Love leftovers! We have an upright freezer in our basement, so plenty of room for frozen portions. After two or three days in the fridge, I’ll ladle things into smaller containers, take a sharpie to pieces of masking tape for labels, and we’re set for whenever.
@abasket After a few meals-that-didn’t-happen because Someone Nameless ate a critical ingredient, DH has learned to ask “Do you have plans for [food item], or is it up for grabs?” Hope yours enjoyed the enchiladas!
No reheated steaks, pork chops, or chicken breast for me either. They continue to cook if reheated and turn into rubber. 
Steak or chicken end up as cold salad toppings the next day.
@garland …Turkey is a different story. We eat until it’s gone!
Many of our home cooked meals actually taste better the second day!
I love leftovers and hate food waste. BUT I don’t like rubber chicken, overcooked steak and dried out pork. A couple of years ago I bought a sous vide immersion circulator. I love it for fresh food but it is so great for leftovers. Proteins reheated without drying out. It is also great for grabbing leftover proteins from the freezer, an hour or so before dinner, and getting the meat to the desired temperature without overcooking.
If a thing is worth eating it’s worth eating twice. I don’t find my chicken or pork turning rubbery, but if you microwave you have to be very careful - better to have lukewarm leftovers than over cooked ones. Steak I sometimes warm up in a frying pan, but often it’s just better to eat it cold. I agree that some things - stews, soups and curries often taste better the next day.
The things we like to eat as leftovers the next day- chili, spaghetti, beef stew, meatloaf, lasagna, soup,etc. I am not a fan of things like leftover chicken, pork, fish, pizza but my husband will eat that kind of stuff for breakfast or lunch if there are leftovers. I will only eat leftovers the next day . After that , I am on to something else, and we eat at home most nights.
Growing up, my mom’s hoarder tendancies were kept to the garage - and the fridge. She wasn’t academic at all but I swear there were long term science experiments growing in there.
Out of the three of us kids, the oldest will eat leftovers for about one day. My other brother won’t touch them at all, and I pretty much live on leftovers. DH and I eat them for lunch almost every day and sometimes for dinners too. DH will eat leftovers for the better part of a week; I’ll go three days max.
I rarely have leftover food in my fridge. Every once in a while when I do, it would usually just set there until I throw it out. I don’t pack lunch for work because I prefer fresh food.
I rarely eat leftovers. Don’t like the reheated taste/texture. There are some seasonal holiday foods I will eat (turkey, some ethnic holiday items), but for the most part, DH eats the leftovers. Dessert leftovers are a different story. Love them!
Casseroles, veggies, great. Plain meat cannot be reheated, for the most part. There’s something about the taste or texture that makes me nauseous. I will quickly dunk thinly-sliced roast beef in broth for French dips, but that’s about it. If the meat can be eaten cold, added to salads or sandwiches, I’m all in.
I have an estranged relative who hasn’t had much money through her adult life. She hates leftovers, to the extent that she will throw out perfectly good food (think cheese, dips, pasta) instead of keeping for her and her son to eat the next day.
I wish I had some leftovers right now!
I plan on left overs when I’m cooking. We both like them for lunch the next day, or if it’s something large, like a pan of my chicken enchiladas, for dinner the next day. We both like to cook, but planning, shopping, chopping, cooking doesn’t take half the time for a recipe that feeds two as a recipe that feeds four.
That said, I don’t reheat steak, grilled chicken breast or pork tenderloin. If it’s left over it becomes DHs breakfast or sliced cold onto a salad or turned into stir fry or other re-cooking that doesn’t qualify as left-overs.
We have a friend who was raised in the “left-overs are dog food” school. She once was about to dump an entire 9x13 pan of lasagna after a big party. It had never left the oven and was safely warm enough all through the dinner. I took it home and we enjoyed dinner the next night and several lunches in the freezer. It kills me that she throws away perfectly good food!
Our dog got what was left on our plates atop her kibble, which was probably bad enough from a veterinary standpoint.
I would love to cook just a couple three times a week and do leftovers the rest of the week! My husband is a great leftover eater too. My kids are not into leftovers. They can eat cereal!
Another benefit to an empty nest!
I grew up in a house where leftovers were a no, so I never learned to like them nor did I eat them for a long time. I totally get those people who do not like them. I was taught it was boring to eat the same thing, it wasn’t as fresh, it was not needed, etc. I would not eat the leftovers from a restaurant or home. Fast forward to when I met my husband and his family and they were all about leftovers. I learned by seeing the parents take them for lunch to work (and be excited about it!) and heat them up as part of the next days meal if there were a great deal of them. They would make something for dinner that I really enjoyed and then the next day or the day after they would have some for lunch and I would get to try the meal again. It took a bit of time but then I was ok with it. Then I started cooking for a family and it was like you all said, I didn’t want to waste money, liked a day off of cooking, couldn’t see anything wrong with it, had people fighting over my leftovers etc. Now leftovers are in the regular lunch rotation and I look forward them
We have nothing against leftovers. Unfortunately some of them end up getting moldy in the back of the fridge. I hate wasting food, but if I’m not sure about something, I pitch it. I don’t particularly enjoy cooking, so I usually make a big batch of something that will feed us for a few days.
It seems like a real luxury to me to be able to just discard leftovers. Not everyone has time to cook every day, and it is hard to cook in really small quantities if you are only going to eat that day’s meal and you are an empty nester or single. Or maybe some people just eat out or order takeout when they don’t have time to cook - again, that is a significant financial luxury.
My mom cooked for 5 people, and never made enough for seconds, let alone leftovers. So I didn’t grow up with them. But once I was cooking on my own, I realized what a huge timesaver it is to eat leftovers or make extra of things to freeze. I do see some comments of “my H won’t eat them” or “my kids won’t eat them”. Put them in charge of cooking for the family if they don’t want to eat leftovers, and they might quickly learn to like them after all. I wouldn’t honestly have put up with my kids saying they won’t eat them, especially if it is something they ate when it was first served (I get not wanting a second night in a row of a food you don’t like!).
Leftover pizza is good, but you have to warm it up in the real oven.