How to Keep Food Hot in an Insulated Thermal

Tips & Tricks from our friends at LunchBots!

Our Insulated Thermal containers are built to keep your favorite pastas, soups, and stews deliciously hot and mm-mm good until meal time. Here are some important tips to keep your food hot no matter where you’re headed.

TIP 1: PREHEAT IT

Fine restaurants heat their plates to keep hot food hot when it’s served, and you can do the same thing with your Insulated Thermal. Just fill your container with boiling water and let it sit for 5 minutes. Discard the water and immediately fill your pre-heated Thermal with food. Now your hot food won’t cool down as soon as you put it in.

To keep cold foods cooler longer, pre-chill your Thermal in the fridge before use.

 

TIP 2: FILL IT LAST

Believe us, we understand the rapture of checking things off a To Do list ahead of time. However, when it comes to packing a temperature-sensitive lunch, it’s best to wait until just before you leave.

So: Pack your hot (or cold) food just before you head out the door and it will remain at the right temperature until meal time.

 

TIP 3: START HOTTER

Pack your food hotter and it’ll be hotter later. Heat your food to boiling (212°F, 100°C) before packing; it’ll be perfectly safe to eat in 3+ hours. Soups and stews retain warmth longer than scrambled eggs and hot dogs because they’re packed at a higher temperature.

Remember, it’s not getting eaten until later, so heat it hotter than you do for dinner and use the stove. Zapping in the microwave isn’t enough.

 

TIP 4: LOCATE WARMLY

Storing your Insulated Thermal container in a lunch bag with an ice pack will make it harder to keep your food hot. The same goes for hot foods in a backpack that’s sitting outside in the cold.

Whenever possible, pack your cold items separately from hot foods, and keep it all indoors.

 

TIP 5: FILL IT

Any thermal container is going to keep food warmer when it’s filled to the top than it will when you leave air gaps. Make sure you fill your LunchBots Insulated Thermal completely whether it’s an 8 ounce, 12 ounce, or 16 ounce container.

However, do not overfill the container; the lid needs room to close fully. If it is over filled, food may leak out when the lid is screwed on.

 

WHAT TO EXPECT:

We preheated LunchBots Insulated Thermals with boiling water as instructed in Tip 1 above. Then we filled each container with food heated to 206°F (96°C) and kept them in a room at 70°F (21°C).

After 4 hours the food temperatures were:

8 oz. Thermal Insulated Container: 135°F (57°C)
12 oz. Thermal Insulated Container: 150°F (65°C)
16 oz. Thermal Insulated Container: 125°F (51°C)

 

Original Post from LunchBots

How to Keep Food Hot in an Insulated Thermal