As title suggests, in your opinion what are some of the best recipes you know that have good leftovers?
We hate cooking everyday, and love when there are leftovers, especially tasty leftovers. What dishes in your recipe book lend themselves to tasty, easy to reheat leftover meals?
Cottage pie is probably the one I can think of that is dominant in our household. Cheap and tastes almost the same reheated.
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Enchiladas:
Cook up some spicy meat and bean (Pinto or black) mix, with plenty of chile sauce (at least 4 cups sauce, dealer’s choice). lightly oil some corn tortillas and layer them with the spicy meat and beans and sauce + cheddar (or similarly bitter) cheese and white onion in a casserole dish (like a lasagna) bake at 350 (f) for ~until it bubbles at the sides~ Rest 10 minutes on stove top Serve and enjoy. Save left overs for later.
Best if you use NM Chile but any spicy chile really would work, just make a sauce using it however you want. fresh onion and garlic and can get some Mexican oregano to add to the overall seasoning. It’s just a layered corn tortilla casserole with spicy filling and ample cheese at the end of the day so do whatever you want with it.
edit: for any NM expats reading; if you’re making red chile sauce from powder, I have recently discovered adding a bit of honey really elevates the flavor—I assume powder loses a lot of the sugar content in pods and other more freshly made sauces so the honey reintroduces a bit of earthy sweetness.
Any stew type thing is generally easy to scale up and usually follows the “better the next day” character. Goulash, curries, thick soups (beef barley is my favorite), and chillis.
There’s no change in texture from reheating, which I think is key to good leftovers. Anything baked is going to dry out yet not be crisp, and anything fried is going to be soft and sad. Applying these principles to other things, and you come across things like lasagna as well.
For stuff that is baked, grilled, or pan fried, if it’s something you can cook a bunch of, but pull most of it when it’s 80% done, you can sometimes reheat that ok. We’ll make 4 burgers out of a pound of meat, and either cook up 2 and just leave the other 2 for tomorrow, or say, pull 2 off when they’re pretty rare, and cook the ones we’re eating to medium. Then the next day, by the time the patties are heated through, they’re to the right doneness.
Lasagna
Curry always tastes better the next day.
Not Japanese curry. It can get kind of grainy.
Bolognese and chilli are awesome. They usually taste better the next day since the sauce had time to soak in all the flavours from the spices we use.
Soups are also really good and full of flavour. Our current favourite is a coconut milk rice noodle soup with lemongrass and curry paste in it. Tastes really fresh, a little spicy, and the rice noodles add a nice consistency to the meal. Top it off with some fried, marinated tofu and you’re golden
Chili. Almost any stew, really. They only get better when they sit longer.
Baked beans.
Super easy to make, not hard to make delicious, taste just as good the next day, freeze really well.
Similarly, black beans.
If u have a leftover ham bone y can add that in as well gives u a nice flavour and u get some nice meety chunks as a bonus.
Yessss.
Meat and bone scraps are so great to cook with.
And add a carrot and an onion and baby, you got a stew going.
Honestly I can’t remember the last time I cooked something WITHOUT carrot and onion.
Rice and beans yumm
How do you get rice to hold well? It’s always dry as shit and never as good the next day for me.
Chili, as everyone is saying.
Gumbo, and also oxtail stew, I won’t even serve them the first day, they are so much better after a rest in the fridge.
Not cooking but any time we get pizza hut pizza I get a pan pizza to reheat - all that extra fat in the crust crisps up, it is so good reheated and not good the first day.
Any big hunk of meat is good because the first day it can be meat, rice, and beans, then tacos, then nachos or soup/chili or enchiladas.
Also if you don’t like cooking (I do but have competing priorities) a big Tupperware of salad made in the weekend can help throughout the week.
Anything rice-based reheats well
Chilli con carne + rice
Spaghetti bolognese
Lasagna
Spinach & ricotta canneloni
Slow cooked braised beef & penne
Thai green curry + rice
Slow cooked butter chicken + rice
Slow cooked lamb korma + rice
Soups (pumpkin, potato & leek, pea & ham, etc)Also we tend to freeze batches of leftovers without pasta/rice as it saves a lot of space in the freezer and throwing some fresh rice or pasta is little effort while the frozen meal container defrosts (fresh rice & pasta is much better, but frozen does work for a true reheat-only meal)
+1 spag bolo. It’s hard to not make leftovers with it
I love doing Pulled Pork for lunches and dinner. Great for a meal and then it’s great to put in other dishes. Nachos and quesadillas for lazy days and then great in soup
I don’t like leftovers. I prefer when it gets made into something else.
Roast chicken becomes soup, tacos, or enchiladas.
Grilled steak or chicken gets chopped up and put in the freezer to make quesadillas.
Chili becomes chili dogs or chili con carne on cheese enchiladas.
My mom used to cook a couple pounds of ground beef and then season bits as needed for tacos, sloppy joes, or spaghetti.
Roast chicken.
Cook a bird on Sunday afternoon and pick on the remains all week.
