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!

Holiday Leftovers Recipe: Ham Potato Soup Cups

Still got some of that Christmas ham hanging around? Try this delicious recipe to give your leftovers a creative face lift! It is also a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes, peas, dinner rolls, and some of that chicken broth that you didn't use last week while cooking Christmas dinner.

Ham Potato Soup Cups
(Serves 4.)

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup diced smoked ham
4 sliced green onions
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups mashed potatoes
1 (14 oz) can chicken broth (or 1 1/2 cups)
1 cup milk
1/3 cup sweet green peas
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
salt and pepper
2 cups torn up dinner rolls
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:

• Melt butter in a large saucepan; add diced ham, green onions, and minced garlic; cooking over low heat until garlic is fragrant.
• Add the mashed potatoes, broth, milk, peas, and thyme, stirring to combine.
• Turn heat up to medium and bring to a boil, immediately reducing heat to low, then simmer slowly for 10 minutes or until soup thickens, season with salt and pepper.
• Spoon into 4 broiler-safe bowls. Scatter the torn dinner rolls and sprinkle with the shredded Cheddar cheese. 
• Place bowls on a broiler pan 6 inches under broiler turned on high, and broil 1 to 3 minutes or until top bubbles and gets golden brown.
• Remove and let cool slightly before serving.

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!

Recipe: Holiday Leftovers - Ham Salad Sandwiches

If you've still got some ham rattling around in the fridge, check out this recipe for a tasty yet simple twist on the ham sandwich. Mustard, pickle, and onion gives it a kick, but rather than the usual sliced ham, this ham salad incorporates the spices right into the meat, so you'll get a yummy flavor combo in every bite.

Enjoy!

After The Feast Ham Salad Sandwiches

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup leftover ham, chopped
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp pickle relish
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp grated onion
salt and pepper to taste
kaiser rolls or other sturdy bread

Instructions:

1. In a food processor, put the ham and pulse until finely minced.
2. Put in a bowl and add the remaining ingredients; taste and season as desired.
3. Spread mixture on bread, bun, or crackers for a quick lunch or dinner the next day.

Recipe: Leftover Ham And Cheese Stratta

Yum - this makes a great breakfast!  Or even lunch, for that matter.... This is a great way to use up some of that leftover ham from your Easter dinner. Breakfast favorites you probably already have on hand like milk, eggs, and bread are spiced up with green onions, mustard, and cayenne pepper, while bacon adds its signature smoky flavor to the mix. Use whatever cheese you like - from fancy to simple - it will be delicious either way!

Leftover Ham And Cheese Stratta(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:

Preparing for strata. (Photo credit: digitalprimate)

2 cups milk (preferably whole, organic, and non-homogenized)
1 cup chopped green onions
4 eggs (free range)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
10 cups bread, cut into cubes
1 cup diced ham
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Gruyere or any cheese you have
4 natural-cured bacon slices, cooked and crumbled

Directions:

1. Lightly spray or rub a baking dish with oil.
2. In a large bowl, combine milk, green onions, eggs, mustard, and pepper, and whisk until well blended.
3. Add bread cubes and ham to the bowl and stir to combine. 
4. Pour mixture into baking dish, then sprinkle cheese evenly over the top.
5. Cover and put in refrigerator overnight.
6. When ready to bake, remove dish from refrigerator and let sit at room temperature while you preheat oven to 350 degrees.
7. Uncover dish, and bake for 20 minutes.
8. Fry the bacon and sprinkle over the top of the dish, then put back in oven and continue baking for 15 minutes or until hot and eggs are set and cheese has started to brown. (Serves 4 to 6 and can easily be doubled.)

What to Do With Easter Dinner Leftovers?

The day after a holiday, often leftovers become old news. We eat them, because we don't want all our hard work of the day before to go to waste, but really we're not that enthusiastic about them - they've kind of lost their appeal. But your leftovers don't have to be a reheated repeat of last night's dinner. You can take your leftovers in a whole new direction by thinking about them in a whole new way.  It can be a challenge to arrange your leftovers into a main course without getting bored, but it can be done. Let's take a look at how to serve up a follow-up meal with as much excitement as the first time around.

Spicy Moves

Yay! Love those leftovers.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Trying to remake your leftovers into a main dish can seem pretty overwhelming at first. But, just like cooking a dish the first time, often the end result depends on the spices and seasonings. Take a look in your spice cabinet and you'll probably see a dozen or more ways to perk things up again. Open your refrigerator and look at the different mustard, salsas, hot sauces, vinegars, and other ingredients that can add new life to your leftovers.

Leftover green bean casserole can be given a new Asian inspired direction. Heat with teriyaki, soy sauce, and maybe a little sesame oil, toss with bean sprouts and chopped water chestnuts and wrap in wontons or serve over cooked rice. Instead of just using your leftover ham in yet another sandwich remake classic, marinate cut up chunks Cajun style in a little cumin, cayenne pepper, thyme, hot sauce, smoked paprika and a bit of oil and vinegar and add to gumbo or jambalaya. Think of the seasonings you like in other meals and take your leftovers for a trip to that side of the taste palate.

Put On a Fresh Face

Leftovers are often unappreciated as a replayed main course because the dishes just don't have the pizazz they did the night before. One of the reasons is that chilled foods can lose their color, aroma, or texture. It is important, if you want to successfully use your leftovers as a main course, to recreate the appeal in new ways.

If mashed potatoes are on the menu two days in a row, using the leftovers the second night takes some planning. The first night you may want to have smashed potatoes instead. Just lightly smash the potatoes with a hand-held masher with butter, salt and pepper and serve. These rustic potatoes are very appealing the first night, but boring the second. For the repeat, throw the potatoes in a bowl, add room temperature cream cheese, a touch of sour cream, more butter, and even some chopped chives, then whip with an electric mixer until fluffy. Blending in fresh herbs with leftovers that have lost their appeal overnight in the refrigerator is often all it takes to bring back the excitement of your favorite dishes.

Leftover ham (Photo credit: kregarious)

Costume Change Time

It is believed that almost 80% of a dish's enjoyment comes from senses other than taste, like aroma and appearance. If you take the time to make your dish look appealing and smell divine, it will usually taste better, too. This is especially important for leftovers since you have already experienced the flavors and your palate could get bored if repeated.

When you dish up that leftover piece of ham, is there a pleasing aroma that makes you anxious to enjoy it?  The spices and seasonings from the first night's dinner have probably faded in the refrigerator.  Kick it up a notch by refreshing the seasonings, or pop it in the oven for a few minutes with sprinkling of brown sugar on top - that will really get your taste buds going! A variety of color, textures, heights, and aromas can, and does, make your leftovers taste better the second time around.

There are lots of ways to turn your leftovers into a great main course the second, third, or even fourth time around. It takes imaginative seasoning, creative construction, an eye for style, and a nose for all the fabulous aromas that cooking has to offer. Does that sound like a tall order?  It really isn't, all it takes is experimenting with what you already know to find the talent waiting in the wings (or fridge)!