Hi, i'm looking for ideas for leftover roast meat. We always have a roast on a Sunday but i'm having to watch the pennies for a while. I find it easy to make a whole chicken stretch to 2 dinners plus a lunch but i'm not that confident with other joints of meat. Any ideas would be fantastic!
The classic one with lamb is a shepherds pie - just use shredded lamb in place of lamb mince in a recipe (you usually don't need to brown it as it's already cooked) - depending on how much you have and how many people you need to feed you may need to bulk out with lentils... you can do the same with leftover roast beef and a cottage pie (although in this house there usually isn't much and what there is goes into sandwichs).
Pretty much any shredded meat can go into a stir fry - just fry your vegetables first, then add the meat at the same time as the cooked noodles/rice and sauce. I think lamb generally a bit strong tasting but beef, pork or chicken are all good.
Sometimes it's nice to make a noodle soup/broth or minestrone with beans and pasta, particularly if you have not that much meat as you can chuck the bones in and simmer for a good long time, any leftover touch bits should tenderise and fall off the bone... my family finds this filling enough as a dinner with crusty bread and butter on the side although there was a hilarious thread on here many years ago where a poster had made this for dinner and her DH claimed it wasn't substantial enough, it descended into a total bunfight between posters claiming soup for dinner was virtual starvation and those who thought it sounded far too fattening/unhealthy
If you have some gravy left over, slice the meat thinly and heat it up in the gravy, serve with mash and a different veg to your roast meal for some variety.
Left over lamb or beef diced, stir in a little gravy, any left over veg chopped up and make into Cornish pasties with shortcrust pastry. Serve with chips for that essential winter double carb hit!
Cold roast pork sliced and served with fried potatoes. Sliced roast gammon served with cauliflower cheese.
Shepherd's pie and cottage pie are the obvious answers and the original way to make them was from leftover roast meat.
I also make pot pies with either a pastry top or steamed dumpling one. The trick to make them palatable is a very flavoursome broth, loads of aromatic veg, and only putting the meat in at the very end so you don't end up with rubber. Same trick if you are making curry with leftover meat - just add at the very end to reheat the meat.
Thinly sliced in noodle soups is another option, as are potato cakes made with whatever leftover meat you have.
If you do something like a brisket, brisket chilli is always my go to if I’ve got leftovers.
I’ve done Philly cheesesteaks with leftover roast beef and it worked just fine - just add the beef towards the end. That could be a lunch option and uses a lot less meat than a roast beef and gravy sandwich (although those are also delicious).
Fried rice with any left over meat Beef -curry, French dip sandwiches, creamy pasta, wraps, Pork - Cuban sandwiches and all of the above, Mexican rice Chicken - we never have any left over
We use a large chicken for a Sunday roast. Left over chicken goes into wraps and can stretch to garlic creamy chicken pasta. Very easy to make. A gammon roast will inevitably end up two days later as gammon, egg and chips. A beef joint ends up in a stir fry. Dinners during the week include omelette, jacket potatoes with fillings, egg fried rice lasts. Go for eggs, really versatile and not expensive if you get a tray from a butchers/farm.
