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.
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.
Lasagna
Curry always tastes better the next day.
Not Japanese curry. It can get kind of grainy.
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
Chili. Almost any stew, really. They only get better when they sit longer.
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.
And add a carrot and an onion and baby, you got a stew going.
Honestly I can’t remember the last time I cooked something WITHOUT carrot and onion.
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.
Rice and beans yumm
How do you get rice to hold well? It’s always dry as shit and never as good the next day for me.
Chilli con carne + rice
Spaghetti bolognese
Lasagna
Spinach & ricotta canneloni
Slow cooked braised beef & penne
Thai green curry + rice
Slow cooked butter chicken + rice
Slow cooked lamb korma + rice
Soups (pumpkin, potato & leek, pea & ham, etc)Also we tend to freeze batches of leftovers without pasta/rice as it saves a lot of space in the freezer and throwing some fresh rice or pasta is little effort while the frozen meal container defrosts (fresh rice & pasta is much better, but frozen does work for a true reheat-only meal)
+1 spag bolo. It’s hard to not make leftovers with it
Anything rice-based reheats well
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
I don’t like leftovers. I prefer when it gets made into something else.
Roast chicken becomes soup, tacos, or enchiladas.
Grilled steak or chicken gets chopped up and put in the freezer to make quesadillas.
Chili becomes chili dogs or chili con carne on cheese enchiladas.
My mom used to cook a couple pounds of ground beef and then season bits as needed for tacos, sloppy joes, or spaghetti.
If I want to prep for multiple days and eat good after the prep, I’m making freezer friendly burritos.
Refried beans, rotisserie chicken, diced raw onion, and cheese. Heat up the couple I’m eating then, and throw the rest in freezer bags. Reheats well in the microwave, and I just toss it on some shredded iceberg along with a hefty bit of Cholula on top. Fake chicken and without cheese works good too if you’re vegan.
The only other thing I do in batches is Chili like so many others suggested. I’d do more if it weren’t for a shared kitchen that’s a staircase away from my fridge.
When I do burritos, I refrigerate the hot fixings separately and only heat what I’m going to eat. I can usually get the food to last for a week in the fridge.
Roast chicken.
Cook a bird on Sunday afternoon and pick on the remains all week.
Vermicelli rice. Next day I make it into fried rice or mix it with minced meat, egg and fried onions making some meat balls.
What is vermicelli rice?
https://everylittlecrumb.com/vermicelli-rice/
Learned it from my Egyptian brother in law
Thank you! Not what I would have guessed.
