Are you someone who strictly follows a grocery list for a set menu or someone who buys a little of everything at the store, waiting to see what meals you decide upon?
Regardless, it’s frustrating when the lifespan of foods draws nearer and you realize you have odds and ends left. A carefully planned menu can still leave leftover ingredients, as does the menu that goes with the flow. It’s never enough to replicate one of the meals already made, and there can be multiple ingredients that you aren’t sure how to use them up in time. Unless you find an easy meal for the ingredients at your fingertips, you’ll have to create a hodgepodge casserole or let it go to waste.
Luckily, we have some delicious recipe ideas that you can customize with your leftover ingredients.
- A quiche is an easy way to use up ingredients and enjoy the results for several meals. Depending on your ingredients, you can make a quiche to serve as part of a weekend brunch or a quiche where no one will taste the egg at dinner. This crustless quiche even offers an option for when you don’t have time to make a crust.
- This rustic tart provides ingredient suggestions, but once you make the encompassing crust, whatever goes. Any leftover meat or vegetables can be used. Just remember to cover it in cheese before baking.
- For the random fruit you find in the kitchen, make a Greek yogurt bowl. Mix leftover fruit together and top with Greek yogurt and honey for an easy breakfast or an after-workout snack. You can also mix with oats for a meal on-the-go.
- What’s better than using up the last of your leftovers AND having no mess to clean up? Pack aluminum foil with your leftover protein, barbeque sauce, and potatoes and other veggies for a foil packet dinner. You’ll have a meal where all the flavors have blended in the oven and all the mess gets thrown away after.
- When you have more meat and vegetables than you can throw on a pizza, the obvious solution is to make a calzone. A pizza crust stuffed with cheese and tomato sauce, a calzone is the perfect way to combine all your topping favorites into a meal that is satisfying bite after bite. This recipe even suggests using leftover deli meat in it. Nice!