Person who cooks the meal has first dibs on the leftovers

[Rach247]

I purchased the ingredients and made a pasta bake last night for the family. Nothing exciting but quite tasty nonetheless (I put tinned salmon in and lots of cheese). Husband ate three portions. There was a bit left over and I fancied it for my lunch today, to make a change from sandwiches when WFH. I went into the kitchen at 1pm to find my husband finishing it off.

AIBU to say that whoever cooks the meal has first dibs on the leftovers?

But if you haven't actually called dibs by 1pm the following day it's fair to assume it's going begging

Greedy b@stard 🤦

As you hadn't said anything I don't see anything wrong in someone helping themselves to leftovers. I always would say "ooh - that's my lunch for tomorrow sorted", or "if we don't have any leftovers, we can have that for dinner in the week".

When I'm cooking a roast, I'll often help myself to a sneaky bit of meat as I'm carving, so I get a little reward in advance for doing the cooking! Plus I always make one or two many roast potatoes that I don't serve up. As I invariably end up getting to the clearing up first, I manage to snaffle them too!

BUT, to have had 3 helpings of a meal and then have a fourth the next day when everyone else has only had one, is greedy as anything and he is definitely a CF! You could have fed the family for 2 nights on that, but it's done one meal instead so has, effectively, doubled your food bill!

I'm with you OP. There is nothing more annoying to me when DH does this (so much so I'm confident he won't do it again ). Feels like the work and thought that goes into a meal is taken for granted if someone else has the leftovers for lunch with no thought about what you, who cooked it, might have for lunch.

Lol. Never heard of such rule. Don't you guys talk?

Dh does all the cooking at the moment (I have health issues including long covid), but we share the leftovers. If there is only enough for one of us, we take turns (very loosely - we don’t keep track). We did the same when I was cooking. If one of us particularly wants the leftovers from a particular meal, we do say so - we don’t expect the other one to be a mind reader.

That said, as your dh had three portions last night, @Rach247, it does seem pretty greedy and unreasonable for him to have the left overs too!

If your husband is eating 3 portions the portion sizes you are serving aren't big enough. The poor blokes hungry

Lacks of communication. You should have said and he should have asked you if you wanted some too

Completely agree. I don't understand why he's getting so much abuse.

Cannot believe I’m being found so unreasonable! This has shaken me to my core. I thought it would be more strange to announce ownership of leftovers rather than quietly assume I would have first refusal…

He does cook, possibly slightly more often than me. But he does also hoover up a lot of food, and is often known to have a supplementary cheese sandwich after a full
meal.

Oh don't worry aboutbeing found unreasonable. We have taught you the ways to ensure you get your lunch next time 😁

Exactly what I was thinking. The "Oh he already had 3 helpings" comment is pretty meaningless if you don't know how big those helpings are.

And, no, I don't think you get first dibs just because you cooked it. You should have said when you put it away that you planned to eat the rest the next day for lunch.

Cannot believe I’m being found so unreasonable!

People who post in AIBU generally can't

Unfortunately healthy portion sizes always seem to look like children's portions.

I think for leftovers generally first come first served. If we have something nice and I'd fancy it for lunch nex

Next dat I'd say something.

To be clear, I didn’t mind him having three portions. I wouldn’t even have minded him
finishing it last night, somehow that’s different. But once it had congealed in the fridge overnight…. that’s MINE.

Husband ate three portions.

Who decides how much a portion is? Different people need different amounts of food.

YANBU if he genuinely ate excessive amounts, and YANBU to expect leftovers to be shared or for your dh to maybe check before just eating them. But YABVU to think the cook has any more right to the leftovers than anyone else in the household!

Never heard of this or even thought about it. We usually share the leftovers or whoever wants it just asks the other person if they can have it for lunch the next day etc. I can't imagine getting worked up enough about leftovers to be honest!

It's much more annoying when leftovers sit there because everyone's leaving them for someone else/no one fancies the same again.

We don't usually have that problem because my DH is really funny about leftovers... I don't think he thinks of them as a proper meal even if the quantities are the same. So I frequently get to have lovely hot lunches of yesterday's dinner and he will have tinned soup or something! However... the person who cooks definitely gets first dibs on the little crispy bits around the roast and at the edges of the lasagne, cottage pie etc.

That’s definitely not a rule in this house.

Leftovers are leftovers, they are fair game for anyone UNLESS they have been labelled or someone has specifically said in advance that they’d like it.

if there was only one portion left though, I don’t think anyone in my house would just take it without asking others if it was ok/they wanted some. That’s nothing to do with who cooked it, it’s just basic manners of one portion Vs 2 or 3 people

I don't think anyone necessarily has dibs but it would have been nice if he had considered the fact that you might also want it and checked before polishing it off. You could have shared it and had some toast or something to bulk it out if there wasn't enough to go round.

I remember being gutted when my ex did similar with some leftover macaroni cheese I was really looking forward to after a shift as a carer. He wfh and usually ate the exact same thing (beans on toast!) for lunch every single day so I'd just assumed it was safe! I was so disappointed to see the empty Tupperware in the sink! Never made that mistake again!

i don’t think there is a default dibs rule. We make a plan for the leftovers as we package them up after the meal. Sometimes one person or the other wants them more or just has a schedule that works better to use them.

@Rach247 where did you get that idea from? Do you share finances?

@pewtypie 'Greedy Pig'. OP's 'portion' might be a tablespoon. Adults are allowed to chose how much dinner they need to eat.

No I don't think it matters who cooked it.

However, if DH was home at lunchtime I'd ask if he wanted to share the leftovers for lunch, even if it meant 'topping up' with something else. So I think he was selfish not to ask, but not greedy.

@SkylightSkylight yes we share finances, but I feel that the emotional labour of thinking about meals and what to have and getting the ingredients often falls to me, even if he often cooks.