Turn Your Leftovers Into Delicious Meals

Next time you clean out your refrigerator, while you're throwing old food and leftovers into the trash, consider how you could have used them up before they expired and rotted. Each year, Americans throw away more than 50 million tons of food — accounting for more than 20 percent of all municipal garbage. But the issue of waste aside, great things can become of your leftovers; all it takes is a little thought and creativity.

 Leftovers can become great again! They can be repurposed to become whole new meals with new flavors, textures, and renewed deliciousness. Here, we've compiled scores of ideas to turn your unfinished meals into wonderful eats. But before we start, know that although this leftover recipe round-up suggests a variety of inventive dishes, nearly everything can be made or repurposed into soup.

You can beef up whatever you have on hand with a flavorful stock, a touch of cream, and a little extra seasoning and then proceed to call it "harvest soup" or something similarly fancy. No one will know you made something impressive out of supposedly nothing — that is, if you don't brag about it.