The best recipes for Christmas leftovers
Even the most conservative of Christmas food shops can still result in second or third helpings for the days that follow, so here are some suggestions for making your festive feast go further. They have the added bonus of not keeping you in the kitchen too long when you’ve got Christmas TV to catch up on!
Turkey
Cold turkey is delicious on its own, served with your favourite chutney in sandwiches or made into a full meal with a jacket potato and salad. But there are plenty of more inventive ways to use it up should you feel inclined to spend a little time in the kitchen.
No round-up of recipes for using Christmas leftovers would be complete without the obligatory turkey curry, a sure-fire Christmas crowd-pleaser that has the added advantage of being easy to bulk out with rice and naan if you have more people to cater for.
Turkey soup is a wonderful winter warmer that makes a great lunch for family dropping in post-Christmas, while cranberry turkey pasties are a festive take on the traditional Cornish favourite that also use up spare balls of stuffing. You can even freeze them before cooking for a tasty meal another day!
Potatoes and vegetables
An old-fashioned favourite, bubble and squeak is a great way to use up any mashed potato that didn’t get snapped up on Christmas Day, as well as literally any other veg you have left: parsnips, carrots, sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli… you name it. It’s simple to make – just chop it all up into small pieces, combine with fried onion and cheese and shape into small cakes ready for baking in the oven or freezing for another day.
On a similar theme, our zero waste potato and veggie hash can be adapted to suit any leftover veg you have in the fridge, and also makes a great brunch option! Don’t forget to add any spare stuffing. As with leftover turkey, vegetable soup and vegetable curry also work well as a way of using up your Christmas roast veg.
If you’ve ended up with surplus sprouts, try our delicious sprouts with pancetta and chestnuts – you’ll never look at a sprout in the same way again!
Cheese board
If you over-bought for your festive cheese board, fear not: that leftover cheese will go down a treat in a tasty mac ‘n’ cheese, or you can use it to serve up leftover veg by making cauliflower or broccoli cheese.
For a fun family dinner, another winning idea is to melt it into a decadent cheese fondue – which will also take care of any leftover bread that needs using up. You could even make sprouts and roast spuds part of your fondue spread, along with anything else you can dip in without it falling apart!
Of course, leftover cheese can also be grated onto that vegetable soup we mentioned earlier, and anything you can’t get through now can be grated and frozen for another day.
Christmas pudding
And finally, Christmas cake is designed to keep for ages, but if you’re wondering what to do with the bits of spare Christmas pudding that nobody had room for on the big day, help is at hand in the form of this delicious chocolate fondant pudding. Christmas pudding is also perfect for making into crumble topping if you’ve got some apples to use up – the subtle spice works perfectly with an apple and berry filling. The odds are that many even enjoy it more like this than they did on Christmas Day…
