Don’t you love when you can enjoy leftovers because they tasted great, had nutritional balance and didn’t go to waste? Let me help improve your leftover game with staple products to keep in your kitchen all week long. You will never need to worry about what’s for lunch again!

How to Level Up Your Leftovers

Sometimes, it just so happens that your leftover dinner, when heated for lunch, tastes as good as it did the night prior. But chances are your leftover meal is missing a key element that causes lunch to lack flavor, nutritional balance and satisfaction (or a combination thereof). The following is my simple guide to help you level up your leftovers:

Step 1

Identify what is left from your leftover meal: is it mainly vegetables? Protein? Carbohydrate? What do we have to work with here?

Step 2

Supplement whatever category is missing. Maybe you finished the protein from dinner and now you’re left with a bunch of pasta. Or maybe your side of veggies is gone, but you have a little leftover chicken. We can solve for this with staple pantry and fridge items that are part of each week’s grocery run. I will walk you through these items below!

Step 3

Decide on your leftovers’ ideal temperature. Can your leftovers be eaten cold, warm, or does it need a full-on reheat in the oven or stovetop? When I store my leftovers the night prior, I am already anticipating how I might reheat it the next day.

I love using one of the containers from my Pyrex Simply Store 18-Pc Glass Food Storage Containers Set, which are listed on my Resources page. This way it’s an easy reheat in the microwave.

Video Inspiration

Want some video inspo? Check out my reel about how I used 4 ingredients to make a killer leftover lunch.

Products to Improve Your Leftovers

I have a whole bunch of ideas for you. I am a foodie at heart, and so all of these ideas will help you balance the meal to make it nutritious, delicious and easy. And don’t forget that delicious part, because otherwise, why bother?

(1) Raw, pre-washed spinach

Having a box or bag of raw, pre-washed spinach around will significantly improve the nutrient-value of your meals in the easiest way possible.

• Throw a raw handful over hot soup and wilt it down.
• Add spinach into curries and rice dishes.
• Use it as a base to create a quick salad for leftover protein.
• Add it to a wrap or leftover tacos.
• I can go on! Spinach is so versatile because it doesn’t have a strong flavor and can wilt down easily when heated with any meal.

(2) Stonewall Kitchen Sriracha Aioli

There is endless use to this aioli. Use it as a spread to enhance a sandwich, add it as a dollop over leftover dry protein, mix it into a tuna salad. I get the stonewall kitchen sriracha aioli now from Amazon since we like it so much and it comes in a two-pack. Per their website‘s nutrition information, for 1 tablespoon you’re looking at 80 calories, 8g of total fat, 0.5g of which are saturated, 0g trans fat, 5mg cholesterol, 80mg sodium, 1g carbohydrate, 0g friber, 1g total sugar, 0g of which are from added, and 0g protein. The primary ingredient is canola oil, which is a heart healthy omega-3 fat.

(3) TonNino Tuna Fillets in Olive Oil

I love these – it’s an easy tuna niçoise for lunch any day of the week. When I make mine, I take some greens and whatever raw veggies are around in the fridge (in this case below, baby carrots and red pepper), then soft-boil two eggs, toss the salad with olive oil, a little red vinegar, black pepper and dijon mustard, top with your tuna fillets and you have a nice lunch. Optional add ins: white beans, string beans, cherry tomatoes, and some lemon juice.

I get these tuna fillets locally, but Amazon sells TonNino Tuna Fillets by the 6-pack here. Why I love them: they last for so long – over a year or more – and you can usually pair these nicely with any leftovers around your home. Bring it to work the following day, or prepare it for an easy work-from-home lunch.

(4) Angel-hair pasta (or any pasta)

Having a quick pasta for lunch and throwing in any leftovers is so fulfilling mentally and physically. As an example, take a look at my Walnut Spinach Pasta here.

For the angel-hair pasta lunch below, I had some leftover roasted broccoli (see this post about how to make that) and jazzed it up with red pepper flakes, lemon juice, lots of ground black pepper and a tablespoon of olive oil. Warm that up in the microwave and you are golden!

(5) La Tortilla Factory White Corn & Wheat Tortillas

I really LOVE these tortillas – they are incredibly soft, delicious, easy to warm up, and have a simple ingredient list starting with stone ground corn masa flour. No trans-fat (which you sometimes can see in tortillas).

When I have La tortilla factory corn tortillas leftover from a taco night, and some random items from the night prior, great lunches are made, such as the one in the YouTube above.

To make this, I had made my 4-ingredient lemon pepper salmon but had a dryer piece leftover from one of my kids, who likes less spices on her food. Instead of tossing it, I added a tablespoon or two of Stonewall Kitchen Sriracha Aioli to each tortilla, added the leftover salmon, some fresh spinach and called it lunch.

Not every lunch needs to be extravagant, but this taco was particularly balanced with good veggies, protein, healthy fat and carbohydrate, which is exactly what we are going for when we want to optimize our lunch hour and keep energized for the rest of the day ahead.

Energize Yourself!

Do you need help figuring out how to balance your daily nutrition? I have your back. Feel free to reach out to me at anytime and I am happy to help!