Often, a half-eaten dinner is simply thrown away or put in a container to clear your conscience, which remains for weeks until the next revision of the refrigerator. And very wrongly.

Yesterday's food can save you from having to cook another lunch or dinner from scratch. Just reheat it in the microwave and eat it — it's boring and not so tasty anymore. Instead, try other options:

Put the remains of the cereal in the soup or salad, so the dish will have additional flavors and texture.
Fry yesterday's side dish, say rice, with butter, egg and vegetables: a few minutes — and lunch is ready.
Lightly brown the meat and vegetables in a frying pan, add cheese, lettuce leaves and wrap everything in pita bread — you will get a pleasant improvisation on the theme of shawarma or burrito.
Mix several types of cereals and legumes, for example rice and lentils, buckwheat and beans, couscous and bulgur, add fresh herbs, oils, seasonings — and you won't have to cook a new side dish.
Put the leftover lettuce and greens in a blender to make a vegetable smoothie.
Buy pizza dough, spread meat and vegetables on it, sprinkle them with grated cheese and send them to the oven for 10-15 minutes. Yes, this is not a masterpiece from an Italian restaurant, but it turns out interesting, tasty and satisfying.

With this approach, you can not just save leftovers to use later, but also specially cook a little more.

2. Take inventory in the kitchen

Even those who adore this activity get tired of constantly cooking. And if there are no convenient tools at hand, cooking will bring you to the handle much faster. And vice versa.

If you have good, easy-to-clean baking dishes, you will not have to wipe the whole baking tray every time and you will be able to cook fast, delicious and healthy dishes like stews and casseroles. With a toaster and a blender, breakfast and snacks will no longer be a problem. The slow cooker will simplify the preparation of porridges, side dishes, stews, mixer pastries and pancakes. In a grill pan, you can cook delicious vegetables for garnish in 10 minutes.

Think about what you are missing most in the kitchen, and slowly buy the missing. Good dishes and household appliances cost money, but they help make cooking more enjoyable.

3. Don't forget about the freezer

Usually raw meat, poultry or fish are stored there, sometimes semi—finished products like dumplings and sausages.

But the freezer is also great for ready-made food. It helps to save not only cooking time, but also money. You can, for example, freeze some of the dishes if you have cooked too much; buy some products at a small wholesale price and not be afraid that they will spoil; cut and save seasonal fruits, vegetables, berries and herbs.

Some even specially prepare How we prepared 38 kg of food / Mom knows everything / VKontakte a lot of food, freeze it in portions, and then defrost and eat if you don't have the strength to cook a new one.

In order not to get lost among the boxes, containers and bags, it is better to get stickers on which the composition of the dish and the date of freezing will be written. Well, you can also hang a small marker board on the refrigerator and record all your stocks on it. So it will be immediately clear what you have in stock, and some grated carrot will not have to lie idle on the far shelf for years.

4. Make a menu for the week

And buy products for him in advance. Usually it takes a lot of time not so much to prepare food, but to figure out what to cook, inspect the cabinets and refrigerator ten times, understand that there is not enough milk, eggs or buckwheat, and with a heavy sigh go to the nearest store for the missing.

All these torments will end if you make a menu for the week ahead. Focusing on it, you can order products home, wash and slice some of them in advance, and then cook quietly. Do not forget to buy quick snacks in addition to the main products, just in case — yoghurts, loaves, muesli, bars and so on.

The menu should not be complicated: make a list of 10-15 simple dishes that you like, and combine them in different ways, from time to time replacing the boring ones.

Moreover, a menu prepared in advance does not mean that every day you will have to prepare a new dish from scratch. For example, on Monday for lunch pearl barley with a cutlet. Then on Tuesday, the remaining grits can be put in chicken soup, and on Wednesday, fry the chicken breast a little and eat it with buckwheat and vegetables.

In short, spending an hour to competently make a menu and plan purchases, you will save yourself time, effort, nerves and, perhaps, even money.