Episode 038 is the last in the Season 1 What We’re Grilling series, where Taryn discusses recipes she and her family have grilled over the last couple of weeks to give you some meal inspiration. This episode is all about what to do with leftovers! Grilled and smoked meats are great for leftovers, plus using leftovers can help stretch your grocery budget too. But you can use them in more than just soups and casseroles! Taryn reviews some of her family’s favorite recipes for dinner leftovers, including a burrito bowl, a twist on nachos, and ways to make a delicious stuffed potato. Listen in to hear the delicious details!
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RECIPES MENTIONED
These are some of the recipes mentioned in the episode, all of which are on Hot Pan Kitchen.
TRANSCRIPT
Taryn Solie: Hello grillers! Welcome to another What We’re Grilling episode. I am your host, Taryn Solie, and I am here to give you some grilling inspiration. These What We’re Grilling episodes are meant to be short and sweet, coming out about every 2 weeks. I go over some of the foods that my family and I have grilled that we’ve liked – some of what I mention will just be general meal ideas, and for others I’ll go into more detail to give you a sense of how to grill it. The goal is to give you some ideas for what to cook for your family and friends.
This will be the last What We’re Grilling episode for Season 1! I’m going to switch things up a little for Season 2 and will publish an episode with what’s next after Season 1 wraps next week. But for today we’re going to talk about leftovers.
I’m going to be honest, I haven’t done much grilling, or cooking in general, over the last 2 weeks. We are starting a long-overdue renovation in parts of our house, including our kitchen, so everything is packed up which makes it difficult to cook anything! However I wanted to use today to give you some ideas for using leftovers because groceries have gotten more expensive and for us, leftovers are a great way to stretch our money a bit.
I think when people think of ways to use leftovers they typically think of either soups or casseroles. And both of those are great options, I love both soups and casseroles. But today I’m going to give you three ideas you may or may not have thought about.
First up is a burrito bowl – this one you’ve probably done before, but I love it because it’s so versatile. We typically use steak in our burrito bowls, but really any type of protein will work. These are great for families with different tastebuds because people can just choose whatever they want to put in their bowls. Some of the foods we typically include in ours, besides the meat, are rice, beans (I love black beans in mine), shredded lettuce, cut up tomatoes, shredded cheese, and guacamole. But there are a ton of other foods you could use too, like salsa, sour cream, chopped peppers, corn, chopped onion, or even grilled or roasted veggies.
You can definitely DIY this type of meal very easily, but if you’re wanting to follow a recipe I’ll link my steak burrito bowl on the show notes page. And I’ll also link a couple different flank steak recipes you can use as well.
Next up is something I call nacho salad. It’s kind of a cross between nachos and a salad, just all piled on one plate. This is a great dinner when you want something quickly because you can cook the nacho part in the microwave and then just add everything else on top.
Essentially you layer chips on a plate in a single layer, then add your leftover meat and some cheese on top. Again, any kind of leftover meat works here – steak, chicken, pork. Or if you want to use your leftovers for something else you can cook up ground meat and use that. Or if you made hamburgers and have one left over you could crumble it on top of the nachos – lots of different options here.
So you cook that in the microwave until the cheese is melted (usually under a minute), then on top of it you add a bunch of chopped lettuce, some cut up cherry tomatoes and sliced avocado. To finish it off, drizzle a dressing made of salsa and sour cream all over it and you’re good to go! You can add other items on top of it too, similar to the burrito bowl, or you can keep things simple. Totally up to you! I will warn you though, it can be messy to eat! Definitely keep a napkin around for this one.
The last meal I want to mention is stuffed sweet potatoes. I actually have two different recipes on my website for stuffed sweet potatoes with different flavors. Both of them have a sweet and savory element, with the sweetness of the potato balancing the saltiness of the filling. You could definitely use white potatoes for either of these dishes, but I think you’d miss out on the awesome flavor combination.
The first combo is Thai-inspired where you use leftover shredded chicken with baby spinach and peanut sauce to mimic the flavors of a swimming rama type dish. It’s literally a 4 ingredient meal and it tastes so good. You can buy a peanut sauce at the store or make your own. One of my favorite sauces to use with this is actually a nut-free version made with sunflower butter – I’ll link to that recipe on the show notes page.
The second combo has Mexican-inspired flavors. I typically use my Mexican ground beef skillet in this dish, but you could easily use some steak or even some crumbled smoked meatloaf instead. Then you just pile guacamole on top and dig in. Really, really easy and delicious. I’ve had several people I know in real life make this meal and come back to tell me how much they loved it – it’s definitely a winner.
And for either of these you can cook the sweet potato in the microwave, which is what I do. You just need to poke some holes in it and cover it with a paper towel, and then you microwave it for several minutes. Or if you want to use your Traeger or your grill, you can do it on there too.
And there you go! Three simple meal ideas that use leftover grilled or smoked protein. Use them to turn leftovers into a different dinner for your family, or to make for your lunch the next day. I’m going to put links to the recipes I’ve mentioned on the show notes page – to get to it you can either go to my main website at Hot Pan Kitchen dot com and click on podcast in the main menu, or you can click on the link provided in whatever podcast app you’re listening on.
If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would subscribe to the show on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on.
That’s it for today, thank you so much for listening, and until next time, keep grilling like a mother.
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