We spend tons of time serving up strategies for reducing food waste—whether by sharing techniques to preserve produce, developing recipes that minimize excess, or offering up advice for buying less grub to begin with. But the holidays are naturally a time of excess: Household garbage jumps by nearly one-quarter this time of year, and languishing leftovers can easily end up as landfill.
We know you don’t need us to tell you that leftover ham or turkey make better sandwiches than they do trash, but, when it comes to all the other seasonal mainstays, the road to food-waste salvation can be a little less clear. So—as a follow-up to our breakfast casserole that can absorb leftovers en masse—we decided to curate a menu of the most creative, easy, and downright delicious recipes to use up those other holiday extras.
Bake with champagne
For every reveler who wonders what to do with leftover sparkling wine, there’s another who asks, “Is that even a thing?” If you’re the former, these Barbiecore pink champagne cupcakes are for you. They’re easy to make—it all starts with boxed cake mix—and the bubbles in the wine act as a leavener to make the sponge light and fluffy. (If your champers is already flat, you can make this champagne vinegar instead.)
Turn stale bread into soup
Among the most satisfying ways to repurpose stale bread is to turn it into ribollita, a paragon of Italian povera cucina—the culinary art of using what you’ve got. Ribollita, literally reboiled, is a hearty vegetable-and-bean soup thickened with generous quantities of stale bread. It’s even better when flavored with that Parmigiano rind hiding in the back of your freezer.
Transform fish into burgers
If your Christmas Eve feast involves seven fishes—or any fishes, for that matter—then these tasty crispy fish burgers are the next-day Yuletide meal you’re looking for. Any fish will do, and the recipe encourages playing with seasoning according to your taste, or what’s in your spice cupboard.
Reimagine green bean casserole as pot pie
The traditional holiday casserole itself is the main ingredient in this brilliantly simple, four-ingredient turkey pot pie, which comes together in a snap with the help of store-bought puff pastry sheets. If turkey’s not your jam, go ahead and swap it for a cup of plant-based protein or anything else you’d like to use up.
Shake cranberry sauce into a cocktail
Our favorite seasonal sipper is the Pine Barrens, a cocktail adapted from bartender Danny Child’s James Beard Award–winning book Slow Drinks. A potent blend of gin, amaro, and cranberry sauce garnished with a sprig of evergreen, it’s Christmas in a tumbler.
Make hash with latkes
It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that latkes are more-or-less hash browns. Maybe that explains why the crowd-pleasing Hanukkah staple works so well as the foundation for latke breakfast hash. Seasoned with smoked paprika and topped with fried eggs, this recipe is so good you might want to sling those tater pancakes all eight nights of the holiday.
Have panettone for breakfast
Tall, domed, and studded with dried fruit, the traditional Italian Christmas bread called panettone is a delight when it’s fresh—and a brick when it sits around. Turn the stale stuff into delicious French toast, like this one from Paris-based cookbook author David Leibovitz. Whether you eat it for breakfast or, as the French do, for dessert (with ice cream!), you’re in for a Franco-Italian holiday treat.
Fry up potato fritters
If a samosa and a latke had a baby it would look something like this crispy potato and pea fritter. Crunchy on the outside and creamy within, these are a great way to use up leftover mashed white or sweet taters. They can also incorporate whatever herbs, spices, or other extras you’ve got. The recipe includes a peanut-cilantro chutney, but feel free to douse them with leftover cranberry sauce or gravy instead.
Dress pasta with butternut squash
Already-cooked winter squash makes an easy recipe even easier. For his pasta with butternut squash and sage brown butter, J. Kenji Lòpez-Alt starts by sautéing cubes of butternut in olive oil ‘til they’re tender. Since your squash will already be soft, you can just heat it in the oil before adding your other ingredients.
Waffle that stuffing
If you prefer crispy holiday dressing baked in a casserole dish to the stuff that cooks inside the bird, then stuffing waffles are a day-after must. Bound together with egg and moistened with broth, these crunchy, savory waffles are a dreamy dish any time of day.
Crisp up roasted taters and veggies
We love the English tradition of pan frying excess veggies into bubble and squeak. (Yes, partly because we love saying “bubble and squeak.”) The name comes from the noise that emanates from the skillet as a big patty of leftovers sputters and pops in the pan. Whereas this particular recipe calls for a pound of cabbage, you can use whatever veg you like.