As title suggests, in your opinion what are some of the best recipes you know that have good leftovers?
We hate cooking everyday, and love when there are leftovers, especially tasty leftovers. What dishes in your recipe book lend themselves to tasty, easy to reheat leftover meals?
Cottage pie is probably the one I can think of that is dominant in our household. Cheap and tastes almost the same reheated.
I was going to post a link to Once A Month Meals (or is it Cooking?) but it looks like they charge a subscription now. A lot of sites have freezable recipes now.
Anyhow, it’s different than leftovers. Cooking lasagne? Make 4 trays. Burritos? Make 25. The key to freezer meals is to cool them completely before freezing and wrap it tightly or else you’ll get frost. For pasta, get those tin trays and use press&seal to store. For burritos, wrap in parchment paper, then foil as foil can stick to the tortilla.
Nice of you to call it: Cottage Pie.
That’s a big pet peeve of mine.
Pasta for us.
I also like to do pita wraps/donairs sometimes that last us a couple days. Just cut up all the ingredients on the first day and then it’s just an easy warm up the pita and stuff it with the chicken and veg the next day. Works well for taco mix too like ground beef, just swap the pita bread for tortilla.
What do you put in the pita wraps specifically?
Dirty rice with andouille sausage, shepherds pie, pizza, tacos (assuming all the parts are refrigerated separately; putting an assembled taco in the fridge doesn’t really make good left overs IMO), soups, fried chicken… Nothing with pasta. Cold pasta is gross and reheating it never comes out good.
Leftover pasta needs to be baked.
Reheated pasta is a thing here in Italy. If I am not mistaken, there are some recipes which started as a way to use pasta leftovers.
Take cold pasta, pour in oven safe container, sprinkle cheese, broil, bang —> gratin!
This is the way
In a way that doesn’t make it just become mush? Cuz, like, I make it al dente and it’s great; but if I save it and reheat it, its like super overcooked and that’s my main problem with leftover pasta. It loses all its chew.
It may depend on the way you reheat it.If you use the microwave then it may become mushy.
You can try the oven like “pasta al forno” or “pasta pasticciata”. These recipes should spawn from the need to consume pasta leftovers.
Or, you can try to reheat using some non sticky pan with oil. Depending on how much oil you use it can become some sort of fried pasta, with some very crunchy bits. It doesn’t come to my mind any recipes based on this way of reheating but I can assure you that every Italian has tried it and someone likes it more than fresh made pasta (including my SO)
Pancit bihon is the most amazing leftover I have ever eaten. Only mine, though. I add more soy sauce and garlic than is the norm.
The majority of soups are also much better after they have rested in the fridge overnight. Especially chowders. But also pho.
Chili, as everyone is saying.
Gumbo, and also oxtail stew, I won’t even serve them the first day, they are so much better after a rest in the fridge.
Not cooking but any time we get pizza hut pizza I get a pan pizza to reheat - all that extra fat in the crust crisps up, it is so good reheated and not good the first day.
Any big hunk of meat is good because the first day it can be meat, rice, and beans, then tacos, then nachos or soup/chili or enchiladas.
Also if you don’t like cooking (I do but have competing priorities) a big Tupperware of salad made in the weekend can help throughout the week.
I love doing Pulled Pork for lunches and dinner. Great for a meal and then it’s great to put in other dishes. Nachos and quesadillas for lazy days and then great in soup
Lasagna
Chili. Almost any stew, really. They only get better when they sit longer.
Any stew type thing is generally easy to scale up and usually follows the “better the next day” character. Goulash, curries, thick soups (beef barley is my favorite), and chillis.
There’s no change in texture from reheating, which I think is key to good leftovers. Anything baked is going to dry out yet not be crisp, and anything fried is going to be soft and sad. Applying these principles to other things, and you come across things like lasagna as well.
For stuff that is baked, grilled, or pan fried, if it’s something you can cook a bunch of, but pull most of it when it’s 80% done, you can sometimes reheat that ok. We’ll make 4 burgers out of a pound of meat, and either cook up 2 and just leave the other 2 for tomorrow, or say, pull 2 off when they’re pretty rare, and cook the ones we’re eating to medium. Then the next day, by the time the patties are heated through, they’re to the right doneness.
Curry always tastes better the next day.
Not Japanese curry. It can get kind of grainy.
Chili (I modified the “Joy of Cooking’s” McCleod chili recipe with fresh chilis and roasted red peppers)
Julia Child La Beouf Bourguignon (This actually gets better the longer it sits in the fridge).
Baked Ziti (Cooks Illustrated)
Chicken Tinga (Bon Appetite recipe)
Do you make your cottage pies with minced beef?
For some reason I find the beef fat takes on an unpleasant flavor/texture when chilled and reheated. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.
Pizza is one of my favorite ledtovers, though. Cheese is good warm or cold.
Bolognese and chilli are awesome. They usually taste better the next day since the sauce had time to soak in all the flavours from the spices we use.
Soups are also really good and full of flavour. Our current favourite is a coconut milk rice noodle soup with lemongrass and curry paste in it. Tastes really fresh, a little spicy, and the rice noodles add a nice consistency to the meal. Top it off with some fried, marinated tofu and you’re golden
Baked beans.
Super easy to make, not hard to make delicious, taste just as good the next day, freeze really well.
Similarly, black beans.
If u have a leftover ham bone y can add that in as well gives u a nice flavour and u get some nice meety chunks as a bonus.
Yessss.
Meat and bone scraps are so great to cook with.
