No one questions the fact that leftovers are a real money-saver. After all, they essentially add up to a free meal. You’re eating food that remained unserved at a previous meal, food that might have otherwise been thrown away. Eating leftovers turns those items into a meal that you would have otherwise been paying for.
The problem, of course, is that leftovers can be somewhat unexciting and even unappetizing. The thought of eating a plate of leftovers for lunch or dinner can seem really unappealing, especially if the original dish wasn’t exactly a home run for your taste buds to begin with.
The thing to remember with leftovers is that you don’t have to just eat an exact duplicate of the earlier meal. Think of leftovers instead as a starting point. They’re something that you can work with to easily create a delicious alternative meal, one that you might even be excited to try. Here are seven ways to do just that.
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Apply plenty of salt, pepper and hot sauce. This is the easiest step out there for bringing out the flavors of leftovers that might otherwise seem bland. If you want to reheat some beans, for example, adding a bit of salt and pepper and hot sauce, then mixing it around before reheating it will make it much more flavorful than before. This basic strategy works for almost any savory dish, though some eaters may want to be selective with the hot sauce, depending on their tastes.
If you have leftover gravy or other sauces, mix it with almost everything you’re reheating. Gravy is something that almost always tastes better the second time around because the proteins in most gravies break down just enough to release lots of savory flavor. Use it. Never throw away gravy. Instead, save it in a small container and use it on top of your reheated leftovers to add some extra savory zing.
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If you have leftover mashed potatoes, mix everything together with them in a bowl and add a tiny bit of water to make a thick soup. This simple trick turns almost any item served with mashed potatoes into a delicious and hearty soup. This works equally well with leftover sweet potatoes. If you have a baked potato, just mash it thoroughly with a fork, and this trick still works well.
Turn it into a burrito or wrap. Take the leftovers you have on hand and wrap them in a large tortilla. This turns the leftovers into convenient eating and takes advantage of the fact that leftovers are sometimes somewhat drier than you remember. This works great for things like leftover stir-fry, leftover sauced noodles and even dishes like leftover steak. It can turn those foods into convenient meals to eat at your desk.
Top it with cheese. If that leftover dish just looks bland, put a bit of shredded cheese on top or stir in some cheese before you reheat it. Cheese is so flavorful and accents so many other dishes. Just a little addition of cheese can make a huge difference between utter blandness and something quite appealing. Keep a bag of shredded cheese around for just such situations, so that it’s easy to pull off.
Make a few trusted seasoning mixes that match the kind of meals you typically eat. Whenever you reheat an Italian dish, just toss in a few dashes of your Italian seasoning mix, which might include dried basil, marjoram, oregano, sage and perhaps a few other ingredients. You can make similar mixes for all kinds of different dishes, depending on your diet. For example, a Mexican seasoning mix might consist of chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, crushed red pepper flakes, paprika and cumin. A steak seasoning mix might contain paprika, black pepper, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, coriander and dill (and it works well on things like burgers, too). Just look up some good mixes for common things that you eat as leftovers, make batches of those seasonings in shakers and use a few dashes when you have that type of leftover dish.
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Reheat drier foods with a damp paper towel. If you’re just wanting to reheat a slice of pizza, sandwich, rice or other items that might be a little on the dry side, take a paper towel, dampen it, and put it over the leftovers. This creates a small steaming effect, which keeps the items nice and moist and prevents your rice from being dried out, or your sandwich bread from getting crusty.
These simple strategies can help turn bland leftovers into something quite enjoyable for the next day’s lunch or as part of a leftover medley for dinner, saving you money without killing your taste buds.
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7 Tricks for Making Tasty, Frugal Lunchtime Leftovers originally appeared on usnews.com
