Were you intrigued by that title? I know I would be. I don’t know about you but I have a leftover problem. I’m the kind of person who can eat something I like for days on end. But my husband, though he is not a picky eater, really doesn’t like repeating meals too frequently. So I end up cooking new dishes fairly frequently. I end up with a lot of leftovers. A scrap of this here and half a pot of that there adds up to a lot of food eventually. When you’re fridge is full of ziplocks and half full pots it gets easy to overlook things…
And I HATE wasting food.
I’m not perfect about it or anything. But honestly it really bugs me. I work diligently not to waste anything, but it’s hard. And sometimes you have no idea what to do with that half a potato.
Enter the one pot wonder!
Soup!
Now wait a moment. Don’t walk away yet. Here me out. This may sound simple but it works. It will work on your fridge too. Soup is a stunningly simple yet brilliant solution to the leftover problem. Plus you don’t even so much need a recipe. It’s more of a method. You start with a few basic ingredients, and add your leftovers from the fridge throughout the week.
Step One: Grab a big ole’ soup pot. Heat the pot to medium high heat. Toss in some fat (olive oil, butter, meat scraps)
Step Two: Dice an onion. Toss it in the hot pot and sauté it in the fat. This will make everything else you toss in the pot taste good. Toss in some garlic. Sauté some more. Add spices! You can skip any ingredients you don’t have, but onion and/or garlic but it really will enhance your soup, and is worth the effort. I kind of figure everyone has some spices right?
Step Three: Add chicken broth, or vegetable broth, or water and a bullion cube, or whatever liquid your heart so desires. Add more spices if necessary.
Step Four: Rummage around in the fridge for whatever leftover veggies, scraps of meat, and grains you have floating around the fridge. Toss em’ in the pot. Simmer a while and dinner is done! Serve it with a nice hunk of bread for a complete meal. When your done with dinner cool the pot, make sure it’s sealed up well and toss it in the fridge. In a day or two you can move on to step five.
Step Five: Repeat step four! Add more liquid if needed.
As you can see, you can really use up leftovers quickly with this method! As an added bonus the soup tastes different every time you add leftovers, so it’s like a brand new dish each time you serve it. Haha! Score!
A few important notes for you to make sure your soup turns out it’s best:
- Follow good food safety for cooling and storing your soup. Don’t keep your soup sitting around too long.
- Stick to one flavor profile for your spices. Think all Mediterranean flavors, or Indian, or whatever. It’s a good way to unify the soup but still get away with tossing in random ingredients.
Now go get cleaning out that fridge!
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