Thanksgiving Day was this past Monday for us up in Canada, and many of had a wonderful feast. Each family celebrated this feast in a different way. Traditionally, there would be a turkey with bread stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables and tons of gravy. Then, dessert would be pumpkin pie. This day would be one very special day. On this day, most of the family members would gather together. The overabundance of food often happened. This would result in an enormous amount of leftovers mounting up in the refrigerator. These leftovers would turn into a lot of food waste if not eaten. What could be done?

Use The Leftovers

In order to reduce the amount of food waste to left over in the host’s home, here are some ideas that you can think about for your next Thanksgiving!

1. BYOB: As the host, you can mention and remind your guests to bring their own box or reusable containers to bring back whatever leftover that they like to eat the next day. Make sure that you have some containers in your kitchen, just in case a guest forgets or run out of containers. Mason jars are a great idea to have in your kitchen because you can use these to fill up with soup without the worry of spillage.

2. Make some sandwiches: For the families that make turkey as their main dish, you can remove the leftover meat and make some delicious sandwiches for lunch the next day.

3. Make some broth: If you have a slow cooker at home, you can toss the bones in and add some water and root veggies to make a soup. In our family, we add a cup of rice to make congee (Chinese rice porridge). You can use this broth to make some delicious oatmeal too!

Do you tend to have leftovers at your Thanksgiving dinners also? What do you usually do with these leftovers?