Cooking with Only Leftovers from the Fridge – 3 Easy Recipes

by Barry Lewis

Difficulty
Easy
Ingredients Method

Ingredients

Pesto & Mustard Toastie with a Fried Egg
Cheddar cheese
Smoked bacon (3 rashers)
Red onion (½, sliced)
Pesto
Wholegrain mustard
Bread (2 slices)
Butter (for toasting)
Egg (1)

Simple Sausage Pasta Bake
Cold cooked pasta (about 200g)
Cooked frankfurters or hot dogs (a few, chopped)
Fresh spinach (handful)
Cream cheese (a few big spoonfuls)
Lemon (for a squeeze of juice)
Salt
Pepper
Grated cheese (for topping)
Breadcrumbs (optional, for topping)

Leftover Chicken Tray Bake with Halloumi & Tahini
Sweet potato (1, chopped)
Cherry tomatoes (handful)
Cooked chicken (shredded)
Halloumi sticks (or block, cut into chunks)
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Dried herbs or smoked paprika
Tahini (for drizzling)

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Cooking with Only Leftovers from the Fridge – 3 Recipes That Actually Worked

Sometimes the fridge just stares back at you. A bit of cheese, half an onion, a dodgy-looking sausage, and you think, “Well that’s not a meal, is it?”

But instead of giving up and ordering a takeaway, I brought some bits from the house fridge over to the garden kitchen — which is normally empty apart from the light bulb — and challenged myself to make three proper meals. No shopping, no prepping, just working with what I had.

To be honest, I may have chosen things that were a bit more camera-friendly (no one needs to see that jar of pickled beetroot lurking at the back), but it’s all stuff that genuinely needed using up.

Here’s how it went.

 Pesto & Mustard Gourmet Toastie with a Fried Egg

This one’s all about taking simple ingredients and giving them a bit of love.

  1. Start by frying 3 rashers of bacon in a pan until crispy. Remove and set aside, but leave a bit of the fat in the pan — flavour, innit.

  2. Thinly slice half a red onion and soften it gently in the same pan over low heat. You want it sweet, not burnt.

  3. In a bowl, mix a good spoonful of pesto with about a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard. Trust me on this — the mustard adds a lovely little kick.

  4. Take two slices of bread. Spread that pesto-mustard mix on the inside of both slices.

  5. Layer on the softened onion, the crispy bacon, and a generous handful of grated cheddar.

  6. Butter the outsides of the bread, then toast in a frying pan (or sandwich press if you’re feeling fancy) until golden on both sides and the cheese is properly melted.

  7. While that’s happening, fry an egg in the same pan. Pop that on top of the toastie for a proper finish. Eat immediately, and probably don’t plan anything productive for the next 10 minutes.

 Simple Sausage Pasta Bake

This one came together from some cold pasta, a few frankfurters and a bit of hope. But it worked!

  1. Roughly chop up a few cooked frankfurters (or hot dogs if that’s what you’ve got).

  2. In a baking dish, add about 200g of cold, cooked pasta.

  3. Chuck in the chopped sausage, a handful of fresh spinach, and squeeze over a bit of lemon juice to brighten it up.

  4. Add a few big spoonfuls of cream cheese and stir it all together right there in the dish. (I started in a bowl and immediately regretted it — double washing up. Just mix it in the dish. Trust me.)

  5. Season with a bit of salt and pepper, then sprinkle over a handful of grated cheese and some breadcrumbs.

  6. Bake at 200°C (fan) for about 20 minutes, until the top is golden and the cheese is bubbling round the edges.

  7. Let it cool slightly before serving. It’s comfort food — nothing fancy, but it tastes good and uses up stuff that might’ve ended up in the bin.

Leftover Chicken Tray Bake with Halloumi & Tahini

This one felt suspiciously like an actual meal. Like I meant to make it.

  1. Chop 1 sweet potato into chunks (no need to peel if you can’t be bothered).

  2. Add a handful of cherry tomatoes, some shredded leftover cooked chicken, and a few halloumi sticks if you’ve got them.

  3. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of dried herbs or smoked paprika — whatever you’ve got knocking about.

  4. Toss it all together on a tray and roast at 200°C (fan) for about 25–30 minutes, or until the sweet potato is tender and the halloumi is going golden and crispy.

  5. Once it’s out of the oven, drizzle over a little tahini while everything’s still warm. It sort of melts in and gives it this lovely satay-style flavour. Honestly, it was way better than it had any right to be.

Final Thoughts

So there you go — three meals, all made from what I had in the fridge. No fancy shopping list, just grabbing bits that needed using up and giving them a second life. You don’t need to follow these exactly (half the fun is the guessing), but hopefully it gives you a bit of inspiration next time you’re staring into your fridge thinking, “Can I really make a dinner out of this lot?”

You can watch the full video just above — but if you prefer to watch it over on YouTube, click here to do that. Also, if you enjoyed this, checkout these 3 ingredient recipe ideas.

Let me know in the comments what you’d have made with your fridge bits — or if you’ve got a go-to leftover meal that always does the job.

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