13+ Tasty Recipe Ideas to Clear Out the Fridge Before the Holidays

Make room for leftovers

Before Thanksgiving, you may want to clear out food in your refrigerator and pantry to make room for both ingredients you’ll need for the meal and all of those ensuing delicious leftovers. Not only will you get organized for the big feast, you’ll also likely reduce wasted food.

The following simple ideas will help you eat well as you empty your cupboards.

Gnocchi with random pesto

You need only three ingredients to make gnocchi: potatoes, flour and salt. Herbs and greens can quickly become pesto to top the gnocchi. Choose from basil of course, but also parsley, kale, fennel fronds or fresh carrot tops. Or top the gnocchi with tomato sauce. Or brown butter and sage. Or sautéed garlicky mushrooms. Let your refrigerator contents guide you in your choice of topping.

Go here for the gnocchi recipe.

Chili with or without kidney beans

Chili is a great example of a versatile use-what’s-on-hand recipe. Add various vegetables and a handful of grains if you like. Cooked wheat berries or cracked wheat add a meaty texture. Although some may disagree, you do not have a moral obligation to make chili with red kidney beans. Use whatever beans you have on hand. Here is my daughter’s vegetarian chili recipe.

Grain bowl assembly

If I have cooked beans and cooked grains (perhaps those aforementioned wheat berries) on hand, I can make a satisfying dish in minutes. I chop up a few vegetables—cooked beets and sprouts I start on the counter are a couple of favorites—toss everything with some wine vinegar and good olive oil, sprinkle with salt and a light meal is ready.

Focaccia with random bits of vegetables

Foccacia is similar to pizza but topped with lots of olive oil and, if desired, vegetables and herbs. Need a use for the handful of capers in the refrigerator door? How about those kalamata olives you haven’t quite managed to polish off? Have a few fresh herbs on hand? Use these odds and ends to “paint” on a focaccia canvas.

Go here for my sourdough discard focaccia recipe. (And use up some discard too!)

Frittata for breakfast, lunch or dinner

Have vegetables and eggs? Make frittata. My daughter calls this quiche without the best part—the pastry. If you have pastry on hand (here is a recipe) or want to take an extra step and make pastry, you can use these same ingredients to make a quiche. Go here for the frittata recipe.

Pastry wrapped around just about anything

Speaking of pastry, it’s a vehicle for reducing wasted food. Fill pastry dough with all kinds of ingredients:

• Slightly bruised fruit or delicate berries that need to be eaten asap will be eaten asap once you have ensconced them in pastry.

• Excess apples belong in a pie, galette or hand pies.

• Leftover roasted vegetables can be the center of attention in the center of a savory galette.

• Random vegetables stirred into béchamel sauce are perfect for a pot pie.

• Cooked-down leftovers such as curries, chilli or stew enjoy a second life as hand pie filling.

Go here for a whole-wheat pastry recipe.

Roasted vegetables get a second or even third life

If, while searching through your refrigerator, you pull out an overwhelmingly large pile of vegetables, don’t panic! Cut them into bite-size pieces, toss them in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and some herbs and roast them. Enjoy some now as a side dish and purée the rest in broth for soup (see below). Here is my roasted vegetable recipe.

Soupe du jour (ou de la semaine…)

Soup is the perfect way to use up this and that—random vegetables, cooked leftover protein, beans or meat. I love to have a big pot of it in the refrigerator—and some frozen in the freezer—for quick lunches and dinners throughout the week.

On the weekend, my daughter MK made a vat of honeynut squash soup. She first roasted a pile of honeynut squash, two whole heads of garlic and a few small white onions. She scooped out the squash flesh, squeezed out the soft garlic from its cloves and puréed those along with the roasted onions and lots of homemade broth she made the day before. At that point, the soup needed just a bit of salt, pepper and a splash of vinegar. Delectable!

Go here for clear-out-the-fridge soup.

Prepped honeynut squash before roasting

Stir fry makes quick work of vegetables

Like the soup and roasted vegetables above, stir fry is easily adaptable to the vegetables you have on hand. Have one green onion or two mushrooms? Slice them and toss them in. Found a small head of broccoli in the crisper that you forgot about? In it goes, along with the leaves and stalk. Wondering what to do with that handful of spinach? Wilt it and toss it in the stir fry at the end of cooking. Go here for my stir fry recipe.

Stale bread isn’t food waste, it’s pre-stuffing

Cube slices of day-old bread and spread them on a cookie sheet. Cover with another inverted cookie sheet and wait a few days for the bread to dry out. The cubes will keep for a very long time once dried out.

To make the stuffing, sauté onions and celery in fat, add ground sage and savory, salt and pepper, stir in bread cubes and add just enough broth to moisten them (you don’t want them soggy). You can also add nuts or orzo (pasta that looks like rice) or dried cranberries, for example. Bake in a covered dish or small Dutch oven at 350°F for 35 to 45 minutes, until the top is golden and crusty.

Dehydrated fruit takes up little space

I’m always amazed at how much dehydration shrinks down fruit. Add dehydrated fruit to muffins, granola, muesli, salads and trail mix or simply eat it as is. Go here for dehydrating apple or Fuyu persimmon slices in the oven. The slices also make cute natural Christmas decorations—hang them on the tree or attach them to brown paper packages tied up with string.

Dehydrated apple and Fuyu persimmon slices

Quick breads, muffins and pancakes

Overly ripe bananas or leftover pumpkin purée give you an excuse to cook and eat quick breads and muffins. Shredded apples or carrots—or both—go well in quickbreads or pancakes. I have a few sourdough discard quickbread recipes on my website:

• Banana quick bread

• Pumpkin quick bread

• Pumpkin muffins

Fruit crumble because dessert isn’t just for Thanksgiving

A fruit crumble transforms fruit that has seen better days into a delicious dessert. Consider doubling the topping—it keeps for several days in the refrigerator. Bake one crumble now with half of the topping and reserve the rest for a crumble at Thanksgiving. With the topping ready to go, you’ll have one fewer task to do at crunch time.

Go here for an adaptable apple crumble recipe.

Well, I’m extremely hungry after writing this list! Whether you’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner next week or not, I hope these ideas help you to eat well and save money.

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I’m so honoured and excited! My cookbook, The Zero-Waste Chef: Plant-Forward Recipes and Tips for a Sustainable Kitchen and Planet, won a silver Taste Canada award for single-subject cookbooks.

You can check out the book here. Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy!

Canadian cover