Portioning, labelling and researching are among the key words to consider for Brits who want to make the most of spare festive food.
Money saving specialists from NetVoucherCodes.co.uk have revealed seven pieces of advice to help UK families use up all of their leftovers from the traditional Christmas Day roast dinner.
Following the expert guidance will help households cut down on food waste, which can reduce the amount of cash spent shopping at one of the tightest financial times of the year as well as helping environmentally conscious Brits be kinder to the planet.
A spokesperson for NetVoucherCodes.co.uk said: ‘It’s always such a shame to see perfectly good food get thrown away, especially after all of the love, care, attention and cash that gets poured in to Christmas Day dinners across the UK.
‘Instead of heading straight to your local supermarket on boxing day to buy more fresh food, which isn’t exactly ideal for either your wallet or the planet, Brits should consider the ways in which they can make their spare festive ingredients stretch further.
‘To really make the most of Christmas leftovers, it’s important to do more than simply wrap the turkey carcass in tin foil and hope it gets picked at out of the fridge, so we’ve released some tips the team have picked up over the years.’
Here are seven top tips for making Christmas leftovers stretch further.
1. Prepare
One way of ensuring you make the most of all your Christmas day leftovers is to prepare spare ingredients before you do the washing up, such as removing any remaining turkey from the carcass and slicing up extra cooked vegetables.
2. Portion
Instead of leaving big piles of meat, potatoes and vegetables in large tubs, split all the leftovers from your festive roast dinner together into several smaller containers to make a few well-portioned homemade Christmas ready meals that simply need microwaving.
3. Freeze
Home freezers aren’t just for products purchased straight out of a supermarket freezer, so don’t be shy in freezing any turkey meat that isn’t eaten on the big day itself – it should keep for several months if stored properly, likewise vegetables and other trimmings.
4. Label
Good organisation and planning typically minimises food waste, so label each container of leftovers with its contents, an approximate weight or portion size and what if could be used for if you have initial ideas, before putting them in the fridge or freezer.
5. Research
To give yourself an incentive to use up leftovers before they go off, look online for interesting recipe ideas using your spare ingredients as keywords for the search. Think outside the box too – traditional festive turkey and Christmas vegetables can be paired with a range of international flavours.
6. Mix
If you’ve got a few vegetables or scraps of meat leftover but not enough to put together a full dish, don’t despair – mix multiple ingredients together into a hearty winter stew, a surprise boxing day curry, a festive pie or an omelette.
7. Transform
Potatoes and other spare cooked vegetables can be thinly sliced into the appropriate shapes and baked or fried to transform them into chips or crisps, whilst they can also be diced and made in to hash browns or samosas, whizzed into a soup, or used to make a mixed veg mash.
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