Putting the leftovers in Tupperware and storing them in the fridge for a week or two makes you feel slightly less guilty when you eventually throw them away.
My roommate saves leftovers even though he ends up eating them maybe 10% of the time. Doesn’t even matter if it’s a generous portion of something that reheats well. Rarely eats it.
The guilt reduction thing is real for some people
You gotta freeze them.
There are two tricks when it comes to freezing leftovers.
First, you have to ask yourself the question "Will it soup?". Spoilers, the answer is always "Yes".
Leftover chicken, ham, bacon all go into little containers. When you have leftover stock, you top these containers up with stock. That's half of your soup right there, ready to go. Just add these frozen stock meat blocks to some sauteed carrot, onion and celery, more stock, and maybe some diced potato. BAM, you have an amazing potato and ham soup.
Or a chicken soup that you can add frozen leftover cooked pasta too, to get a chicken noodle soup.
Soup in 10 minutes.
Second thing is, don't be afraid to be inventive. You were going to throw it out anyway, you've got nothing to lose by trying something fun.
Leftover chips from KFC or a fish n chips dinner? Freeze them. When you're ready to eat them, chop them up finely, mix them with a bit of a flour/water batter, and fry them like pancakes. Bomb-ass potato fritter things in no time at all.
Fruit about to go bad? Chop it up, mix it with some yoghurt, freeze it. Easy and delicious Froyo. Any kind of fruit will work, even tomatoes ( don't @ me until you try it) with honey.
As one of my uncles said, "You have to refrigerate leftovers before you throw them away."
My wife and I have gotten pretty good at knowing which leftovers we will actually eat, and which ones we won't. The latter get tossed right away, and we've never missed them later.
I'll never understand people who don't love leftovers.
Bro, leftovers are a free bonus meal.
They're the 'Buy 1 Get 1 Free' of cooking.
There's nothing better than coming home and knowing you've already got a bomb ass dinner ready because you made enough the night before.
That is 100% me. I never waste food if I can help it! Hell I only cook like twice a week, everything I eat is leftovers!
I guess it helps that I've been single for pretty much my entire life, no one to complain about eating leftovers lol
The joke in my house is that dad is allergic to leftovers. Doesn't matter if it's from eating out or something we've made at the house. He's also a pretty bad cook, so maybe that has something to do with it.
My experience has been bad tasting food or past food poisoning puts people off leftovers...
I love leftovers... especially something like soups or lasagna that are better after a day or two.
But if you can't keep up or tell if something has gone off... then leftovers can be a bad thing if you spend hours chained to the toilet.
My SO was skittish about leftovers, now I'm the standard - if I won't eat it, it gets tossed. (I have had food poisoning so I don't have a weird superpower against off food)
