Best Recipes for Holiday Leftovers – Our Top 5

Toss up a simple spinach salad with some leftover beef. Throw in roasted beets and Gorgonzola cheese to give your tastebuds something different. This is a great wintery option for your palate, especially after all of the heavy holiday eating. And it's a salad, so throw in whatever you have lying around that is about to lose its freshness to make sure it doesn't go to waste.

If your main dish was ham, then you've got to consider putting it into a good soup. I really like the ham and bean soup from the Kitchen Comforts blog. You need about one pound of leftover ham and the rest of the ingredients are commonly used in holiday foods, so you shouldn't need to do much shopping, if any.

Nothing quite soothes the soul like a good pot pie, and whether you have beef, ham, chicken or turkey left over, they can all get used up along with any extra veggies still hanging around. Mix up the traditional pot pie by using phyllo dough.

I have never been able to turn away from a good quiche and am always looking a reason to make one, and what better reason is there than to use up your leftovers? Ham is great in a quiche and you could even throw in some red potatoes if you have any left. If you made any pies for the holidays, then you are either still in crust making mode or you have at least one premade pie shell left to use up, so go ahead and put some goodness in the middle already!

The recipe from this one comes straight from Cyndi at the Copper Kettle. You'll need to cut your leftover been into bite sized pieces as well as 1 roughly chopped onion, 2 T. extra virgin olive oil, 2 ancho peppers (re-hydrated in 2 cups of hot water), 1 can well rinsed white northern beans (optional), 1 can crushed tomatoes and 6 cups of beef broth. Heat a heavy pot over medium heat. Add the olive oil and then the chopped onions. Stir and let sizzle for about one minute. Reduce the heat and caramelize the onions (about 20 minutes until very soft and light brown in color). Remove the ancho pepper from the water (save the water), gently open the peppers and scrape out the seeds. Chop pepper into small pieces and add to the pot. Add the meat and the can of tomatoes and stir. Add the beef broth (preferably not the hard little cubes), add 4 cups first then add the pepper water if you wish for a bit of deeper flavor. Add the beans and bring to a simmer. Add the rest of the broth as needed. Season with salt and pepper. If it tastes a little flat add 1/4-1/2 tsp vinegar to brighten the flavor. Serve hot with grated mozzarella on top.