There isn’t enough love for leftovers. People often waste a lot of food simply because they keep leftovers in the fridge, and never touch them. Instead of just scraping them into the trash bin, you should utilize those leftovers for your meal planning!

There’s a very happy relationship between leftovers and meal planning. This article will discuss a few different ways that you can utilize leftovers for your meal planning.

Make Leftovers Your Meals

If you typically use a single day of the week to do the bulk of your cooking, then you should make that meal large enough for leftovers. Something like a casserole can easily feed a family of four and then some throughout the week. It makes for a great quick-grab breakfast that you don’t have to worry about cooking.

Another example might be a steak that you cook and still have plenty of meat leftover. You can continue to eat that meat throughout the week. You can even utilize portions to ensure that you’re not overdoing it on how much protein and fat you consume.

Repurposing Leftovers

Let’s say you cook something in bulk on Sunday and you’re left with a lot of leftovers. However, you’re not the type of person who can eat the same kind of meal every day. You don’t have to toss out your leftovers either. Instead, repurpose them into a new meal for your meal planning. Let’s take the example of steak again.

Sure, you could just warm up the steak and use it as a meal. Or you could cut it up a bit more and make a steak burger out of it. Throw those pieces of meat between two buns and load it up with all of the extras that you desire.

This is a chance to become a little creative in the kitchen. It will not only ensure you have a lot less cooking to do overall but you’ll also never get tired of your brand new meal.

Cook Large Meals to Make Leftovers

Finally, you need to know what kind of meals are actually the best at creating leftovers. Sometimes you just need a really good pizza to get through the week. Why not make a veggie supreme pizza? Veggie-packed and large, it can easily feed you throughout the entire week.

Use your leftovers to your full advantage, even if that means purposely cooking in bulk so you can plan several meals from one type of recipe.