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How to cook to have leftovers - and a plan to use them up
We have hints and tips to make meal-planning less painful.
IT MIGHT SEEM counter-intuitive to cook more food than you need, but bear with us.
If you accidentally cook too much food, it can be painful – not to mention wasteful – to throw it away, so we’ve put together some ideas on how to best use up leftovers.
And while it might seem like madness to the uninitiated, another great idea in making mealtimes and preparation easier is to deliberately cook too much food one day and have these handy recipe ideas up your sleeve for the next mealtime.
Beef
Buying a joint for a roast can seem like a big splurge, especially if you’re only cooking for one or two people, but having leftover roast beef is a not a problem at all when you have a rake of recipes up your sleeve.
We’ve given a few ideas for recipes to use up leftover beef here, but also think of:
- mincing it and make burgers, cottage pie or lasagne.
- or making a stirfry with lots of veg or pizza like this guy here.
Chicken
A whole chicken can seem like a lot to tackle, but it’s generally more economical to buy and gives a great selection of dark and white meat, as well as the bones of a great stock (see what we did there?)
Here are some simple ideas to use up leftover chicken and even the carcass.
Stock – pick the meat off the bones, cover in water and bring to the boil. Simmer it for an hour and then strain it. You’ll have delicious tasting stock to use in the vegetable soup you’ll shortly be making with any leftover veg.
Salad - Adding chicken to a salad is great for rounding out the dish and making it a bit heartier. There are all types of fancy salads you could do – here are a couple of suggestions.
Chicken pot pie – A creamy (and possibly wine-y) delicious way to use up left over chicken, and the veg too. Here’s a nice recipe.
Rice
Cooking too much rice, deliberately or not, means that tomorrow’s dinner is almost ready before you’ve even got started.
Rice has been getting itself a bit of a bad rap, as it has been linked with food poisoning on occasion, but with the proper preparation and storage, you shouldn’t have any problem.
- Serve rice as soon as it’s cooked
- cool leftover/unused rice as quickly as possible – within one hour
- keep leftover rice in the fridge for no more than one day
- make sure the rice is piping hot when you reheat it
- only reheat it once – if there are still leftovers, throw them away
There are some great ways to use up rice besides just reheating it for another dish such as curry or stir-fry.
Stir-fried rice – with a little soy sauce and some veg and even chicken, you can make a hearty meal that can take mere minutes to have ready.
Arancini - these rice and cheese balls are coated in breadcrumbs and a decadent way to use up that left over rice. they are traditionally made from left over risotto so there’s already loads of flavour in there before you even get started. Here’s a recipe for arancini three different ways.
Soup – adding rice in the final minutes of cooking a soup will again add that hearty touch to the dish, and make it more of a meal. It’s particularly good in a tomato-based soup, similar to minestrone but with rice.
Potatoes
Left over mashed potatoes can be made into potato cakes for breakfast, can be used to top a variety of dishes such as shepherd’s pie, cottage pie and instead of pastry in a chicken pot pie - always* top with grated cheese for added deliciousness.
*Ok, you don’t have to, but we advise it.
It can be used (sparingly) to thicken sauces and soups and if you’re feeling particularly fancy you could make gnocchi out of leftover mash.
Left over boiled potatoes can be sauteed as a side for dinner or breakfast, or added to omelettes.
Vegetables
Vegetables can be easily whipped (or blended even) into a tasty soup – especially if you have some chicken stock like above.
They can be added to left over rice and heated through with a splash of soy sauce along and leftover chicken for a quick fried rice supper.
And depending on the veg (roast onion and peppers and potatoes work particularly well here) they can be added to an omelette or frittata.
Pork
We had a whole rake of pork ideas here but here’s a couple of good ways to use it up.
A burger of pulled pork is always a burger to go for.
Any kind of Mexican food – burritos, tacos, enchiladas, fajitas – especially if you have pork steak rather than pulled pork. Carnitas is a fancy (we mean Spanish) word for pulled pork.
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