The guests are gone, the gifts are piled up. You are going on a picnic and the beach is calling. You don’t feel like cooking or shopping and the fridge is heaving with leftovers from Christmas dinner. What are you going to do with all that food? Here are some simple and delicious options.
Leftover ham
If you buy a leg or half-leg of ham you are more than likely to have some leftover. Use a ham bag to retain freshness in the fridge and make sure that you rinse the ham bag out in a solution of 2 parts water to 1 part white vinegar every two days. This keeps it moist. You can slice the ham as you need it; use if for omelettes, quiches and pasta. Don’t forget to leave a little meat on the bone and cook it up into a nice soup at the end.
- Green eggs and ham
- Impossible quiche – replace the bacon with ham.
- Ham toasties
- Muffin pizzas
- Ham coleslaw sandwiches
- Spaghetti with creamy ham sauce
- Tortilla stacks
- Split pea and ham soup
Leftover roast vegetables
Sometimes there is a stack of roasted veggies left after Christmas lunch, probably because there were so many other delicious foods to eat. Here are a couple of great ways to use them up.
- Roast vegetable pizzas
- Balsamic roast vegetable salad
- Frittata – add whatever leftover vegetables you have!
Leftover chicken and turkey
Chicken and turkey can be interchanged in recipes. Take care that you have followed food safety guidelines and not left it out of the fridge for too long. I prefer to debone chicken and turkey before putting it back in the fridge for convenience and to save room.
- Chicken and cheese pasta bake
- Vietnamese chicken salad in a box
- BBQ chicken salad for the exhausted shopper
- Chinese chicken and sweetcorn soup
- Chicken fried rice
Leftover Christmas cake and pudding
Were your guests too full for pudding and custard? You will be surprised to know that Christmas puddings have a fridge life of around 24 months. I have often heard of people making their puddings a year in advance, which allows the flavours to mature. If you just want the space in the fridge, you can crumble up the cake or pudding and stir it through some good quality vanilla ice-cream, with an optional slosh of brandy, and refreeze it.
- Mince pie pops – for leftover Christmas fruit mince
Happy New Year!
My grandmother bought us a HUGE ham as our Christmas present and we have soooo much left over, I have been trying to use it. Today I cut it up and divided it into meal sized portions to put in the freezer! It’s fantastic because we have one income and will save us a lot of money at the supermarket! The ideas here are fantastic there is a great chance of us making most of these
We are always pretty frugal with our food being on 1 wage so Christmas is no different really. My hubby is a chef by trade so we are always utilising leftovers 🙂 We had a BBQ for Christmas Day at a friends so had BBQ food, nice and easy and the leftovers were minimal.
I did not know about Christmas puddings fridge shelf life! That’s really interesting. I also like the idea of moving out through ice cream. We will be having chicken and ham. We can never decide!