Waste Me Not: Holiday Edition
We’ve all gone a little overboard in preparing a family feast and ended up with a fridge full of delightful leftovers just waiting to be reimagined. While you can certainly just reheat your old food, that’s far from your only option.
The best way to avoid getting bored by eating the same meal for a week straight is to create something completely new that will stimulate your tastebuds with a fresh twist.
We have compiled some delicious recipes to help you reimagine holiday leftovers while avoiding food waste!
Reimagine Your Fresh Ingredients
Let’s start with vegetables because after all, they’re our favorite! Peas and carrots are common items found on holiday plates because their light, sweet flavor is the perfect balance to the starchy and heavy hot dishes that are heaped around them!
Let’s take a look at some delicious spinoffs to create with your leftover mixed vegetables.
Spiced Roasted Carrots and Bell Peppers
If you’re searching to elevate your leftovers look no further than our Spiced Roasted Carrots and Bell Peppers. Utilizing caramelized natural sugars, this recipe will make your holiday leftovers an entirely new culinary experience and will serve as a lighter meal dish to enjoy as you recover from your holiday food coma!
Roasted Bell Pepper & Radishes
For your leftover peas add them to our Roasted Bell Pepper & Radishes recipe. Your old holiday peas will be uniquely brought to life with the smooth and bitter combination of olive oil, seasoning, and balsamic vinegar.
This recipe is also perfect for any other leftover greens vegetables you may have from streamed broccoli to carrots and cauliflower!
Warm Bell Pepper, Cauliflower & Brussels Sprout Salad
Cauliflower and brussels sprouts are two distinctly flavored vegetables that are often enjoyed on their own. Sadly, this makes them prime candidates for waste when the novelty of eating your third-holiday dinner in a row has worn off.
By adding your leftover cauliflower and brussels sprouts to this baked vegetable medley, their flavors will be reinvigorated by the earthy high protein flavor of chickpeas and the sweetness of Bell Peppers. Find the full recipe here.
Grilled Sweet Potato with Bell Peppers
Garnish up your leftover sweet potato with this Grilled Sweet Potato with Bell Peppers recipe. Its finely diced cilantro and chopped Red Bell Pepper make for a delightfully elevated appetizer. This twist on your classic leftovers will look more at home in a fine dining establishment than on a Thanksgiving plate!
Roasted Potato Salad
Your roasted potatoes can be transformed into a decadent Roasted Potato Salad by adding bold balsamic vinegar and garlic flavor. To add some additional protein to this meal, you can easily incorporate leftover turkey or chicken into the salad!
Transforming Your Holiday Chicken or Turkey
The centerpiece of any traditional holiday meal of course is a roasted turkey or chicken! Whether it’s turkey or roast chicken, these meals provide a world of possibilities when it comes to leftover creations. Let’s explore how we can use every piece of our holiday meat!
Cucumber Apple Lettuce Wraps
Our Cucumber Apple Lettuce Wraps are fresh, hydrating, and enhanced with contrasting sweet and savory flavors like dried cranberry, lime, and goat cheese. Your holiday chicken or turkey would make a great addition to this recipe making it the perfect grab-and-go lunch for your busy schedule.
One-Pot Healthy Turkey Skillet
Recycling your leftovers is a great way to make an easy, hearty dinner. This One-Pot Healthy Turkey Skillet recipe finds beauty in simplicity with only three steps and you guessed it, one pot. Just add your leftover turkey or chicken to the mix of elbow macaroni, fresh Roma Tomatoes, and beans and you’ll have a hearty meal made easy!
Cucumber Chicken Sliders
This fresh spin on a pub favorite uses Cucumber as the bun to make a mouth-watering snack. Our Cucumber Chicken Sliders could easily be swapped out for turkey and would make a wonderful shareable for entertaining company!
Flavorful Soups
No matter what types of veggies are piling up in your kitchen, you can likely use them up by throwing them into a hearty pot of soup.
Another benefit of making a big pot of soup is being able to freeze the leftovers for an easy weeknight meal option. When you make your soup, simply portion it out and freeze them in airtight containers so they’re easy to pull out when schedules get hectic.
Here are some of our tastiest soup recipes to add your leftovers to:
Roasted Bell Pepper Cauliflower Soup
Bell Pepper Chicken & Dill Soup
Using Only What You Need
Limiting food waste starts and home and luckily there are many ways to enjoy your holiday cooking while creating something bold and new. Find more ways to cook with fresh ingredients by visiting our recipes page here.
