Creative Ideas for Using Up Traditional Holiday Leftovers

Holidays always leave us with a ton of leftovers. I guess when you feed a house full of guests, you just get left with a heap of food.  It's not entirely a bad thing, but sometimes it's hard to feel all creative about food that you just spent twelve hours cooking. Well, it is time to regroup and recharge, and rethink the typical leftover redoes. How do you turn holiday leftovers into something fun and exciting to eat? Here are a few ideas to help you get started on the path to cleaning out your refrigerator without boring your family.

Shift Cultures

Turkey enchilada casserole ingredients. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If your holiday dinner was the classic American feast, your table was filled with turkey or ham or lamb or beef, green bean casserole, stuffing, bread, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, corn, cauliflower, and just about everything else imaginable. Instead of just reheating the same dinner over and over again in exactly the same ways, with exactly the same flavors, why not shift your culture a bit and try something a little bit outside of what you're familiar with.

Chop up your ham or turkey and mix it with some mashed potatoes, wrap it in a little wonton and make your very own Polish perogies. Spice up your leftovers with classic Italian seasonings and recreate them into soups, salads, casseroles or salads with a Mediterranean flavor.  Get out your soy sauce, sesame oil, and turn your leftovers into Asian inspired dishes. Squeeze some lime, chop cilantro, and grab the tequila to marinate your leftover turkey to use in a simple Mexican inspired wrap. Use leftover bread and make a wonderful bread pudding using English inspired recipes.

Shift States

In order to get really creative with your leftovers, all you have to do is shift states.  No, not continental states, but science states. Remember learning about solids, liquids, and gasses when you were in science class? Yes, those states. For instance, you can transform a solid ham bone into a delicious stock for a bean and zucchini soup. You can also use that stock to cook rice or steam some vegetables. Your once-solid ham bone has now been changed into a liquid and a gas...and it never tasted better. Don't forget the frozen state. Puree your cranberry orange relish in some orange juice and turn it into frozen treats or ice cubes for drinks.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Or, if you want to get super creative, and you have some small children at home, you can combine flour and your leftover mashed potatoes to make a mashed potato play-dough. Not only is it fun to mold, it is absolutely non-toxic, and, yes, edible.  It's one of those things that, although it doesn't really get eaten, the leftovers are put to a good use: keeping the kids busy. So, once again you have shifted the state of your leftovers; this time from a food to a toy!

Shift Your Beliefs

When you have a bunch of leftover food, the only way to really enjoy it during the constant reappearances is to totally rethink what the food is.  You have to forget that the potatoes are potatoes, for instance, and think instead that they are a thickening agent, or play-dough!  Turkey can be pureed, too, and turned into a pate if you like, and even used to stuff deviled eggs.

Even desserts can be rethought.  If you are fortunate enough to have leftover pecan pie, think about scooping out the filling into a sauce pan and melting it down.  Then whisk in a good balsamic vinaigrette and pour it hot over a spinach and bacon salad.  All the ingredients are there; they just needed to be re-imagined.

If you want to use up your leftovers quickly and creatively, all you need to do is think about where your food is and where it can go. Your leftovers may need some creative seasoning. They may need to be transformed into different physical states.  Get creative, get cooking, and help your leftovers reinvent themselves this week!

Orchestrating The Repeat Meals: How to Plan for All Those Leftovers

When you are counting on leftovers to make your meals for the next day or two, it is important to actually try to shoot for certain dishes, ingredients, and the amounts you'll need to produce your meals. Here are some great reminders so you can plan for the leftovers you need for the meals after the feast is over.

Plan to Increase Your Production

Stuffing. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You know it is going to happen. Certain leftovers disappear faster than others, some even before they get a chance to cool off in the refrigerator. If you know this is going to happen, because it's happened year after year, then plan ahead. Assume your family will gobble up what they have in the past, and just make more. That way you can put away enough for your leftover meals and you and your family can help themselves to the rest.

If one of your favorite casseroles is scalloped potatoes and ham casserole, and the ham seems to disappear into sandwiches the day after the feast, then by all means, make a bigger ham, or even two smaller hams.  Since you have the oven going anyway, why not cook two; one for your holiday dinner and one for leftovers.  That way your family can devour the leftover ham and you'll have another supply to turn into your casserole.

When the stuffing disappears from the turkey the first night, it can be disappointing the next day when you're looking to make those wonderful deep fried cheese stuffing sausage balls.  So, while you're working on one batch of stuffing for the bird, make a second batch and put it in a casserole dish. You'll now have enough stuffing leftover for your treat the next day.

Plan to Have the Right Extras

Along with the amount you need to create meals with your leftovers, comes the actual ingredients you'll need to put your favorite leftover meals together. Not all flavors work well with others, and not all ingredients compliment certain dishes. If you plan out the meals you want to prepare with your holiday leftovers, you can tweak the dishes themselves so they fit in with your plans.

Thanksgiving leftovers! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For instance, if you want to fill the freezer with little stuffed muffin cups, you'll have to decide what you want to stuff them with.  A simple mixture of chopped turkey and stuffing will mean you need leftovers of both. Not only will you want enough turkey and stuffing, but you'll need to consider the type of stuffing you make for your holiday meal.  Will it work in your stuffed muffin cups?  If you're making an apple walnut stuffing, or an oyster stuffing, it may not be the right ingredient for your stuffed muffin cups.

You can see how planning how your dishes will translate into your leftover meals is important. If cranberry citrus glazed pork tenderloin is on the menu the following day, you will want to be sure to have cranberry orange relish on the menu. If you're choosing between corn or broccoli for your holiday meal, and cheesy broccoli soup is on the menu the next day, then by all means choose the broccoli.  Of course, if you plan on making corn chowder, too, then make corn along with the broccoli and you'll have what you need for your leftover meals.

If you don't plan your leftover dishes ahead, there is no guarantee that you will actually have any of the leftovers there when you need them for your next dish.  Or, you may be looking at your marshmallow, brown sugar, walnut, and maple syrup sweet potato casserole and realize that your plan to make savory sweet potato soup just went out the window.  Yes, casting the players for your holiday meal means planning the right amount, and the right type.  This will help ensure that the repeat performances are big hits, just like the original!

Creative Breakfast Ideas for Holiday Leftovers

Well, Christmas is behind us for another year, but we've still got to deal with the leftovers.... After a full day of cooking for friends and family, the last thing you want to do the next morning is to figure out what to make for breakfast. Not to mention, your refrigerator is already crammed full with leftovers, so there is no room to put anything else. Why not use what you already have on hand to make an unbelievable breakfast? Here are a few ideas to get your morning-after ideas flowing.

An omelet with ham, cheese, and a garnish of spices including oregano and parsley. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Classic Omelet

You wake up in the morning, struggling with the classic L-Tryptophan and high carb hangover and the last thing you want to do is get creative with your breakfast. Especially if you are in charge with feeding the same group you fed twelve hours ago. If you want to make a great breakfast, without a bunch of effort, you can always turn to a classic omelet.

As soon as you walk into the kitchen, unpack your refrigerator with all of the leftovers from the night before. Cut up some of your leftover turkey or ham, scramble some eggs and throw it all together with some leftover tomatoes, broccoli, and cheese from your salad. If you want to really give your omelet a kick, try incorporating a bit of cranberry sauce into your recipe. Throw in a scoop of leftover green bean casserole, too. The sky's the limit; or rather, the refrigerator's the limit.

The Simple Fritter

If you are not in the mood to scramble some eggs for the omelet, you can pull out two easy leftover  ingredients; mashed potatoes and stuffing. Combining your stuffing and your mashed potatoes in a ratio of 1 to 1 will give you an incredibly thick paste that you can mold and shape into patties. Once you have the mixture, you can fry them in a small amount of oil and prepare to be amazed.

Add some green bean casserole and a little diced ham or turkey to the mixture if you want to make your patties even heartier. Making this addition will give you a completely rounded meal and it will help you reduce the amount of leftovers that are just sitting in your fridge, which is always a good thing.

The Elegant Quiche

Quiche. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you have your coffee and find you have a little more energy, you may want to show off a little. Impress your guests with the creative ways you can reuse your leftovers by making a quiche. A holiday quiche is like a holiday dinner all wrapped up in a fluffy egg! You will be able to enjoy the tastes you know and love while also having a healthy and delicious breakfast.

Your quiche can be the full spread, or just a few of your favorite leftover dishes. When you have a bunch of leftovers, you can include as many as you like. If you want to give this quiche a twist, try scrambling some pumpkin pie filling in with the eggs to give it that classic sweet nutmeg taste you love during the holidays. Just be creative. It all tasted good together on the table, so why not together in a quiche?

The morning after the big Holiday meal shouldn't be a lot of work for you, especially if you spent the entire day prior cooking food for an army. Use what you have, re-purpose it and give your family a new breakfast dish they can only get during the holidays each year. They will love it!  And to think, all you had to do was gather dishes from the refrigerator to appear in the morning sequel!

Reinvent Rather Than Resurface: Holiday Leftovers With A New Face

Having leftovers after the big holiday meal is not always a bad thing. As a matter of fact, many families actually look forward to these repeat performances. What you don't want is to have to settle for the same old holiday leftover sandwich. With a little bit of prep time and some imagination, you can create  new ways to enjoy your holiday favorites. Let's take a look at some creative ideas to re-purpose your holiday leftovers.

Soup Sensations

Leftovers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Start your reinvention by creating a soup stock out of the turkey carcass. Once you have your stock, you have the beginnings for meals that don't resemble a sandwich in the least. Make a simple turkey soup by dicing up some of the leftover turkey, then add to the stock with vegetables and noodles or rice for a hearty meal. Don't forget to include other leftovers in your turkey soup ideas. Sweet potatoes, processed until they're smooth, then thinned with turkey stock makes a wonderful smooth and satisfying soup.

You can make other familiar soups, as well. If you have leftover ham and a ham bone, for instance, you can make a wonderful minestrone soup. With leftover corn or crudite, you've got a good start. Your ham can also be the start to a classic pea soup.  Consider using up a few leftovers at the same time.  Make your ham stock and stir in leftover mashed potatoes for an wonderful potato and ham chowder.  And don't stop there.  Consider the ingredients in green bean casserole; green beans, dairy, mayonnaise, soup, onions; if you puree this particular leftover and add to some stock you have a creamy vegetable soup that can be the base for any chowder.

Salad Without Limits

Simply cutting up leftover turkey, ham, or other meat and topping a big lettuce salad can be a treat. Now look at your other leftovers.  Are there still radishes, carrot sticks, celery stalks, olives, and cheese left from the holiday meal?  Throw them on the green salad.  And don't stop there. Are those nuts I see on the buffet?  Perfect topping for your salad.  You can even whisk together a little leftover cranberry sauce or cranberry and orange relish with balsamic vinegar and create a unique dressing for your turkey and greens salad. (See last week's recipe for an example.)

Of course, you can expand your salad beyond the lettuce with topping style. Cut up your leftover meats and mix in a vinaigrette or salad dressing, stir in leftover corn, celery, radishes, onion, carrots, or even fruit and nuts.  Serve in a bowl or over a bed of crunchy lettuce or cabbage. Don't limit yourself to one temperature, either.  Go ahead and serve heated or roasted leftover meat or vegetables over greens. Drizzle with olive oil and vinaigrette for a nice combination of hot and cold, sweet and tangy. Toss in leftover cranberry sauce, too, hot or cold.

Green bean casserole (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Casserole Creations

These one dish meals are already a hodgepodge of ingredients mixed together to form an easy to make meal, so why not make a holiday casserole full of your favorite ingredients? Stack the mashed potatoes and stuffing and turkey to make a super simple holiday version of shepherd's pie. Want to stretch your creation a little more? Roast any leftover vegetables from your crudite tray and put in a casserole dish, then top with slices of turkey. Then spread the leftover cranberry sauce or relish over the turkey, cover and bake.  You have a turkey vegetable casserole that has the tangy surprise of the cranberries. 

Leftover green bean casserole is always a fun challenge.  Yes, you can reheat and serve it up again as a side dish.  Or you could incorporate it into a big, beautiful scalloped ham and potato dish.  The flavors and textures are perfect when you put them all together. Green bean casserole is also the perfect addition to a pot pie or shepherd's pie.  Leftover mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and sweet potatoes are also perfectly suited to use in casseroles, either as the bottom or top, or to thicken liquid ingredients.  And don't forget the buffet snacks.  If you have nuts, cheese, olives, or other goodies leftover, try to incorporate them, too.

Bread Gets a Boost

A fun substitution to try is using mashed white potatoes instead of flour in a quick bread. Try using about one cup of mashed white potatoes as a substitute for two cups of flour in your recipe and get a dough that is more moist and has more flavor than your typical homemade dough.

Another bread boost is using leftover sweet potato casserole, especially the sweetened recipe type, in a quick bread that normally calls for another moist ingredient, like zucchini or apple.  If you've got the cinnamon-marshmallow casserole already, the bread turns out very delicious and fun.  You can also add leftover vegetables to any quick bread recipe to add color and nutrition.  And don't forget leftover cheese or nuts.

Sauces Get a Second Audition

Gravy and cranberry sauce are two versatile ingredients that may go overlooked if you're overwhelmed with turkey, potatoes, and stuffing.  After a holiday dinner, chances are you will have a few sauces left over.  Gravy seems to grow in the bowl, so start by rethinking beyond the potato topping sauce.  Of course you can use the gravy to pour over sliced turkey in a casserole.  You can also use the gravy to make hot shredded turkey sandwiches.  But, the gravy is also basically a thickening agent, making it a perfect addition in creating thick, hearty stews and casseroles.

Your leftover cranberry sauce is a natural choice to make muffins or quick breads.  As mentioned above, cranberry orange relish also makes a sweet and tangy salad dressing when whisked with a little vinegar and olive oil.  You can also use this sweet relish in baking cookies.  Pair cranberry orange relish with a soft cheese for a great appetizer. Cranberry sauce, without or without the oranges, makes an excellent glaze for grilled pork, too.  You will definitely want to plan for leftover cranberry sauce after all these ideas.

You don't have to be satisfied with eating the same holiday meal over and over again until your leftovers are gone. Be creative and unique. Use your leftover ingredients to make something new that your family will love – and won't recognize!