creative savv

The Versatility of Leftover Soup and Stew

2026-05-15T04:00:00.000-07:00

In the comments the other day, Amanda shared how she'd stretched leftover soup to feed her entire family. Then last night I made beef stew for our family's dinner, resulting in leftovers enough to only feed some of us for tonight.

When it comes to leftover soup, you can add extra ingredients, seasonings, and liquid to make additional servings. For additional protein you can add extra cooked meat, cooked beans, rehydrated TVP, a beaten egg or two, peanut butter, or top with cheese, depending on the flavors in the original soup. You can also use leftover soup in a casserole with cooked rice or noodles. If the soup is a broth-based soup, you can thicken it to stew consistency with the addition of a slurry of flour and water or some instant mashed potato flakes. If you wish to change the consistency of a chunky soup, you can run it through a blender to purée. Depending on the soup's original flavor, small amounts of leftover soup can be combined with a sauce to toss with pasta.

"Souper" Strategies for Leftover Soup

casserole -- toss leftover soup with cooked rice (or other whole grains, such as millet) or noodles, add extra veggies as desired, top with shredded cheese and/or bread crumbs. Bake until heated through and cheese is melted.
transform a chunky soup into a creamy soup with the help of a blender, then top with chopped peanuts, roasted pumpkin seeds, shredded cheese, croutons, bacon or ham bits, or minced green onions. If needing to stretch this soup, add extra liquid, seasonings, and instant mashed potatoes.
turn a brothy soup into a noodle bowl. Cook ramen noodles and add to the brothy soup. Top with halves of boiled eggs, green onions, sesame oil and soy sauce (if flavors blend with original soup), a little ginger, and juliennes of cooked meat.

from this (Wednesday dinner of stew)

to this (Thursday dinner of soup)

For my family this week, what I had leftover was beef stew. Leftover stew is also very versatile. Stew can be reheated and spooned over cooked rice, mashed potatoes, cooked noodles, biscuits, or toast. A smaller amount of leftover stew can also become soup for more.

Tonight I added about a cup of water, 3 canned tomatoes (about the size of Roma tomatoes), chopped, and a large pinch of oregano to turn stew into soup. The canned tomatoes changed the flavor and added liquid. Since there was just a handful of beef chunks remaining in the stew, I fished them out and shredded into many bits before adding back into the soup. I wasn't concerned about protein from the soup, as the main protein tonight was an egg, cheese, bread, and veggie strata served on the side.

Winning Ways With Leftover Stew

Pot pie -- custard cups or small casseroles can be filled 3/4 with stew and topped with rounds of pie pastry or biscuit dough for individual pot pies. If filling needs stretching, add some mixed vegetables.
Shepherd's Pie -- pour stew into a pie plate, stretching with additional vegetables as needed, and top with mashed potatoes then shredded cheddar. Bake until golden.
Noodle Bake -- toss leftover stew with cooked noodles, spread in casserole dish and top with cheese. Bake until heated well throughout and cheese is melted.
Stroganoff -- reheat leftover beef stew with sour cream or plain yogurt, mushrooms, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Serve over cooked noodles or rice.
Hash -- toss with cooked, fried potato cubes and heat through. A single to double serving of leftover stew can become hash for 4 to 6.
thin it with additional broth and add more vegetables to transform stew into soup. If there are just a few cubes of meat, remove them and chop into smaller dices.

There are some leftovers that I appreciate more than others. Leftover soup and stew offer so many possibilities that they are both high up on my list of preferred leftovers. Reimagining a meal is creativity with satisfying results that my whole family gets to enjoy. And as a bonus, using our leftovers prevents food waste and save money. Now I can't go wrong with that, can I?

Red, White, and White?

2026-05-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this is going to work. Maybe one of you has experience with taking cuttings from petunias. I bought a 6-pack of a patriotic mix of petunias for 2 pots in my front yard. I thought I counted 2 each red, white, and deep purple in the 6-pack. When I got home and went to transplant these into the 2 pots, I discovered I had 2 red, 3 white, and 1 deep purple. So I have an American flag pot of flowers and a Canadian flag pot of flowers (one has red, white, and blue, the other has red, white, and white).

I thought about buying more petunias in deep purple. Then just on a whim I decided to google whether or not you can propagate petunias by cuttings. Many people said they've had success with this. I followed some instructions a random redditor gave, using a cutting from my one deep purple petunia, and I'm eagerly waiting to see if I can root a stem in water. The instructions were to remove all blossoms and cut each leaf in half horizontally. They recommended rooting after dipping the end in a rooting hormone then in a seed starting medium, which I'm out of. So I'm trying this in water.

I will update you all if this works. If it does, I'm saving myself some money while having the pots of flowers I had hoped for. If it doesn't work, I'll have an American flag pot and a Canadian flag pot of flowers in my front yard. Let the neighbors wonder . . .

Have you successfully rooted petunias before?

A Can of Tuna and a Bunch of Leftover Bits, and I Have Supper on the Table in Minutes

2026-05-12T20:23:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I shopped for our Mother's Day brunch while doing the rest of the grocery shopping for the week. What I didn't say was I was using a portion of our week's grocery budget to cover the celebratory brunch. We really enjoyed our meal and don't regret splurging a bit. But it does leave the rest of the week a little more lean than would be normal. No worries. I've got canned tuna in the pantry.

Did you know that the canned tuna industry has only been around since the early 1900s? Prior to this time, the sardines were the canned fish people knew. In 1903, the sardine catch off the coast of California was particularly poor. One forward thinking canner thought to fill his tins with albacore tuna as replacement for the sardines. Canned tuna caught on and folks have been making tuna sandwiches, tuna salads, tuna patties, tuna casseroles, and tuna on toast ever since.

My family loves a handful of ways that I prepare canned tuna. One of our favorites is tuna salad. Tuna salad provides necessary protein as well as some vegetables, at 80 cents per can (WinCo, Chicken of the Sea chunk light tuna), tuna salad is budget-friendly, it's quick and easy to make, convenient (as I almost always have a can or two in the pantry), and it's another one of those great leftover absorbers.

In our family, we like to add a variety of extenders and flavor enhancers to canned tuna.

For extra protein I like to add chopped boiled eggs or rehydrated TVP (textured vegetable protein). For a similar texture to extend a can to feed a couple of people, I also sometimes add cooked brown rice to tuna salad. To add some crunch and good flavor, we like diced bell pepper (red pepper is especially good, but green works too), sweet pickle relish, diced celery, green onions, mayo, and a little bacon or ham if we have it. The bell pepper adds a lot of zip. My daughter came across a hot tuna sandwich from the late 1950s that used diced green bell pepper in the tuna salad. We enjoyed those sandwiches so much that we began adding bell pepper to tuna salad whenever we had some on hand.

Tonight, as I reached for a can of tuna, I also assessed what leftovers I had in the fridge to use up. I had 2 thin slices of ham (from Sunday brunch), some red and green bell pepper (leftover from Sunday's egg casserole), the end of a jar of sweet and spicy watermelon pickles and its liquid (to substitute for sweet pickle relish), the end of a bundle of celery with lots of leaves, and a ripe avocado.

I combined diced celery and leaves, diced red bell pepper, diced watermelon pickles, and diced ham with 1 can of tuna, some pickle juice for flavor, and mayo to feed 3 adults. We had our sandwiches open-faced, with a large scoop of tuna salad on homemade whole wheat bread, then topped with diced avocado. On the side I served cubed watermelon and cups of rhubarb jello for dessert.

Our tuna sandwich dinner was perfect for a leaner grocery week. It also was just what I had time to prepare after a busy gardening day.

Key frugal takeaways for tuna salad:

chunk light tuna is not only the least expensive version of canned tuna, but it's smaller size pieces and flakes work well in tuna salad.
shop your fridge for crunchy add-ins. Tuna salad is a great medium for wilting celery, or those tops of celery no one wants to snack on fresh, or the last of a bell pepper or cucumber.
get a big boost of flavor with a small addition of pickle juice (sweet or sour), some bacon bits or ham dices, green onions
boost protein with chopped boiled eggs, gently mashed garbanzo beans, or TVP
stretch a single can to feed a few people with the additions of cooked brown rice. Very little flavor and the texture blends well with that of the tuna.

What is your favorite secret ingredient(s) to add to tuna salad or tuna sandwiches? Do you prefer tuna sandwiches hot or cold?