Dinner leftovers comprise the majority of the lunches in my household. By eating them, we save money and avoid wasting food. Sometimes we really enjoy leftovers, but other times we merely tolerate them. Let’s be honest: Some foods just aren’t as good the second time around!
In an attempt to avoid mushy, monochromatic remnants, we’re employing creative ways to make leftovers more appealing.
Ways to jazz up leftovers
- Practice “stew”ardship. Combine leftover meats, veggies, pastas, and/or rice with some broth and spices to make tasty soups and stews.
A stew made of leftovers. - Get saucy. Sauces cover over a multitude of unsavory tastes and textures. Revitalize leftover veggies with cheese sauce. Drizzle a creamy custard sauce over stale cake to give it a new lease on life.
- Use a decoy. Enhance the appearance of drab leftovers with color-contrasting garnishes. The bright colors of things like paprika, chives, parsley, and shredded cheese can make a huge difference.
- Camouflage it. Is the leftover pasta a little mushy? Hide it amidst some fresh pasta. Are the leftover green beans limp? Hide them in a stir-fry.
- Wrap it up. Wrap leftover salad and chicken (or other meats) in a tortilla or other flatbread to make a satisfying wrap. Roll leftover beans and rice into a burrito. Fold some shredded cheese and leftover chicken into a tortilla for a quick quesadilla.
A quesadilla made with leftover chicken. - Get scrambled. Just about any leftover veggie can be scrambled with eggs for a hearty breakfast.
- Experiment with substitutes. Substitute leftover pancakes for bread when making a PB&J sandwich. Substitute leftover waffles for an English muffin when making a breakfast sandwich. Pour Swedish meatballs over leftover mashed potatoes instead of preparing noodles.
- Pack a bento box. A bento is a single-portion packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. Traditionally, a bento contains rice, fish or meat, and veggies. Are these items among your leftovers? By placing them in a divided bento box, they look very appealing. (Even if you don’t pack a bento box, consider repackaging leftovers in individual servings. A small amount of food contained in a loosely covered casserole dish that needs to be washed is nowhere near as appetizing as an individual serving in a neat glass dish with an airtight lid. It’s much easier to reheat the leftovers this way, too!)
A bento box available on amazon.com. - Ditch the “leftovers” label. The term “leftovers” just doesn’t sound appetizing. Names like “surplus,” “rehash medley,” or “highlights” sound a bit more enticing!
If you have any questions about how to safely store or reheat leftovers, you can get answers from the USDA here.
Do you eat a lot of leftovers? How do you make them more appealing? Please share your favorite tips below.
Shared on the following link-ups:
Works for Me Wednesday, Domestically Divine Tuesday, Teach Me Tuesdays, T.G.I.F., Thriving Thursday, From House to Home, Thrive @ Home, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Welcome Home Wednesday & Encourage One Another.
My daughter does the most beautiful Bento boxes for her husband’s lunches. She prepares them right at the table after supper each night and then ties it all up with silverware in a large linen napkin.
I keep a soup container in my freezer. I add bits to it until it is full and then it goes into a pot with a can of tomatoes and a container of my homemade chicken broth. Every pot is different and delicious.
Hi Lana,
Making the Bento boxes after supper sounds like a great way to save time. Keeping a soup container in the freezer sounds super convenient, too!
Now that my kids are out of the house my husband and I don’t have as many leftovers as we used to, but when the girls were younger and after a week of collecting some leftovers we had many, I would lablel dinner as “fisherman’s catch”–whatever you could catch, you could eat. I would lay out all of the options and each of us could have whichever combination we chose, which often pretty much cleaned out the collection.
Just calling it somethng different helps usually. It could also be considered a “treasure hunt” and it becomes a different mix of things done this way.
“Fisherman’s catch” and “treasure hunt” are both great alternative names!
I love these ideas! My husband and I eat leftovers for lunch almost every day, too. For the most part I don’t do much to change them, but occasionally I’ll pull them back out for dinner and at that point I call it a smorgasbord. 🙂
I really like your idea of stew, wraps, and a scramble–I’ll have to keep those in mind!
Hi Laura,
All of those you mentioned–stew, wraps, and scrambles–are all especially great if you have a small portion left (too little for a full meal).
Your link at Works-for-Me Wednesday is broken! If you go back today, you can still fix it. (I got here by clicking the post in the sidebar of your error page.)
These are great tips! I like your pun on stewardship and the tip on packing individual servings. I like to take those servings in my lunch for work.
My mom says that when she and my dad were newly married, they bought some used furniture from an older couple. While the guys were moving it, the older lady took my mom aside to tell her The Secret of a Happy Marriage. It was, “When you have leftovers, heat them up with plenty of butter. He’ll never know!” My mom was amused but also touched at the idea that this lady’s husband had been kindly pretending the leftovers were a new meal for so many years.
I have lots of ideas for using leftovers on my Thrifty Tips page.
Thanks for letting me know about the link! I believe it is fixed now.
I hadn’t thought about butter as a way to improve leftovers. 🙂 That’s a sweet story.
Thanks for the link to your tips.
Neat ideas!