How to Reuse Leftovers and Expiring Food to Create New Recipes and Avoid Waste

Wasting food in everyday life is very easy: how many times have you done more shopping than you needed, cooked too much and had leftover food (perhaps after a period of celebrations) or, again, had forgotten foods in the fridge that you only remembered when they were almost at the end of their expiration date. In these cases, what you absolutely must not do is throw away food, neither those already cooked nor those almost at the end of their life: you will be surprised to discover how many new recipes can be created starting from these ingredients, from leftovers or scraps. Here are some tips and suggestions for reusing leftovers that languish in your fridge, those vegetable scraps in the bottom basket or those packages that are almost expiring.

1. Stale Bread

Bread hardens quite quickly and certainly when it has become hard it is not very pleasant to eat as an accompaniment to the dishes you bring to the table. But did you know that you can instead recycle it in many ways? The simplest is to toast it, chop it and blend it to obtain breadcrumbs with a homely consistency, but in reality you can also use it as a real ingredient. Among the many recipes in which you can use it we suggest panzanella, one of the easiest and tastiest leftover dishes, bread meatballs, delicious French toast, a bread pizza and even a bread cake.

2. Milk

Just like bread, milk is another food that you risk finding more often on the verge of expiration: you stock up on a lot of it and then forget about it or you don't have time to use it all up. In this case, the quickest solution is to use it to create smoothies or chocolate milkshakes, ideal for an alternative and inviting breakfast, or a side dish that is different from the usual, like creamy mashed potatoes. If, however, you don't want to use it right away, you can transform it into other preparations to use in the future, for example a béchamel sauce to put in the freezer, so as to have it ready when you need it.

3. Vegetable and Fruit Scraps

Vegetables and greens are the easiest products to recycle: even when they seem bruised or too ripe, they can be transformed into new recipes, as long as you taste them first to make sure they still taste good. First, you can use them to obtain a vegetable broth to use as a main dish or as a cooking element for a risotto, or you can cook them and transform them into a tasty soup. If you want something tasty, there are many options, from vegetable-based meatballs and fritters to delicious vegetable chips that you can use as a side dish instead of potatoes, to fillings for tasty savory pies.

4. Tomatoes

Tomatoes spoil quite easily, but it is not difficult to use them before they completely lose their consistency: you can use them in some tasty sauces with whole cherry tomatoes, but also in recipes such as gazpacho, or even in sauces such as a chutney or a ranchera sauce to accompany crackers, breadsticks and various types of croutons.

5. Chicken, Beef, Pork

Meat , of any type, offers you several recycling options. If you have a raw but still good package left over, especially if it is chicken, use it to make a delicious broth to use either as a base for a pasta dish or as a base for a hot and fortifying soup. If you have some minced meat left over, turn it into inviting meatballs, or if you have some raw sausages left over, use them for a tasty sausage ragù. If you have cooked leftovers, however, depending on the type of meat and how it is cooked, you can get new recipes that are just as tasty as the original ones. Any ideas? Leftover roasts or similar preparations are excellent for stuffing sandwiches and club sandwiches, chicken scraps can easily become a tasty caesar salad and the remaining minced meat can be transformed into a filling for the typical English meat pie, born precisely as a waste recipe.

6. Fish and Shellfish

Fish is one of those foods that you can afford to keep in the fridge for very little: if you have fish scraps, the simplest way to reuse them is to use them to make a fish stock; even with shrimp heads and shells, for example, you can make a delicious bisque to freeze and then use to flavor risottos, soups or other preparations. If they are not scraps but actual pieces of fish still to be cooked, use them for tasty recipes such as fish balls, perhaps accompanied with homemade sauces in which to dip them to make them even tastier.

7. Pasta and Rice

Pasta and rice are perhaps the easiest ingredients to recycle, whether they are leftover already cooked or are close to expiration: it is true that they are foods with a rather long expiration date, but it often happens that we open packages and leave them forgotten in the pantry. If they have not formed little animals or butterflies and are therefore still usable, but perhaps they are not very fresh precisely because the package was already opened, transform them into tasty recipes such as savory rice fritters or pasta fritatta. Pasta and rice that are already cooked and leftover, on the other hand, can be reheated in the oven to create delicious pies and timbales.

8. Ripe Fruit

Fruit ripens very quickly and when it has a consistency that is too creamy it is not very good to eat as a snack or to use for example in fruit salads. This advanced state of ripeness, however, is excellent for recycling fruit in a multitude of excellent recipes, as long as it still tastes good. The simplest way to give a second life to very ripe fruit is to transform it into jam or a creamy smoothie, but you can also use it as a real ingredient: for example with very ripe bananas you can cook the excellent banana bread or the inviting banana and ricotta cake.

9. Leftover Cookies and Cakes

If you have some cookies left over, no longer “crunchy” because the package was opened a while ago, they may not be great for breakfast but they can still have a second life: once crumbled properly you can use them to prepare many other desserts, for example chocolate salami or the base for cheesecake. The same goes for slightly hard or stale leftovers of cakes, muffins or sponge cake: you can combine all the scraps with a creamy ingredient such as chocolate cream or jam, knead and obtain tasty cake pops, the round cakes on a stick to decorate with lots of delicious garnishes.