Leftover Stir Fry
This week I’d like to highlight the phenomenon of looking in your fridge, seeing all of your leftovers, and thinking “What the heck – none of these will make me a meal!”. I’m here to tell you that you probably CAN make a meal with some really wacky leftovers, and my favorite suggestion for this is typically one of my favorite ways to cook just about anything (that’s not roasted vegetables). That is the infamous stir fry.
But I don’t have a wok! I don’t have a gas stove! That’s fine, while those things would be super cool, you can do without. You likely have a big frying pan (I have two that I use for everything that doesn’t go on my stoneware sheet pan and into the oven) and that’ll be just fine for your leftover stir fry.
What You’ll Need:
- leftover vegetables
- leftover meat (optional)
- egg (totally optional)
- rice (you can make but you can also use leftovers from Chinese or Indian food)
- sesame honey mustard (optional but amazing)
- soy sauce
Really, that’s the basics. Get brave and look in your fridge. Take out those weird leftovers, line them up and take stock. Are they actually bad? Toss them. Are they just not very fresh? Well, we’re about to cook them on high heat and add flavor. Are they weird? Ok, here’s where you get to use your creativity & instinct (and it’s totally ok to get this one wrong and learn from it, because it’s going to be cheap and hopefully not take you too long). So dive deep and let’s get going.
Picture It. Sicily: 1922 – Nah – My Fridge. Barely 2020!
So I have just came home from a work trip, locked myself out of the house and had to wait for my husband to get off rotation at 10 pm before I could get back in. It was 7 pm and I was starving. Naturally, I decide to wait it out in our local restaurant down the hill – I had a drink and ordered the Friday night special, prime rib. Yum!
The next night: I am ordering groceries for pick up the next day and trying to figure out a) What’s for dinner? and b) What do I even have in my fridge and what exactly do we need to buy? I notice hubby had Indian food while I was gone. I see my leftover prime rib. I see a carrot starting to look a little limp. A lonely crown of broccoli. Literally one egg left. Well, only one thing this must mean: takeout night again stir fry time baby!
So, I get out all that stuff and line it up. Rice: not gross, but pretty dry. Okay, I can work with that.
Prime rib still has some horseradish sauce and mashed potato clinging onto it. Could be gross, but it is just from last night. It has no weird colors, I smell it and it’s totally fine. So I rinse that leftover piece with cold water and dice into very tiny pieces. It almost looks like ground something. Fine.
I wash, dry, and slice up the vegetables. I include an onion because I have some in the pantry and they always add substance & texture to a nice stir fry.
I know the egg is fine – although I probably wouldn’t eat it sunny side up, when I crack the shell, the inside comes out without any concern. If an egg is truly bad, it will seem shriveled or off. You can try the float test, but I generally don’t worry if it will be fully cooked or baked. I break the yolk and whip it lightly with a fork.
Disclaimer: Please get familiar with your best by, use by, and sell by dates. Don’t eat anything you think can make you sick. If it looks off, if it smells off, don’t eat it. I wish I didn’t need this disclaimer, but I am sure I do.
Finally, I get out my “stir fry liquids”: mirin (rice wine vinegar), soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and my special order sesame honey mustard (I order from the National Mustard Museum). I keep all of these as corralled as I can together on the same inner shelf of the fridge, then I barely have to think about it.
Okay, I doubt you’d order this mustard JUST for leftovers, but it is fabulous in literally any stir fried dish. The first meal I made was organic free range chicken breasts with some roadside farm stand veggies in a tiny frying pan on a hotplate when I went to Iowa and vacationed in a caboose-turned-tiny-house. The chicken with just this mustard cooked on it is AMAZING. Ever since then, I keep a jar in the fridge and use a few tablespoons at a time. I think for this recipe I only used 2 tablespoons.
Let’s Get Cooking!
Heat oil on high (you’re going to need a high heat oil, so please do not use olive oil for this – stick with canola, grapeseed, peanut, etc.). I start with the toughest, hard item I have first: the carrots and onions. Once they start getting a bit of color, I add in the broccoli and finely diced meat. Finally, I add in the egg and make sure it gets stirred in and cooked thoroughly.
Here’s the part you have to rely on your gut instinct. Scary, I know. Turn the heat down a little (to medium or medium high) and add in your rice, soy sauces, mirin, and sesame honey mustard (or sub some grain mustard with sesame oil). It should bubble. Stir to coat and finish cooking thoroughly. If the sauce is a little too thick, add a tiny tiny bit of water at a time until you get the correct consistency. If you’ve added a little too much water, keep stirring and cooking until you feel it is right. A little goes a long way with the sauce department – taste the dish and adjust accordingly.
When you think it tastes good, stop! You’re done. Throw it on a plate or in a bowl and go to town knowing this barely cost you anything, freed up a bunch of room in your fridge, and reduced a portion of your food waste.
Notes
You could totally make this vegan. You could make it with an alternate grain. You could use teriyaki sauce instead. The PF Chang’s Mongolian sauce is absolutely fabulous in stir fries, so you could use that too. The beauty of leftover stir fry is just that: use your dang leftovers instead of throwing them out, if they aren’t growing anything or blinking at you of course.
If all you have is half an onion, a quarter bell pepper, some weird leftover meat cut that would be no good in a soup or alone, and some sauces – you’re in business!
Second Disclaimer: I just really love the dang Mustard Museum! I’m not cool enough (yet) to garner a sponsorship from them or PF Chang’s. It’s totally worth waiting for the manufacturing of a batch of the sesame honey mustard & paying to have it shipped from Wisconsin though!
Reader Challenge!
I challenge you to make a meal from your leftovers this week. Let me know what you made and whether you think it was a hit or a miss. If it was a miss, what was terrible about it? Take notes not to do that next time. You got this!
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