STOP Wasting Holiday Food: Make your Leftovers Work for You
With the holiday season upon us, holiday foods are a key part of many family celebrations. After seeing how many of these holiday foods end up as leftovers at my house, I wanted to share some tips and recipes to ensure that your holiday favorites do not end up as food waste. Luckily, preventing food waste in your kitchen is as easy as planning ahead, being mindful of your leftovers, and sharing what you can’t eat yourself.
Tip 1: Plan To Reduce Waste
The first(and easiest) step to making sure your hard work and delicious holiday cooking does not go to waste is to properly plan for how many guests you will have. If you are anything like me, portioning correctly can be a serious problem. To help you plan enough food for your guests, click here to try Save the Food’s guestimator. Planning ahead and only cooking for the guests you know you will have will reduce food waste before it even happens. Regardless of how hard we try though, there will often be a little leftover food from our holiday dinners.
Tip 2: Be Mindful of your Leftovers
The next step in the planning process is to think about what you can do with any leftover food that may occur. To help you get started, we compiled a list of common leftover holiday foods– from none other than our own Food Rescue MAINE social media followers! Our social media intern, Kalina, asked, “What foods do you most often have left over after the holidays?” Let’s see what you said and how we can help!
1. Ham
Ham is typically the protein that my family cooks for Christmas. Every year, there is so much leftover ham that we would have to eat it for days to use it all up. To avoid this leftover fatigue, we always make pea soup. One other fan-favorite leftover ham dish is ham and cheese sliders- while this is typically done with deli ham, thinly sliced fresh ham would be a delicious substitute. These sliders are an excellent way to feed holiday house guests after your traditional ham feast. Check out this short video to learn how to make your own ham and cheese sliders!
2. Turkey
Turkey is another popular protein that our Maine audience cooks for the holiday, and it is so versatile! One of my personal favorite dishes is a chicken or a turkey pot pie. Click here to watch this video and make your own chicken pot pie. Pies and soups are excellent choices for using up your leftovers, because you can add many other leftovers – cooked veggies, onions, potatoes, salad greens – and they will still be good! Try making your own broth for your soup using vegetable scraps, turkey bones, and any small excess pieces of your turkey.
3. Mashed potatoes
Mashed potatoes are terrific as part of the holiday meal, but maybe even better as leftovers. Repurposing mashed potatoes can be so easy! Try forming handfuls of mashed potatoes into pancake shapes and frying them up in the bacon pan for a special breakfast treat!. A simple shepherd’s pie is another great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. Shepherd’s pie is a quick, one pan recipe with a very short ingredient list, and delicious flavors. Try out this simple shepherd’s pie recipe for yourself! Feel free to add any leftover veggies that you have, like peas, carrots, corn – a tasty way to clean up the fridge! If you find yourself entertaining a lot of people for the holidays, you may also want to try these fried mashed potato balls(they may be a great appetizer to go along with your ham and cheese sliders).
4. Canned Pumpkin Puree
While I love pumpkin, every time I have that canned pumpkin puree leftover from my pumpkin baked goods, it molds before I get to use it. However, with pumpkin being such a popular seasonal flavor, wasting it is easily avoidable. I personally love to make pumpkin pancakes, or have a tasty treat of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. It can often be difficult to come up with recipes to use up your leftover pumpkin puree, because the amount of pumpkin you have leftover could vary from a teaspoon to three-quarters of the can. Click here to read this article and find recipes for your pumpkin puree, no matter how much or how little of it you have.
5. Lasagna
Lasagna is a great meal to store in the freezer. Simply slice your lasagna into personal portions and store in a plastic or tempered glass tupperware in your freezer. When you are ready, just pop it in the microwave(or in the oven for a little extra crispiness).
If you are getting sick of eating the same lasagna, there is still no reason to throw it away. Like all good things, it may be even better as a soup! While lasagna soup is typically made with the ingredients that make up lasagna- before they are cooked and mixed together, there is no reason that you cannot slice and deconstruct an already made lasagna, and make it into this yummy soup. Check out this video to learn how to make lasagna soup.
6. Bread
BREAD. Everybody loves bread, and there is a reason for that- there are so many uses for it! If the bread or rolls that you got for the holidays are starting to get stale, that means it is time to get creative and turn them into something delicious. Homemade croutons, seasoned breadcrumbs, and stuffing are just a few of the many things that you can make with your leftover holiday bread.
Sometimes food waste is unavoidable, and we end up with more leftovers than we can manage. When this happens, get creative and make fun new things out of your leftovers. Try some of the recipes mentioned above, and even freeze whatever you have space to store.
Tip 3: Share With Others
If you still have food left over, remember that the holiday season is an excellent time to share with others. Check with your neighbors, friends and family, local college students, senior center, and even your local food bank or food donation site to see what types of food they accept. Visit FoodPantries.org to find a food pantry near you.
And always remember- Maine food is too good to waste.
-Hannah M., Mitchell Center Student Intern
I’m a novel-reading, chocolate connoisseur who enjoys *short but sweet* hikes, and trying new plant-based recipes.
