How to Use Leftover Christmas Leftovers

You’ve probably run out of turkey by now, but there are sure to be a few leftover Christmas leftovers hanging around. While you can’t live on pickled onions alone, you can do more with them than simply eat them out of the jar with your fingers while lamenting the fact you still haven’t done a food shop since December.

Rather than just pushing the last few mince pies, the final handful of mixed nuts and those chocolate coins you forgot to put in the stockings to the back of the cupboard, do something with them and enjoy some slightly unusual meals.

Here’s what you can do with the leftover leftovers to clear out your kitchen ready for the new year:

Christmas pudding is a bit like Marmite, you either love it or you hate it. You also tend to buy too much of it at Christmas as there seems to be a worry that you’ll run out, even though half the people coming for dinner can’t stand the stuff. You might also have thought it was a good idea to pick up a few puddings when they were reduced after Christmas so now you have even more to get through.

You could leave that last pud to gather dust and probably go in the bin, or you can make even more delicious desserts that could convince even the most avid Christmas pudding hater that it isn’t so bad. Plus it means you aren’t eating the standard pudding with custard after every meal.

Why not try whipping up some Christmas pudding ice cream, truffles or even a trifle? These are all easy options and can be made as boozy as you like – you’ll probably need more brandy though, as we know you probably don’t have that leftover lying around. Of course, you could always use it as a doorstop to really put that pud to use.

We can’t help but think it’s a little bit odd that you’ve got leftover chocolate coins after Christmas, mostly because who has leftover chocolate ever? If you don’t just want to watch TV and work your way through them – which is what we would do – there are a few other things you can try.

You could melt them to mix up some delicious gooey brownies or drizzle over another pudding. They could even be turned into a chocolate fondue so you can dip marshmallows or fruit into it. It’s up to you whether you share this or not – we wouldn’t.

On the other hand, you could try and save pennies after Christmas by paying for goods with chocolate coins, although we’re not sure how well this will work.

Pickled onions will last for ages so it’s really easy to simply leave them in the cupboard and just eat one when you fancy it, but this can mean that you either forget about them and buy more that you don’t need or just never get around to eating them.

However, you can use them like regular onions in casseroles and soups, which will add a lot more flavour. Simply rinse them off in cold water and leave them to soak for a while to remove as much of the vinegar as possible. Then put them in the freezer and use them as you need them, whether you add them to a sauce or roast them.

Alternatively, you can use them as slightly more vinegary snowballs for a bit of fun, which is ideal if you didn’t end up with a white Christmas this year.

Too many of us only pick up cranberry sauce at Christmas to team with the turkey, so it often gets left at the back of the fridge until it is no longer edible or no longer resembles cranberry sauce. Not only is this a bit wasteful, it also means you don’t make the most of this delicious and versatile ingredient.

You can do so much with cranberry sauce so it might end up becoming a favourite item in your kitchen. Why not team it with some leftover brie and a bit of bacon to make a delicious sandwich? You can also make a sausage plait using it or mix it up with some chicken or turkey to make a pie.

Of course, if you have enough turkey in the freezer to feed a small army, you may just want to get it out for each roast dinner.

No one wants to live off cheese and pickle sandwiches for the rest of the year – although this doesn’t actually sound so bad – so you should definitely do something with that extra big jar of pickle you picked up in December. You may even be surprised at how many ways you can use pickle in your kitchen.

Pickle can be put on pizza in place of a tomato sauce, which works really well with cheese and ham. It can also be mixed up in a bean burger mix for some extra flavour or even stirred into your lasagne sauce.

Try a bit of experimentation to see what you can shove some pickle in and you may find that your recipes are never the same again.

If there’s food in your cupboards you never got around to opening this Christmas and it has plenty of time before the use by date is up, it can be tempting to leave it where it is so you can use it eventually. We all know that certain things aren’t going to be cooked any time soon, so why not free up a bit of space and help someone out while you’re at it?

Sealed and non-perishable items can be donated to food banks, charities and homeless shelters to ensure that it goes to people who could really do with it. The season of goodwill may technically be over, but starting the year out doing something nice for others isn’t a bad way to kick it off.