5 Easy Leftover Meals to Make from Scratch
I was very blessed to spend a big part of my childhood with my maternal grandparents. Not only were they very involved in our lives and spent lots of time with us, taking us fishing and skiing, but they also passed down many values that are still very important to me today.
Both of my grandparents were little children during WWII and young adults during the 1950s and 60s, when life in Eastern Europe was hard and food was precious and often scarce. For them, wasting food – any food – was a sin.
I remember my grandmother’s fridge being full of little bowls and jars containing bits of vegetables and other foods left over from the day’s meals, all waiting to be used up the next day. Like my grandparents, I value frugality, and I want to pass that mindset on to my own kids.
For this reason, I regularly make meals to repurpose whatever leftovers we have, so that as little food as possible goes to waste. Even when we kept chickens, I only gave them a small portion of our leftovers. Most of it, we ate ourselves!
In this post, I’m sharing my five favorite easy leftover meals for using up cooked meat, vegetables, rice, and bread – the leftovers we most commonly have in our kitchen. These simple, frugal dishes will help you turn yesterday’s leftovers into delicious meals your whole family can enjoy.
Why I Love Making Meals from Leftovers
Making meals from leftovers not only makes me a better steward of my resources, but it also saves me money (food thrown away is money thrown away!) and time. Instead of having to cook dinner completely from scratch, I can simply combine a few leftover ingredients to make something quick and delicious.
It also saves me freezer space. Rather than freezing small amounts of meat and vegetables in the hope of using them sometime in the future (which, let’s be honest, often never happens!), I can put them to good use today. My family gets to enjoy another healthy, homemade meal, and the leftovers are used up while they’re still fresh and at their best.
5 Easy Leftover Meals to Make from Scratch
There are five meals I make most often when I have leftovers to use up. I love them because they’re so versatile – I can easily adapt them depending on what I need to use up. They require very little prep time, are nutritious, and, most importantly, they’re kid-friendly! I have four kids ranging in age from toddler to teen, and these meals are some of their favorite things to eat.
Main Meal Soup
I love soups of all kinds because they’re healthy, frugal, and, when you add plenty of protein, they make a delicious main meal. Our favorite way to serve them is with buttered sourdough bread or rolls for a filling, nourishing dinner. I always make my soups with a base of homemade bone broth, which adds so much flavor.
You can make a soup with almost any leftover meat or vegetables you have on hand. I love making sausage and bean soup when I have leftover breakfast sausage and cooked beans to use up, loaded potato soup when I need to use up baked or mashed potatoes from the previous night’s dinner, or chicken pot pie soup with leftover root vegetables and cooked chicken.
If you have lots of different vegetables to use up, either raw or cooked, but your kids aren’t particularly fond of them, you can also make a smooth vegetable soup. Some of my kids don’t like onions and carrots, but they’ll happily eat a soup made with them as long as everything is blended until smooth. Add some sourdough croutons and grated cheddar on top, and you’ve got a very kid-friendly meal!
Many soups also benefit from a little dairy, so if you have some cream or milk that needs using up, simply stir it in towards the end of cooking.
As for sides, our favorites to serve with main meal soups are garlic bread, cheese toasties made with slices of sourdough loaf (another great way to use up older bread!), thickly buttered soft rolls, or even leftover homemade pizza from the previous day’s dinner.
Main meal soups are also perfect for lunch. When my husband worked in the office, homemade soup was usually what I’d make for him to take along in a thermos.
Hash with Leftover Potatoes, Meat and Vegetables
Hash is a quick, one-pan meal that’s especially useful for using up leftover roast or baked potatoes and cooked meat. The photo below shows my favorite chicken hearts hash, but almost any shredded cooked meat works well. I’ve made it with leftover ground beef, shredded lamb, and roast chicken, and it was always delicious.
If you don’t have much leftover meat to add, you can serve your hash with a fried egg on the side for some extra protein.
Potatoes aren’t the only vegetables that work well in hash. Sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, parsnips, cabbage, zucchini, and cauliflower are all great options, too. Harder vegetables, such as carrots and parsnips, should either be cooked beforehand or diced very small so they have enough time to become tender in the pan.
As a general rule, cook the harder vegetables first and add the softer ones towards the end. Also, avoid overcrowding the pan, otherwise the vegetables will steam instead of browning. This is another reason hash is such a great way to use up leftover roasted vegetables: they’re already cooked, so you only need to heat them through for a minute or two before your hash is ready to serve.
Hash works well for just about any meal, from breakfast to lunch or dinner. Try my chicken hearts hash recipe and simply swap the hearts for any leftover cooked meat you have on hand.
Savory Bread Pudding
Savory bread pudding is a great way to use up leftover cooked vegetables and meat, as well as stale bread and cream or milk that needs using up. I collect odds and ends of sourdough bread, buns, and rolls, cut them into cubes, and store them in a ziplock bag in the freezer until I have enough for a meal.
I often use leftover bread to make bread and butter pudding, one of our favorite frugal desserts, but you can also turn it into dinner with this savory bread pudding.
The recipe on my blog uses chicken breast, broccoli, potatoes, and mushrooms, but you can easily swap the chicken breast for shredded roast chicken, ground beef, sliced cooked sausage, or whatever protein you have on hand. Almost any vegetable will work in bread pudding. Some of my favorite additions are kale, cauliflower, squash, green onions, and zucchini.
Because it uses plenty of dairy, bread pudding is also a great way to use up cream, crème fraîche, cream cheese, or cottage cheese (blend the cottage cheese before adding it) that’s nearing its expiry date.
Bread pudding is quick to mix together, and, like the other easy leftover meals in this post, everything cooks in one dish, which means less cleanup!
Stir Fry with Leftover Meat and Vegetables
Stir-fry is a great way to use up odds and ends of raw vegetables, such as a few carrots, some kale, or half a cabbage that’s starting to look a little sad in the vegetable drawer. It’s also perfect for using up leftover roast chicken, beef, or leg of lamb. Just make sure to shred or chop the meat into small pieces before adding it to the pan.
I always start by sautéing some onion and garlic (although garlic and onion powder work too in a pinch). Then I add the leftover meat and vegetables, followed by cooked noodles. I season everything generously with fresh or dried ginger and soy sauce. If you’re using a mixture of raw and cooked vegetables, add the raw vegetables first and let them cook until tender. Add any leftover cooked vegetables towards the end, just long enough to heat through. This way, they won’t turn mushy or overcook.
If you have cooked rice to use up, you can make fried rice instead of stir-fry, using the same basic ingredients. You can also swap the ginger and soy sauce for curry powder if you prefer an Indian-inspired version. Any leftover stir-fry or fried rice reheats quickly and makes an easy lunch the next day, too.
Leftover Meat and Vegetable Pie
Meat pies, such as cottage pie, shepherd’s pie, and chicken pot pie, are all great for using up leftovers. If you’re using hard raw vegetables, it’s best to cook them before adding them to the pie filling. You should chop any leftover cooked vegetables into small pieces before mixing them with the other filling ingredients.
I often make cottage pie with leftover shredded beef, although ground beef works well, too. Chicken pot pie is another favorite and can be made with leftover roast chicken, finely shredded meat left over from making broth, or cooked chicken breast.
You can even collect small amounts of leftover meat and vegetables in a freezer bag until you have enough to make a pie. Leftover roast fish works great in a creamy fish pie with a mashed potato topping, too.
Pies have long been a practical way to stretch leftover meat and vegetables, so they’re a great option when you have odds and ends to use up. And you don’t need to make a pastry crust for every pie. You can top yours with a layer of mashed potatoes and some shredded cheese, or make a simple crumb topping by mixing breadcrumbs with melted butter and finely grated cheese.
A crumb topping is actually my favorite way to use up a good amount of sourdough breadcrumbs at once. I collect them every time I slice a loaf of bread, so I always have some on hand.
Finally, when it comes to winter cooking, few meals are as comforting and cozy as a good old-fashioned meat and vegetable pie!
Tips for Making Easy Leftover Meals
I make meals from leftovers probably every single week so you can say that I get lots of practice at creatively repurposing leftovers! Here are my tips for combining any leftovers into new meals:
You don’t need a large amount of any one ingredient to make it into a meal. Some leftover chicken, cooked potatoes, and a cup of broccoli may not look like much but together they can make a lovely soup or hash. I also sometimes collect leftovers in ziplock bags until I have enough for a meal for the 6 of us.
Plan ahead when cooking your original meal. I often make more roast chicken so I end up with some leftover meat, or cook extra potatoes. This way I have enough leftovers to make something the next day by just combining what’s left rather than having to cook a new meal from scratch.
Store leftovers in a way that makes them easy to use. I try to keep them on the same shelf in the refrigerator so I can easily see what needs using up. If I want to collect them until I have enough for a meal, I cube all bread and freeze in one bag, collect chicken in one bag, and then all cooked veg gets cubed and collected into another bag.
Master a few basic ways to combine ingredients. Some of my favorites are:
- Meat + vegetables + old bread + eggs + milk = bread pudding.
- Rice + meat + vegetables + curry spices = fried rice.
- Meat + vegetables + bone broth = soup.
- Potatoes + meat + vegetables = hash.
These basic combinations make it easy to use up whatever you happen to have in the fridge because they’re not strict recipes, but flexible formulas that you can adapt to the ingredients you have on hand.
Final Thoughts
I hope the easy leftover meals I’ve shared here inspire you to cook more frugally and waste less food. What are some of your favorite ways to use up leftover meat, vegetables, rice, or other ingredients you often find yourself needing to use up? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments!
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