Always Tag Leftovers and Other Ways to Keep Your Family From Wasting Them.
If you are like me, remember to eat leftovers – a losing game. Every week, I diligently stack my half-eaten tilapia, sweet potatoes, pasta, meatballs – heck, even half-eaten avocados – in sealed Tupperware containers. And every week I throw these suckers in the trash can and then sink into a low-grade spiral of shame at my own extravagance.
And, unfortunately, guilt alone is not enough to keep me from doing it again, because it happens repeatedly. If one or two (out of ten) of the remaining quesadilla triangles enter the child’s mouth, I consider it a “success.” Can I get my husband to polish a 5 day old meatloaf so I don’t have to throw it away? Champion status.
In other words, the bar is low. And I would like it better. (Plus, I’d like to cook less. Cooking is for picky kids – who call your attempts to break up a mundane dinner shift with radical new flavors like lemon and onion as “disgusting” – blows.) If you send carefully packed leftovers to the refrigerator too often to die, try some of these methods to avoid a similar fate in the future. As with most changes, it’s all about creating new habits.
Label and date the remains
If you’re having trouble remembering those dastardly dumplings, add a visual cue to make them stand out in the refrigerator. Either write the specific contents of the container or just “Leftovers” on each label along with the date. (Labels can’t be more beautiful than masking tape.)
It might seem obvious, but for family members who don’t cook or skip lunch the first time, having this information about what the mysterious pepper and rice porridge really is, and how long it might reasonably be eaten, can help. save him from going down the drain.
Place them in the same specified location in your refrigerator.
If your refrigerator does not have one place dedicated exclusively to food leftovers, you should do so. If you tend to hide them wherever you can find a place (guilty), chances are good that they will get lost in the abyss.
Choose a shelf (or side of a shelf), drawer, or door compartment remaining in the center so you always know where to find them. Make sure they are front and center, not tucked in at the back, and the oldest items should be in the front. ( Duration of meals varies , but generally, most food can be safely eaten within 3-5 days after storage and should be thrown away after seven days.)
Plan a regular evening to eat leftovers
We have tacos for Tuesday, how about leftovers … Lednesday? Okay, this isn’t going to be a flashy alliteration, but pick a night, any night, and label it as “Night Remaining.” Do this on the same evening every week. Incorporate this into your meal plan. Similar to the cognitive ease of wearing a uniform, it relieves stress by answering the daunting question, “What’s for dinner?” question at least once a week.
Place leftover food outside the refrigerator.
For my brothers “out of sight, out of their minds,” who don’t notice leftover food if they just don’t get up and stew themselves, write them all down and hang them outside the refrigerator. This applies to both side dishes and main dishes. Keep a small dry erase board magnetized to your refrigerator door so you can easily revise your list every week.
Turn leftovers into a new dish
Let’s face it, most of the reasons we don’t eat leftovers are because they are boring and we didn’t really like them the first time around. To get rid of the monotony of facing the same breaded chicken again , don’t just reheat it, but reimagine it.
Add leftover protein, rice, and vegetables to salads, stews, soups, or pasta. Come up with new ways to use individual ingredients. Broccoli can be added to omelets, beans can be tossed in quesadillas, salmon can be made into fish tacos or fried fish cakes. At the end of the week, turn leftover vegetables into vegetable broth .
A few more tips: store uneaten foods immediately; do not leave it at room temperature for more than two hours. Keep the refrigerator temperature below 40 degrees, ideally between 36 and 38 degrees. And reheat something in the stove, oven, or microwave – not in a multicooker, as the slow heat builds up harmful bacteria.
Or maybe just don’t cook so much
The easiest way to avoid food waste? As this article advises: Don’t cook that much. Seriously. If the ground beef you use overnight tacos consistently creates too much, split it in half and use half for the tacos and half for the meatballs the next night. (Just make the meatballs smaller so they still look decent-sized food.) Now I can forget what’s left.