Delicious ways to use your holiday leftovers
Leftover food during the holidays is the gift that keeps on giving. Who doesn’t enjoy reheating a slice of chicken galantina and topping it with your choice of sauce, or snacking on wedges of queso de bola, stray grapes and deli meats from the charcuterie board? After a couple of days, however, the sheer amount of food still remaining can be daunting.
Instead of simply nuking it in the microwave, there are other ways to give life to leftover ham, lechon, turkey, or even the dreaded spaghetti. (Anyone see that clip where a lady hacks away at a tray of frozen pasta, readying it for reheating?)
We asked chefs, home cooks, a baker and a popular online food reviewer for creative ways to prepare holiday leftovers.
JJ Saycon, El Born
Holiday leftovers can become a totally different dish altogether with a little bit of imagination. Leftover steak or salmon, with the addition of relatively inexpensive ingredients like vegetables and corn, can turn into fried rice, pasta, or a really good hot salad.
Jackie Ang Po, Fleur de Lys
When you have holiday leftovers, break them up into smaller portions and freeze. Cooked food can generally last for three months in the freezer so food doesn’t go to waste, and you won’t feel challenged to finish all of it in one week. Instead, you can take one or two portions out at a time and use them. For example, leftover ham, chicken, or any other protein can be prepared as fried rice or made into empanada.
J Gamboa, Cirkulo and Milky Way
Lechon can become paksiw, sinigang, or sisig. Leftover roast beef can be sliced and made into sandwiches, turned into Bolognese sauce, hash with potatoes, or huevos rotos with French fries and fried eggs. Paella can be fried until it’s crispy or made into croquettes. Chicken galantina can become sandwich fillings, or made into a salad with mayo as a filling for sandwiches, or diced and mixed with pasta. Leftover turkey can become a hot noodle soup with milk, a salad with mayo for sandwiches, or paired with lettuce and tomato for a filling sandwich.
Paolo Bustamante, Five Private Dining
For leftover lechon, there’s the standard paksiw na lechon. Other options would be sinigang na lechon, sisig, or just fried lechon—adding a little patis or fish sauce while frying. Roast chicken or turkey can be diced and mixed with potato salad. Ham could be used to make an omelet, mixed into soup, or added to pork and beans.
Marco Rodriguez, Xancho
You can use the remnants of your charcuterie board, such as slices of ham and Gruyère cheese, stuffed between crusty sourdough with a smear of fig jam and prepared a la plancha.
Masarap ba?, food blogger
I usually make spreads with leftover holiday ham. I add mayo, grated eggs, cheese, and spices. Same goes with leftover queso de bola. We turn it into queso de bola spread with pimiento. Great eaten with crackers. Another suggestion is to buy filo dough and make ham and cheese puff pastry. Super easy to make! Leftover ham can be added to sopas or mixed with mashed potatoes to make croquettes.
Jojo Dizon, home cook
Leftover ham can be chopped up and used to cook Yang Chow fried rice or added to pasta for Filipino-style carbonara. You can also make ham and potato croquettes using boiled potatoes. Ham bones can be added to broths to make them more flavorful. For leftover spaghetti, add eggs and make spaghetti frittata. Shred leftover meat from kaldereta or mechado for empanada, make into a pasta sauce, or convert into a Pinoy-style cottage pie; just top with mashed potatoes and bake.
Ensaymada can be turned into French toast or bread pudding. For leftover fruit salad, add milk and make iced lollies. Dice up charcuterie and cheese to make a meaty cheese spread.
Bim Santos, home baker
For dishes that have thick sauce like menudo, mechado, or adobo, we sometimes use parts of it to make fried rice. Because of the cold weather recently, we have been using leftover ulam to add extra flavor to our soups, where we also add cut-up, days-old bread. Besides thickening and boosting up soups, leftover bread in our house is also used to make French toast, pudding, or sugar-glazed croutons. But to avoid filling up our ref whenever there is an occasion, and perhaps to also spread some holiday cheer, my wife usually makes it a point to have guests and staff “Sharon” as much as they can from our table spread.
Claude Tayag, Bale Dutung
For Christmas Eve dinner, my immediate Tayag family (60 pax at least) had our potluck of charcuterie, cheeses, roast meats, pasta, salad, scalloped potatoes and desserts. One of my brothers got all the turkey bones and stuffing to make into a turkey soup for another night. I got the excess chorizo, prosciutto and scalloped potatoes, and made it into a Spanish tortilla. That’s what my wife Mary Ann and I just had for brunch, two days later.
Emmanuel Santos, Cyan Modern Kitchen
Roasted vegetables can be made into a hearty soup. Turkey can be a base for sandwiches or savory pies. Pasta can be elevated into casseroles, while breads can be transformed into luscious pudding.
JP Anglo, Kooya Filipino Eatery
I think a lechon pulled pork sandwich would be nice. It would be almost like a Pinoy banh mi. To do this, pan-fry lechon meat and crisp up the skin. Heat up some leftover bread, preferably baguette. Arrange the meat inside the halved baguette, put melty kesong puti, liver spread and pickles. And a nice cold Coke. It’s basically gathering everything around the table and making it your ultimate lechon sandwich, then just sit on the couch and do nothing.
