Our Christmas leftovers recipes offer some of the best ways to use up any leftover food from Christmas Day meals, from using up leftover ham and prawns in omelettes, scrambled eggs, quiches, frittatas, and fried rice, to using leftover roast turkey, chicken, beef or pork to make the best sandwiches, burgers, pies, rice soups, and noodles. What you can’t eat now can be frozen to avoid food wastage.
If you don’t use up all your Christmas meal leftovers on your Boxing Day brunch buffet then we’ve got loads of tips for how to use any leftover food from Christmas meals so it doesn’t go to waste, as well as some links to our best Christmas leftovers recipes.
My top pick of the Christmas leftovers recipes? Use leftover mashed potatoes to make Spanish croquettes. You can also add finely diced ham or salami, leftover prawns, lobster or other seafood, and leftover cheese ends from the charcuterie cheese board to the filling mixture for the tastiest croquettes.
And if you’re feeling sluggish and bloated after over-indulging over Christmas, see our round-up of healthy recipes to cook this week, from recipes with yoghurt and ginger to reduce bloating, to recipes with turmeric, which contains curcumin, an antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties.
But before I share our best Christmas leftovers recipes and our tips for the best ways to use up Christmas leftovers, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-funded. If you’ve cooked our recipes and enjoyed them, please consider supporting Grantourismo by buying something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or gifts for Asian food lovers and picnic lovers; or browsing our Grantourismo store for gifts for food lovers designed with Terence’s images.
Now let’s tell you about our best Christmas leftovers recipes and share our tips for the best ways to use up Christmas leftovers.
Christmas Leftovers Recipes – Best Ways to Use Up Christmas Leftovers
These are our best recipes for using up Christmas leftovers.
Make Omelettes and Scrambled Eggs
Turn your Christmas dinner leftovers into Boxing Day breakfast or brunch to reduce kitchen waste. Some of our best Christmas leftovers recipes are egg recipes from our Weekend Eggs series of recipes for quintessential eggs dishes from around the world.
Making omelettes and scrambled eggs are two of the best ways to use up Christmas leftovers and we’ve got plenty of recipes for those on the links below. This fried eggs with chorizo and potatoes is another delicious eggs recipe that can use up leftover roast potatoes and you could use any spicy salami from the charcuterie board leftovers.
You’ll find more of our best scrambled eggs recipes here and our best omelette recipes are on the link below.
Best Omelette Recipes from a Southeast Asian Crab Omelette to Spanish Tortilla
Assemble the Best Ever Sandwiches or Burgers
There are few better things to do with leftover Christmas roast beef, turkey, chicken, pork, or ham than assemble the best sandwiches with layers of roasted meats and leftover vegetables and gravy, such as this double-decker turkey club sandwich.
But there are only so many Christmas leftover sandwiches you can eat, right? So why not buy some French baguettes and salad ingredients and put together some Cambodian num pang or its cousin Vietnamese banh mi?
If you made our char siu pork recipe, one our alternative Christmas roast recipes, then you could use char siu leftovers to cook up this char siu omelette or make our char siu pork burger recipe with Asian slaw, which is like the best bacon burger you’ve ever tried with an Asian twist.
Char Siu Pork Burger Recipe with Asian Slaw, Crunchy Cucumber and Sriracha Mayo
Make Croquettes
If you have any leftover mashed potatoes, you have to question the appetites and taste of your guests – but no, seriously, what kind of people don’t polish off their potato mash?! – then make this Spanish potato croquettes recipe.
While we used chorizo in that recipe, you could use finely-diced leftover Christmas ham instead or any remnants from the charcuterie board. If you have leftovers vegetables, finely chopped caramelised onions, beans and peas also work.
Cheese is also delicious in potato croquettes, so any leftover cheese ends from the cheese board will be put to good use. If there are small portions of other dishes, whether it’s roasted meats, vegetable sides, or salads such as potato salads, then you could present them Spanish tapas style with sliced baguettes or use stale baguettes to make homemade croutons and prepare Basque pintxos.
Spanish Chorizo and Potato Croquettes Recipe for Croquetas de Patata y Chorizo
Make Fried Rice
Some of our best Christmas leftovers recipes are our fried rice recipes, such as this Chinese special fried rice recipe, which makes use of leftover steamed rice and char siu pork leftovers.
Although it could be made with leftover Christmas ham or other roasted meats, and even leftover seafood and vegetable leftovers, such as peas and carrots for that matter.
If you don’t have leftover rice in the fridge, simply steam a new batch of rice, spread it out flat on a tray and pop it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or an hour. It will be a breeze to stir-fry, just as if you made in the day before. (If you do have leftover rice, you’ll find leftover rice recipes here.)
Fried rice is not only versatile, it’s quick and easy, as well as delicious and filling, making it a fantastic dish to make for lunch for any family and friends who have stayed.
Chinese Special Fried Rice Recipe, a Fantastic Filling One Pot Meal
Bake Pies or Pot Pies
Baking pies or pot pies are two of the best ways to use up Christmas leftovers, especially if you have some pastry in the freezer. If you have leftover roasted meats, especially roast chicken, and enough pastry for proper pie, go for it, but if you don’t much pastry, pot pies are perfect as you only need enough pastry for the lid.
Some of our best Christmas leftovers recipes are our meat pies recipes, as you can really fill pies with any kind of meat and it doesn’t have to be ground meat. For instance, you could create a filling of chopped roasted meats and gravy or a creamy roast chicken filling.
If you had a seafood feast on Christmas Day, which was my family’s traditional Christmas lunch in Australia, where Christmas is in summer, then consider this fish pot pie recipe, to which you can add any leftover seafood, such as lobster, squid, mussels, prawns, and/or smoked salmon. (More salmon recipes here.)
This Irish beef and Guinness pie recipe with potato mash will make you delicious little meat pies made in ramekins. I created this recipe earlier this year for St Patricks Day to use up any leftover Irish stew and mashed potato or colcannon, however, you could make the filling from leftover roast beef and there’s another idea for using leftover mash. And Irish colcannon is another.
Irish Beef and Guinness Pie Recipe with Potato Mash for Mini Meat Pies Made in Ramekins
This classic cottage pie recipe is another of our best Christmas leftovers recipes for leftover mashed potatoes and any vegetables leftovers if you have mince in the freezer and it doesn’t even require pastry.
Classic Cottage Pie Recipe for an Old Fashioned Irish Farmhouse Favourite
Make a Spanish Tortilla, Quiche or Frittata
Making a Spanish potato tortilla, an Italian frittata, a French quiche or this Russian omelette (which is frittata-like) are some more of the best ways to use up Christmas leftovers as long as you have plenty of eggs to hand.
They’re all classic Christmas leftover recipes as much as they’re refrigerator clean-out recipes, in that you can really add whatever roast meat or vegetables leftovers you have.
You can slice roasted potatoes to make a classic Spanish tortilla or potato omelette, but you could also add any leftover smoked salmon or, say, Christmas ham to that.
Best Spanish Potato Omelette Recipe with Chorizo for Tortilla de Patatas con Chorizo
This frittata recipe below is just as versatile. We’ve used chorizo and caramelised onions, but finely diced Christmas ham and any vegetables will work.
Frittata Recipe with Chorizo and Caramelised Onions for Weekend Eggs
Make Soup, Stew or a Casserole
Soups, stews and casseroles provide more ways to use up Christmas leftovers, although my preference will always be soups, which you add leftover cheese ends to thicken and add richness and eat with toasted leftover baguette slices – which you could also use to make homemade croutons.
Of course you could throw all your Christmas leftovers into a stew or casserole pot and you could also use any leftover bones from your Christmas roasts to make a beef-bone stock, pork stock or chicken stock.
This potato and bacon soup, creamy cauliflower cabbage potato soup recipe, loaded baked potato soup recipe, and rustic chunky potato soup with sautéed cabbage, smoky pork sausage and butter beans are all soup recipes that can be made with Christmas dinner leftovers.
And you don’t need to eat them now, just portion the soups into single serves, pour them into reusable freezer bags such as ziploc bags and freeze them. All defrost well.
But this broccoli and potato soup recipe is one of our best Christmas leftovers recipes as you can use leftover roasted broccoli as the base, add any other leftover vegetables, especially roasted potatoes if you have one, use Christmas ham instead of bacon, and any cheese bits left from the cheese board.
Broccoli and Potato Soup Recipe with Cheddar Cheese, Crispy Bacon and Crunchy Croutons
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make any of our best Christmas leftovers recipes as we love to hear how our dishes turn out for you.
