
Less time fixes rubbery. For gummy, cut back on the water.
Cold center with hot edges
The core lags the surface, so the fix is time and spacing, not more power.
Published times for one thawed tamale disagree. Hatch Chile Store (2026) lists 1 to 2 minutes from the fridge on high, and Tamale Boy lists 2 to 3 minutes.
Neither page states a tamale weight, and size and filling density decide how long the core takes. Treat every printed time as a starting point and let the thermometer decide.
Center cold and edges steaming? The round was too short for that tamale, so add one. A single cold side means it never got flipped, and a cold middle after a long heat usually points to a crowded plate. Split the batch into rounds.
Brittle or scorched husk
Husk ends that poke out past the towel dry first and curl.
Fold the towel over the open ends, and shorten the rounds once the husk starts to feel stiff.
When another reheating method beats the microwave
Skip the microwave when the count outgrows a plate or when texture matters more than speed. A steamer or oven handles a dozen tamales at once, and an air fryer buys crisp edges.
| Method | From the fridge | From frozen | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steamer | 15 to 20 min | 30 to 40 min | Soft masa for a full batch |
| Oven, foil, 350 F | 15 to 20 min | 25 to 30 min | The oven is already on |
| Instant Pot, high pressure | 5 min | 10 to 15 min | A frozen batch, hands-off |
| Air fryer, 350 F | 8 to 10 min | Thaw first | Crisp edges on 2 to 4 tamales |
Times come from Hatch Chile Store (2026), which steams the tamales it makes. The Instant Pot figure is cook time only, before pressure build and a 5-minute natural release.
Steaming needs a basket, a lid, and water held at a simmer, and the steps for steaming tamales are covered in their own guide.
My rule of thumb is simple. A few tamales and a few minutes, microwave. A dozen or a full tray goes in the steamer or oven. A frozen batch with no time to thaw suits the Instant Pot or steamer, and if you want crisp edges, thaw first and use the air fryer.
Every alternative has its own trap.
- A hard boil in the steamer throws water into the masa and leaves the outside soggy.
- Tamales baked bare in the oven turn into bricks, so wrap each one in foil.
- A quick release on the Instant Pot pulls moisture out of the masa, so let the pressure drop on its own.
- In the air fryer, frozen tamales dry out before the middle warms, and USDA FSIS (2024) warns that an overfilled basket heats unevenly.
Microwaving Tamales FAQ
Can canned tamales go in the microwave?
Yes. Spread them with their sauce in a single layer in a microwave-safe dish, cover loosely, and heat on high until hot.
Remove the paper wrappers before serving, and check the center with a food thermometer.
Is it safe to microwave tamales still in the plastic pouch?
Only when the label says so. Some manufacturers heat the sealed pouch, while others tell you to take the tamales out and wrap each one in a damp towel.
USDA FSIS says to use only containers and wraps made for the microwave, and its unsafe list includes cold-storage containers such as margarine tubs, so unmarked packaging comes off first.
Does this method work for raw tamales?
No. It reheats tamales that are already cooked.
Raw masa and filling have to cook through to a safe temperature, and the standard route for uncooked frozen tamales is steaming for about 60 minutes.
Do sweet tamales need a different time?
Not because of the flavor. Size and filling density set the time, so sweet tamales follow the same short rounds as savory ones.
Mini sweet tamales finish sooner, and Tamale Boy’s own directions give them less oven time than its regular tamales.
How many times can you reheat tamales?
Each reheat has to reach 165 F again, and USDA FSIS says previously frozen leftovers reheated to that temperature can be refrozen. Some agencies, such as Nunavut’s, advise discarding reheated leftovers instead.
The masa also dries a little more with every cycle, so heat only what you plan to eat.
Handling Leftover Tamales After Microwaving
Tamales left after microwaving belong in the refrigerator within 2 hours, or within 1 hour when the room is above 90 F (USDA FSIS, 2020).
USDA FSIS says to discard perishable food held past that window, because reheating does not undo time spent warm.
The order of the work decides how much masa quality survives. Portion them into single servings first, since each tamale then meets the microwave only once more. Pack them in shallow, covered containers, which USDA FSIS names as the way to cool food fast. Then get them into the fridge before the 2-hour mark.
It costs a few extra containers and some fridge space, and in return no tamale gets reheated twice.
A quick check on how long leftovers keep in the fridge sets the date for the next meal.
