By: liz west – CC BY 2.0A lot of the Offbeat Home tips for cooking at home to save money, save time, and be more healthy require making a big batch of food and then eating part of it throughout the week.
While I’m totally fine with eating the same thing every night, my partner kind of turns up his nose at leftovers. He says he’s bored by the same meal the next day. Even if it’s not exactly the same — like using the same chicken but in enchiladas one day and in a salad the next.
I want to stop buying so much takeout food and frozen food a la Megan’s frozen pizzas.
Got any tricks for mixing your leftovers up MORE without making tons more work? -B
I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who aren’t so thrilled about leftovers, or eating the same thing over and over. Since ending the second challenge I think I might have found a possible solution to that…
I had often made too much of one certain ingredient — bulgar wheat, rice, and fake beef — for each one recipe. Because I had so much of one main ingredient for three different meals, I just mixed it up when it came to leftovers. One night I’d re-make the bulgar wheat salad, one night I’d re-make the vaguely Middle Eastern dinner, and one night I’d make the taco salad again. If I had more skillz I might have been able to make different recipes with the same main ingredient.
But the tl;dr version is make a large amount of ingredients (that keep well) for several different recipes so you can stagger your leftover usage throughout the week.
So Homies, what advice do YOU have for making leftovers feel less leftover-y?
I'm a 40-year-old potty-mouthed writer with late-diagnosed ADHD and a shit-ton of anxiety. I live in my hometown of Los Angeles with a husband, a daughter I never planned on having, and a senior rescue dog. Anything else you need to know can be gleaned from my instagram and my TikTok.
Comments on How do you make leftovers feel less leftover-y?
I wrote the most amazing response but my pad died and I lost it and am too pissed to rewrite it.
As someone who avoids leftovers myself, first thanks to all the comments and the post itself for the awesome ideas! My girlfriend d is a huge leftover fan, and one way we work with our divided opinions is that she takes her leftovers to work as lunches for a week, it makes us both amazingly happy.
But I would very much like to start saving and our food budget could use a cut. For that sake I personally love the idea of cooking ingredients plainly and seperately, allowing them to become a different meal each night with variations in spices and by adding a few extra bits here and there. Also the idea of freezing sounds awesome, and I think we could put that to great use.
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I wrote the most amazing response but my pad died and I lost it and am too pissed to rewrite it.
Maybe later.
As someone who avoids leftovers myself, first thanks to all the comments and the post itself for the awesome ideas! My girlfriend d is a huge leftover fan, and one way we work with our divided opinions is that she takes her leftovers to work as lunches for a week, it makes us both amazingly happy.
But I would very much like to start saving and our food budget could use a cut. For that sake I personally love the idea of cooking ingredients plainly and seperately, allowing them to become a different meal each night with variations in spices and by adding a few extra bits here and there. Also the idea of freezing sounds awesome, and I think we could put that to great use.