Many of us have a habit of cooking way more food than we can possibly eat in one sitting, which means that our fridges inevitably end up packed with all manner of leftover meats, vegetables rice and lord knows what else.
This leftover food, although perfectly edible, often end up being thrown in the trash, which is such a waste, and so needless when there are so many things you can do with them!
If your fridge is always full of leftovers, and you’re sick of the waste, why not start using them by trying out some of these creative ideas instead?
Make your leftovers more purposeful
Before we get into what you can do with those leftovers you have, it’s worth pointing out that if you plan your leftover more intentionally, then using them up the next day will be far less effort. What do I mean by this? I mean, for example, if you are making a casserole today, cook twice as many vegetables, keep a little stock and you have the beginnings of a great soup tomorrow, or if you’re making your favorite recipe for chicken curry in 15 minutes, saving the carcass so you can make chicken soup the next day. Obviously, being this organized is not always possible, but when you can plan your leftovers in advance you will dramatically reduce your food waste without any effort.
Stick it in a smoothie
If you’ve cooked too many veggies the night before, a really easy way to use them up is to add them to a healthy green smoothie for breakfast. Not only will it help your leftover kale avoid the trashcan, but it will ensure that you get a huge hit of healthy vitamins and minerals first thing in the morning too!
Make ice cream
If you have leftover cake, cookies, or brownies that you don’t want to spoil, place them in a blender, or simply break them up by hand, leave a carton of ice cream out to slightly melt and mix the pieces in. Put the ice cream back in the freezer and you will have created your own cookie dough or birthday cake ice cream in an instant, and probably save yourself a few dollars on the cost of store-bought in the process too.
Make a stir fry
Whether it’s leftover steak and chicken or leftover veggies, you can cube it all up and sizzle it in a quick stir fry for the easiest 5-minute meal of your life.
Save your stale bread
Stale bread is often one of the biggest culprits when it comes to food waste, and unless it has actually started growing mold, it is so needless because most stale bread can be saved by cutting it in half lengthways, sprinkling it with olive oil, and rubbing with garlic or tomato. Throw it in the oven wrapped in foil and bake until warm. When it comes out, it will be almost as good as freshly baked warm bread, and a great accompaniment to soup or pasta.
If you prefer, you could blitz stale bread and turn it into breadcrumbs for coating chicken or fish or binding meatballs, for example.
Have a kitchen sink dinner
When all else fails, but you don’t want to throw the leftovers out, why not have a kitchen sink dinner. What’s that? it’s basically a pick and mix dinner where you lay out all of the leftovers and a bunch of condiments and you will help yourself to whatever you fancy from the fridge, It’s the ideal meal to have on those days when you just don]t feel like cooking, but you really don’t want to eat out either, and it can be surprisingly tasty with the addition of ketchup, pickles, a nice side salad, and some decent bread. So, why not give it a go today?
Save those scraps
You might think that there is nothing you can do but throw away your potato peelings, onion skins, or carrot tops, but that is not true. If you have them all in a Tupperware box in the fridge or freezer, then once you have collected enough, you can use them as the basis of a really great stock for soups and stews.
As you can see, there are lots of nice things you can do with your leftovers, and most of them are pretty simple, so there’s really no need to throw your food away, well unless it has past its best of course – safety first
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what do you think?