I love a dish that keeps on going. Eaten as leftovers, or repurposed into something new. Mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, mac and cheese, Mexican red rice, biscuits, beans, spaghetti, whole chickens, and pork shoulders. Soup is an obvious contender – if I make it (and it freezes well), I make a lot! My future self is always grateful when pre-cooked, quality food options are at hand.
This week I made a large batch of Irish champ (scallion laden mashed potatoes). Before I could even get to potato tacos (tacos de papa), we had eaten the entire batch as sides (refried) for breakfast and dinner. I also made a big pan of creamed spinach – again, we plowed through it in a few nights, with none for the freezer. I’m gonna need a bigger pan (or Dutch oven)!
What are your favorites for cooking in big batches? How do you use the hold-overs?
We’re a household of 2, and rarely have company. We both cook. In general, when we cook big pieces of meat like a whole chicken or a pork shoulder we freeze a lot of the cooked meats to use in other ways. DH is the meatloaf king, and makes 3 at a time. We always freeze two. His chili recipe also leaves us with about 4 extra freezer dinners. I make several different soups/stews and always have extra for the freezer. Chicken enchiladas and baked ziti are also two large casseroles that I make that leave more freezer meals for later, as well. The vacuum sealer keeps stuff really well in our basement chest freezer. In the summer when he catches fish and shellfish we prepare those and freeze for winter meals.
We also alternate several meals over the course of 4 days or so, adding different fresh vegetables on the side - cook something on Monday, have it again Wednesday. Cook something Tuesday, have it again Thursday. Friday nights we order a pizza to go. Saturdays is usually when DH cooks (while he watches ball games in the kitchen). Sometimes leftovers from dinner are breakfast for one or both of us. We tend to eat lunch out several times a week and almost always have our evening meals at home.
I usually don’t like eating the same thing more than twice.
Repurposing happens when I can’t take the original dish one more time
Exceptions are meat that can’t be reduced in size (pork shoulder, whole chicken), labor-intensive things (indian gravy dishes, curry paste for fish curry or thai curry, bourgignon, pot roast, pasta sauce, etc), and a few things I enjoy repurposing (a whole package of ground meat into kheema that will later become shepherds pie or pasta sauce).
Sometimes I’ll cook for the freezer (japanese meatballs, char siu, bread, sous vide pork chops and steak) so I can later pull out a quick protein to finish while the accompaniments cook.
I like to make casseroles for this purpose. My Potato & Onion casserole in the WFD thread was cut into 6 pieces. That is 3 meals for the two of us. I use gallon freezer bags for storage.
Same with my Lentil Fritter recipe, I’ll make quite a few of them and freeze them for later meals.
I’ll also freeze homemade soups, pair that with a quick grilled cheese and dinner is served.
It’s so nice to have something homemade waiting in the wings when we don’t feel like cooking. We don’t buy much in the way of “convenience” food and are sensitive to salt. We also don’t live in a place that has much available for carry-out and certainly not delivery!
We don’t either. I do have a couple cans of “emergency” soup.
I also keep some frozen meatballs in stock. I can microwave them, grind them up in a small “chopper”, shred some cheese and make a quick “hamburger” quesadilla (open a can of vegetables) and dinner is served. I try to keep tortilla(s) in the fridge.
I can also use those (ground up) meatballs for a “Rice and Hamburger” quick dinner. The rice cooker does most of the work (LOL). We really like “Mr Yoshida Sauce” for this dish. Again, open a can of vegetables as a side and serve dinner.
And I agree with you regarding “carry-out”. The few that actually have decent food have gotten way too expensive.
I sauce mine really well and make sure all the air is removed before freezing. The multiple dishes of enchiladas I make for New Year’s Day are packaged this way in ziplocks and placed in aluminum trays to stack and then frozen. They keep well past May 5.
I make enchiladas as a casserole. Hope I’m not opening a can of worms here, I live in New England and so I don’t think my recipe is authentic. I mix chopped cooked chicken with cream cheese, shredded cheddar and salsa verde. I fill soft corn tortillas with the chicken/cheese mixture, roll them and nestle them into a glass casserole dish that I first coat with some more salsa verde. Once the casserole is full, I put more salsa verde over top of the tortillas as well as some more shredded cheddar and bake the whole thing for about 30 minutes. We eat some (topped with sour cream and sliced scallions). I divide the leftovers in to plastic freezer containers. They reheat well when thawed and baked in a covered dish in the oven.
The keys are good corn tortillas, hand shredded cheddar and good salsa verde made with tomatillos. I buy Stonewall Kitchen’s salsa verde.
Back when the Spawns were younger and still living at home, a favorite was sloppy Joes for a weeknight dinner, then the leftover SJ filling went into super hearty omelets on Saturday. Followed by a nap. In truth, though, a lot of leftovers at the ricepad pad find their way into omelets of one sort or another. I usually make twice as much tonkatsu as we need for one dinner, and the leftover tonkatsu goes into katsudon. That’s an omelet. Sort of.
A brisket or stew takes 3-4 hours, so why not double the recipe and freeze what’s left?
Lasagna can be a messy endeavor, so I make 2 trays and freeze one.
Stock freezes well in plastic ziplocs, so it’s easy to portion out and use what is needed for a sauce or soup.
Roasted chicken: If it’s served with sides and gravy, there will be bubble and squeak the next day. If there’s still leftover chicken after that, it gets made into sandwiches or pot pie, or put into soup, tacos etc.
Leftover cooked veg are almost always made into a frittata.
Other cooked items go into the freezer before they get dodgy.
Big batch stuff includes stock, pasta sauce, chili, curries, meatballs, lasagna, spanakopita, bread (I usually fill the oven to conserve power), ketchup, various grilling and bbq sauces etc etc etc.
I almost always cook this way, since I have a small fridge/freezer and a small chest freezer in my garage. Upstairs fridge is where I keep the bits and bobs…downstairs are for larger containers.
Meat sauce is later used in lasagna or baked ziti.
Roast lamb is used in shepherd’s pie or lamb tagine.
Beef roast is used in beef-barley-veg soup, or thinly sliced for a stroganoff.
Excess mashed potatoes are used for chicken pot pies with a mashed topping. Or use the mashed as a thickener for soup.
A leftover half a large baked potato is chopped up and fried for home fries for a Sunday morning breakfast.
Roast chicken is shredded for chicken enchiladas, as are excess black beans and rice.
Excess gravy is used for pot pies or a one-off dinner, like a small meatloaf.
Pot roast is sliced and put in small containers for freezing. I can defrost it overnight, and do a quick boil of potatoes and carrots for a weeknight meal.
Turkey breast is sliced and frozen to be defrosted and chopped later for turkey chili.
I make a full recipe that serves 8 but there are only 2 of us that eat it. It gets baked, then vacuum sealed and frozen in portion sized squares after it’s cold, and it must be fridge cold to be firm enough to vacuum seal without squashing). To use from frozen, thaw, then unpack and microwave until centre is warm. Finish in 375-400 oven to crisp up pastry.
Spinach and cheese pie from Vefa’s Kitchen is the one I have used most often. It’s quite good. Of course, if anyone else has a recipe they love, I’d be eager to try it out.
