ARTICLE

Second-Chance Suppers: 6 Best Ways To Use Your Leftovers

February 28, 2024 - 3 min read

We’ve all been there. It’s the end of the week and you’ve got a fridge full of leftovers that taunt you every time you open the door. Until eventually, you just toss them out with a guilty conscience.

Can’t face eating the same thing twice? Or maybe the kids are kicking up their usual fuss about “not leftovers again!”. By getting creative with those odds and ends lurking in your fridge, you can lighten your kitchen labours, dream up delicious new dishes – and seriously slash food waste.

Don’t think of them as leftovers, think of them as ingredients! Here are our best leftover hacks – and the star kitchen appliances to help you make culinary magic.

1. Make Your Roast Chicken Work Harder

The next time you roast a chicken with all the trimmings, hang onto the carcass. Then, pop it into your biggest pot or slow cooker and make a hearty stock for homemade chicken soup. It’ll last up to six months in the freezer!

Star Appliance: Once you’ve had a steam-oven roast, you’ll never look back! The Electrolux 60cm Pyrolytic Steam Oven delivers juicier roasts, bursting with flavour, and with its Smart Food Probe, you’ll never disappoint with an overcooked bird again.

Shop The Electrolux 60cm Pyrolytic Steam Oven

2. Plan Ahead For ‘Taco Tuesday’

Make extra bolognese sauce on a Monday, and put some aside for everybody’s favourite – tacos – on Tuesday. Or burritos. Or quesadillas. You get the drift. Get rid of those random bits of hard cheese cluttering up your dairy drawer, too. Grate them all together for a tasty topping.

Star Appliance: Making bolognese sauce in a slow cooker gives those rich and fragrant ingredients time to really come to the party. With a 6L capacity, the Breville Searing Slow Cooker is literally designed for leftovers and has preset browning features to seal in meaty flavours.

Shop The Breville Searing Slow Cooker

"By getting creative with all those odds and ends lurking in your fridge, you can lighten your kitchen labours, dream up delicious new dishes – and seriously slash food waste."

3. Resurrect Cooked Vegetables

Give a second life to those cooked vegies that always seem to be stashed in Tupperware at the back of the fridge. They’re great for soups or a vegetable-rich pasta sauce (your chance to sneak more greens to the kids). Leftover grilled vegetables also make wonderful pizza toppers.

Star Appliance: The best home chefs are wizards at multi-tasking and so is the Kambrook Health Steam Plus Multi Cooker. Enjoy perfectly steamed vegetables, or slow cook, sauté and simmer your way to kitchen greatness.

Shop The Kambrook Health Steam Plus Multi Cooker

4. Enjoy Rice Twice

Cooked too much rice? (Don’t we all!). Jazz it up with any leftover meat and vegetables, chopped up and tossed into an electric wok, along with a liberal splash of soy sauce, oyster sauce, some sesame oil (and perhaps a little Sriracha for kick), and you’ve got a speedy, mid-week fried rice. Now you’re getting into the swing of leftover cuisine!

Star Appliance: Banish soggy or undercooked rice and nail perfect grains every time with the Sunbeam 7 Cup Perfect Deluxe Rice Cooker. With a convenient removable bowl, it’s big enough to cook up a week’s worth of rice in one go.

Shop The Sunbeam 7 Cup Perfect Deluxe Rice Cooker

5. Get More From Your Meat

That cling-wrapped plate of expertly seasoned lamb on the bone, left over from last night’s dinner party? Shred it up and use it to make savoury mini pies, with the help of some frozen puff pastry sheets, a dash of Worcestershire sauce (or your go-to barbecue sauce), and the Sunbeam Pie Maker. It’s the perfect TV dinner!

Star Appliance: The Asko 60cm Combination Steam Oven is the entertainer’s best buddy. It offers a generous 73L capacity, a choice of traditional oven and steam options for the most tender roasts and cut-above catering, and even has a Sous Vide setting so you can cook just like the pros!

Shop The Asko 60cm Combination Steam Oven

6. Rescue Old Fruit

Got blackening bananas, apples on the turn, or an old fruit salad getting soggier by the second? Repurpose them into delicious, steamy crumbles or vitamin-packed smoothies to ward off winter sniffles.

Star Appliance: Blitz sensational smoothies in seconds with the NUTRIBULLET Ultra 1200, without leaving behind any of those nasty fruit and vegie lumps. With three different cup sizes, it’s like having a juice bar on your benchtop!

Shop The NUTRIBULLET Ultra 1200

We’ve got everything you need to become a leftover legend at The Good Guys! Visit us in store or online to explore our huge range of ovens and small kitchen appliances.