Many of us sometimes feel afraid of experimenting in the kitchen without some form of guidance or previous knowledge about certain ingredients, but finding a recipe for the exact combinations of leftovers can be a challenge.

Today, I just want to share with you some ideas to save left-overs in a simple way. Please note this is not a recipe, but a “InspiRecipe = Inspiration for a recipe”, that perhaps can help you reduce food waste.

The inspection

The other day, I checked the fridge to see what leftovers we had that we could eat for lunch. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough ready-to-eat food, but I had a combination of random leftovers which I didn’t want to waste.

These were the ingredients – you’ll see why I said “random”:

1/4 cup of oats pulp (from making oat milk at home)
1/2 cup of chickpeas
2 teaspoons of pumpkin seeds.
1 cup of brown rice (roughly, I didn’t measure it)
3 old mushrooms

Leftovers

When I have rice/quinoa/pasta, mushrooms and/or legumes, my immediate thought is usually: fritters or burgers.

You are maybe wondering why the “or”, well, that’s key: I never set the expectations of what it is going to turn out because I usually use random ingredients. If the mixture has a good consistency that I can shape then I make burgers (or patties), if not I make flat fritters. I really don’t mind as I love both options.

I make them plant based, but you can add any other ingredient you have around.

Other ingredients

These are ingredients I usually have around, you can easily swap them or ignore some of them:

Chopped onions (you can use leek, spring onions or similar)
1-2 cloves of garlic
Italian herbs (you can use any dry herb you have)
Bread crumbs or similar (if needed)
Salt and pepper
Oil

One of the methods

These steps below are the ones I picked for the mix of ingredients I had:

I sliced the mushrooms and in a pan with a bit of oil, I cooked them with the onions, garlic and the pumpkin seeds for around 5-8 minutes until brown.

Cooking mushrooms

In a food processor, I mixed the mushrooms, chickpeas, oats, Italian herbs, salt and pepper.
Added a bit of bread crumbs for a better consistency and processed it again. At that point, I already knew this mixture would be better for some fritters, as it would be hard to give it a burger shape.

Mixture for fritters

Placed around 2 spoons of the mixture in a pan with a bit of oil and cook them until brown. I got around 6 fritters.

Fritters ready

We served these with a salad and they were delicious!!

Alternative simpler method

Another method I use for fritters is to cook vegetables in a pan (onions, tomatoes, leek, garlic, spinach, grated carrots, zucchinis…or any other vegetable you have) and then simply mix it with rice/quinoa/ pasta, and add 1 egg for consistency.

I like to use the food processor because I often don’t need to use eggs, but this is a quicker option.

Save the leftovers

I believe it is important to experiment, to be creative, to swap ingredients. I often don’t follow recipes step by step as I always tend to adjust them, sometimes a bit, sometimes a lot. Over the years, as I have been doing that, I have become more confident to experiment in the kitchen, to try new combinations and ingredients. Give this InspiRecipe a go and let me know how it goes 😉