Making good use of your leftovers saves you a lot of money. In fact, according to research, eating your leftovers instead of eating out can save you about $1000 a year. This is money that can be used to give you a push in further education, buy a home, or even start a family. Below are a few tips you can utilize to make the most out of your leftovers so you can save more by spending less.
Veggies
You can reuse your leftover vegetables in several new meals like pasta and quiche. By doing so, you spend way less cooking time, and your meals get filled with good portions of greens, making them a lot more nutritious. So whenever you have leftover asparagus, beans, or lettuce, don’t be in a rush to dump them. Instead, think of creative ways to infuse them in your subsequent meals or create some new recipes around them.
Roasted chicken
After sharing a hearty roasted chicken and vegetable dinner with your family, don’t be quick to do away with the leftover goodness. Instead, pack it all up nicely and store it away for future use. To get the most out of your delicious chicken leftovers, consider shredding it into a mixture with other ingredients to make some tacos. You can also use whatever is left off the chicken and the roasted vegetables and add rice to make some tasty chicken and rice soup.
Make a sandwich
The ability to pull together a quick sandwich or snack is a great skill to have, especially if you don’t have time, and your leftovers can make it an even faster job. Use your leftover stir-fries, grilled meat, and veggies to fill a pita pocket or any bread of your choice and get a yummy sandwich. You can also mix up similar ingredients, wrap them in a tortilla, and munch away.
Dried fruit snacks
Gather up your leftover dried fruit with some white chia seeds, honey, and some dates. Get a fine mix using a food processor and roll your mixture into balls with wet hands. Make snacks your children will love by chilling these balls and topping them up with some extra chia seeds for their nutritional benefits.
Make some hearty meals with your leftover ham
Leftover ham from your dinners can be upcycled: into endless fun meals. For example, you can make quick and easy ham salads, scalloped potatoes and ham, some cloud eggs, omelet waffles, enticing sandwiches, quesadillas, etc. Even your leftover ham bones can be used to make some amazing split pea soup. Make some comfort food with this easy ham and potatoes au gratin recipe.
Generally, cooking is art, so instead of getting overwhelmed or intimidated by external pressures, do things at your own pace and enjoy every step of the process. See your leftovers as ingredients and challenge yourself to get creative and make a healthy meal with the resources available. The more you practice, the better you will get.