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 😉
“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.”-George Lichtenberg
For more inspiration, follow me on social media…
Thanks for reading,
Diana
Leave A Comment