Six ways to up your leftover game

Do these next two sentences relate to you? “After dinner is over, I chuck any leftovers into a container and stash them in the fridge. Then, a week or later, I find them rotting in the fridge and have no other option than to throw it in the bin”. 

If they do, I want you to know there is hope for you. Often upping your Leftover Game is as simple as planning ahead, as well as giving yourself some grace when it comes to leftovers. Serving yourself and your family leftovers does not make you less of a great mom, partner, or provider. Serving and using leftovers actually makes you a great mom, partner, provider, and guess what? It's great for the environment and your wallet.

Phewf. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, what’s keeping you and your family from finishing up food that’s left behind after a meal? Why do you (and many other people) do this? Is it out of pure forgetfulness, boredom, or lack of knowledge of what to do with them? 

Let's all just agree that ‘leftovers’ does not translate to ‘old food’ or ‘bad food’ - its simply food that you had previously that's secretly screaming at you from your fridge saying things like “EAT ME” and “PAIR ME WITH THOSE SAUSAGES OVER THERE, WE WILL MAKE A GREAT TEAM”.

First things first - if you want to up your game, you have to HAVE leftovers in the first place. I know this sounds obvious, but if you don't plan ahead for this, sometimes leftovers just don’t happen. Take these vegetarian red lentil sausage rolls, for example, I knew this recipe would feed us for at least one dinner and one lunch, so it was a yes from me! Sometimes without preparing for this, you either have no leftovers, or you have way too many - both of which aren’t ideal (in my world). If you’re like my wife was when we first met and any other person who shops at stores like COSTCO and goes home with everything in extremely large quantities, TOO many leftovers can happen and you may end up eating the same thing all week and your freezer might fill up at an alarming rate. 

However, if we’re talking about how to up our Leftover Game, having leftovers is key, so let's talk about that.

1- Plan ahead

What can you make and easily store in the fridge so that by the end of the week you have some sort of resemblance of a good meal to last you a few more days? Leftover fettuccine might not make a full meal the next night, but you should be able to use it as a side dish for your grilled salmon. If you roast a chicken on Sunday, you should be able to pull apart some of it for tacos on Tuesday and make a soup on Thursday. If you've got a mound of rice (which you always should, IMO) sitting in the fridge, don’t be afraid to fry some up with your eggs in the mornings or add it to your tacos on Tuesday. 

Look at your week as a whole, when (if you do) you're meal prepping, and when you’re buying groceries. If you make enough of all the things, there should be several ways for you to use up all the different ingredients in different ways. Pretty much anything you make can be made into something else, and if it can’t (or you don’t think it can) it can always be manipulated in a way to be an addition to something you make tomorrow. The half avocado you usually find browning in your fridge, instead of letting it get brown before you put it in the fridge try preparing it into a simple guacamole dip and plan to have it the next day with some crackers, or on your toast in the morning. 

In our household, leftovers are key - we always have them and we always use them. There is always kale (massaged and drizzled in lemon juice) in a bowl ready to use, there is always cut up vegetables ready to use or snack on, there are always sauces readily available to turn anything into a stir fry, and if I’m being completely honest - sometimes we eat things for dinner that don’t traditionally go together, but taste delicious (just last night we had a massive veggie stir fry with a sausage on top - not something you'd traditionally find - but when it comes down to it, utterly delicious and something that needed to be done in order not to waste food).

It’s also important to note that leftovers don’t need to be made into something else. The simple act of reheating yesterday’s dinner is A-OK and something I’m a huge fan of.

2- Cook/prepare more veggies than you’re going to need

Veggies are key to a well-rounded meal, in my opinion. I’d say that I eat 95% vegetarian, so if there are veggies prepared, I can promise you that I don’t go hungry. If I’m making (or my wife is making) a stirfry, she always makes sure that she at least makes enough veggies to make a meal the next day, whether that be for quick lunches, or to have for dinner again. The amount of time that is saved by making double is enough to make a huge difference in the long run and you might enjoy having a bit of extra time in the future. 

If you’re anything like me, and most other people in this world, the whole ‘out of sight out of mind’ thing really comes into play when it comes to vegetables and fruit. Carrots and celery hiding in the crisper of the fridge (out of sight) don’t really scream “eat me” but carrots and celery are all cut up in a Tupperware with a bit of water (to keep them firm) on the shelf where I can easily see them do. I am more inclined to eat the fruits and veggies that have been made ‘snackable’ and are front and center when I open the fridge. What this small prep task does is that it also makes dinner prep a bit easier. When heading to the fridge to grab some veggies for a pasta sauce, a stir fry, or to accompany a chicken breast, they’re already cut up and ready for cooking - saving you time (again).

3- Proper storage

Do you have enough reusable containers, beeswax wraps, mason jars, and space in your fridge/freezer to accommodate leftovers? None of these things need to be expensive if you find that the answer is currently no. Often takeout comes in containers that can be reused a couple of times. Store-bought pasta sauce comes in decent-sized jars that are great for leftovers. Hummus and other dips come in containers that could and should be used again. Your neighbours and friends also likely have some that they could give you, or you could check out resources like Facebook Marketplace for FREE items that could help you. If you’re happy to spend a bit of money, feel free, but definitely don’t think that you need to. I am happily on, and forever will be on team ‘Reuse and Recycle’ wherever possible. 

When it comes to storage in your fridge, what I’ve found is that if you can SEE what's in the container, you're more likely going to use it. If the container is still covered in labels or is made of something that you can’t see through I find that to be the time when those leftovers get lost in the back of your fridge. Spending some time organizing your fridge and your freezer so that you’re set up for success should definitely be part of your strategy. Maybe you have one shelf on your fridge that is strictly the “leftover shelf”, which would set you up to know that anything that is on that shelf must be used by the end of the week. Initially organizing your fridge is a great place to start - look through it, take it all out, wipe the shelves (I know, I know, another task), and put things back in a way that makes sense. If you find a handful of things that are soon to go off or things that are nearly empty - let's use those first!! Out with the old, and in with the new.

4- Schedule a weekly “Leftovers Night”

… and don’t be afraid to turn last night's dinner into today's lunch. Leftovers Night does not make you a bad mom, or a bad spouse, or a bad anything - so get that out of your head. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - humans are not only “great” if they come up with new things every night to feed themselves and their families. There is a lot of pressure in the world already, we don’t need to let it consume us in the kitchen too.

The Leftovers Night is amazing, and it's something that so many families do (and love). If you make it a THING, it becomes expected, and it gives you the space to get creative with leftovers. Will it always be a hit? No. Will everyone love it all the time? No. Will you remember what you made and how you made the meal IF it was a hit? Not always. But, what I can promise you is that you will feel good about yourself. Using up all your ingredients is a feel-good thing because let's be real for a second - there is way too much food waste going on in the world these days. So, by dedicating a day for leftovers, you’re doing your part for the environment and your family, and by doing so you are practicing your creativity in the kitchen. The more you do it, the better you will get, I promise you. 

Leftovers are also GREAT for lunches, and not just for adults. I was hanging out with my niece and nephew the other day and in their lunch, they had a cold chunk of corn on the cob, and guess what? THEY LOVED IT. They were absolutely excited about the fact that they got that in their lunch and what that says to me is this - if kids can do it, so can you. Nothing needs to be perfect or ‘Instagram worthy”, it just needs to make sense for you and your family. In the end, food is fuel, and the goal of eating is to be fueled. It doesn't always need to be fancy, it just needs to do the job sometimes.

Have leftover chicken from Taco Tuesday? Great - plop that in a wrap with some lettuce, tomato, cucumber, hummus, and guacamole and BAM, you’ve got yourself something for lunch tomorrow. 

Have leftover stir fry and a bit of rice? Portion it into a single serving size (maybe in a jar and shake it all up) so you can easily grab that out of the fridge, heat it up, and eat it for lunch.

Have a handful of raw veggies leftover at the end of the week and don't know what to make? Don’t make anything! Have a veggie platter for lunch with veggies, dips, crackers, cheeses, and anything else you can grab. Try different combinations and try to use up things that you have in your fridge. 

Leftover soup, but not enough to fill you up? GREAT! Heat it up with some of your leftover veggies and pour it over rice (or any other grain you have) and now you have a new dish that resembles a stir fry but isn’t a stir fry. 

Is the crisper starting to look bare and is filled with a bunch of random veggies? Cool, let's get that all in a saucepan with some herbs and spices, some diced tomatoes, and anything else you’ve got hanging around, and VIOLA, you’ve got yourself a pasta sauce!

Leftover pasta? Don’t you be throwing that out! Plop it in a pot of boiling water for a minute or two tomorrow, and use it again. Or, make a cold pasta salad. Or, use it in the morning as the grain portion of your omelet breakfast or fry up a hash. Most grains can be substituted for each other, even when it seems weird. Weird doesn’t have to be a bad thing, I promise. 

5- Label and Date your leftovers

Leftover cooked food is usually good to eat for 3-4 days in the fridge (give or take). If you have more than you think you will eat in that time frame, your best bet will be to portion and freeze your food. Labelling and dating your foods (with tape and a Sharpie) is the easiest way to stay on top of this. Thinking ahead and knowing whether you will use the leftovers in the time frame that they’re still good is going to be up to you. If you’re not sure, plop it in the freezer and make a note of what's in the freezer so you don’t forget about them. 

When it comes to the freezer - remember that it's not this deep black hole that you’re not allowed to visit. Please! Go into your freezer just as often as you go to the grocery store. If you have a freezer don’t just let food go there to die. You can have portions of grains in the freezer, you can have soup stocks in the freezer, and you can have all sorts of proteins left over ready to use. 

Let's say you make a large ham (which is highly recommended) and eat it a few times before it goes into the freezer. If you portion that ham into usable portions you can always take them out as needed for sandwiches, for Sunday morning breakfasts, and for soups. 

Not all leftovers will be in the fridge, and not all need to be used in the same week. This ties in nicely to the ‘planning ahead’ step mentioned before. The goal is to have the least amount of food waste as humanly possible and to speed up your dinner process so that you’re not spending hours in the kitchen when you really don’t want to.

6- Clusterf**k Casserole

Now, this is something I contemplated sharing, but because I trust you all and value you all, I decided it's finally time. My wife is the QUEEN of Clusterf**k Casserole. Now, before you get ahead of yourself and wonder what I’m even talking about, just imagine my wife (if you know her this won’t be too hard), cleaning out the fridge and listening to jazz music (the jazz music makes her feel like a professional chef, LOL). At least once a week she will get all the things out of the fridge and she will *somehow* put it all together into one big casserole dish. When it comes to casseroles, she says that the key is to build layers. A layer of the grain, a layer of veg, a layer of sauce, a layer of the grain, a layer of cheese (or something sticky - hummus works wonderfully), and so forth. By putting it in the dish like a big lasagna, and putting it in the oven until it starts to boil, you can ensure that all your foods are joining together into one incredible force known as Clusterf**k Casserole. It's important to know that no casserole will ever be the same and that every casserole often makes at least one more leftover meal. 

The key to this is in the week ahead. Often we don't cook with a lot of sauces in the moment, and we choose to add our sauces once the meal is on our plate, or at the end of the week with this casserole. Without adding all the sauces to each individual dish, we sort of ‘play it safe’ so that our leftovers can all go together seamlessly. By choosing to keep all sorts of sauces and dressings on hand, we give ourselves a head start in the leftover game. What we’ve found is you can take most leftovers from a 4 to a 10 with the addition of some of your favourite sauces, like ginger scallion sauce, chimichurri sauce, pad thai sauce, homemade salad dressings, a spicy mayo, a satay peanut sauce, a ginger soy sauce, or something as simple as the traditional hummus. 

By now I hope that you’re realizing that it's quite simple to up your Leftover Game. No two weeks may look the same, but the feeling at the end of the week might start to feel repetitive. By choosing to plan ahead, store your food properly, eat what you have, and cut down insanely on food waste, you’re going to start to feel great about your decisions. Your wallet, your fridge, and your environment will thank you. 

My hope is that by writing this blog, I contribute to bettering the environment and clearing out just one of your fridges. All I need is one of you to commit to upping your Leftover Game, even just once. Obviously, this all works better if upping your Leftover Game is something you commit to on a regular basis and I want you to know that I'm excited to hear all about your progress. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. My inbox @dunnebells_ is always open on Instagram and I’m always open to chatting on Facebook as well in our FREE group @Be The Fire Fitness Fam. If you want to share your progress and your creations, please tag me on Instagram using @dunnebells_ & #dunnebells so I can share with everyone how we, together, are changing the game of rotten food in the back of our fridges!

Oh and also this - if you’re absolutely against leftovers (because I know people who are and who refuse to eat them) don’t feel pressured to participate. However, if you do have leftovers and will not eat them yourself - try to find someone who will, either in your family or in your circle. There are many people currently going without food right now who would likely benefit heavily from the meals that might start going hairy in your fridge. 

Okay, have a good day - I'm off to go throw some stuff together for lunch before I head out for the day.