Leftovers are one of our favourite parts of Christmas season, and we love trying out new ways to use them up! Check out this collection of inside advice from the Easy Food offices on how to make the most of your Christmas dinner!

Using your Christmas leftovers:

  1. Re-use Christmas staples: Turkey, ham, chicken, and vegetables can be easily re-use din sandwiches, quiches, omelettes, and salads. Also, what you don’t eat over the Christmas period can be frozen for meals in January or February
  2. Freeze as you intend to defrost: When we put leftovers into the freezer, we often tend to freeze them in one big portion. However, it’s far more efficient to freeze your festive leftovers in smaller portion sizes. This makes them quicker to cool and you only end up defrosting what you need.
  3. When re-heating leftovers: make sure they are re-heated to at least 75°C in the centre – you can use a food thermometer to measure this.
  4. Cooling things down: Keep your refrigerator at or below 4 – 5°C. At this temperature, food will keep for about 3 – 4 days.
  5. Keep your leftovers at eye level: Organise your fridge so that your leftovers are in clear containers at the top of your fridge. You should also store them on top of each other than than behind one another. This keeps them in your eye-line and shows you what needs using up.
  6. Raw meat and poultry: This should always be kept in the bottom of the fridge, where it’s colder. From a food safety point of view, this also prevents bacteria or juices from the meat dripping down on to other food.
  7. Leftover specialities: Leftovers make up 27% of the food thrown out by households. Reduce this by mastering recipes that use up a few different leftovers at once – frittatas, quiches, stir-fries, and soups are great examples. Where possible, look at if the leftovers can then be turned into a base for stock. During the festive season, chicken and turkey bones or trimmings are useful for this.
  8. Label love: Add labels to containers when you are freezing leftovers so that you remember what it is, the date you cooked it, and how many servings you have.

Being smart about leftovers won’t just save you money, it can make a real environmental and humanitarian difference as well – so think of it as your gift to the world at Christmastime!

Need some inspiration? This turkey and cranberry pastry plait is our favourite!