I love leftovers generally but I find the smell of reheated meats and poultry revolting. I’ll eat leftover meats cold, though.
@mathmom… I guess you never discovered the joy of cold pizza for breakfast?
I agree that it doesn’t microwave well.
I pretty much live on leftovers-- can’t imagine life without them.
I mean, what fun would it be to look inside a fridge that doesn’t have the treasures of leftovers?
Pie! In the rare event that there’s leftover pie, it’s a tradition to eat it for breakfast the next day in our family, especially fresh Maine wild blueberry at the summer place. If there aren’t enough slices of everyone arm wrestling is involved.
@calmom Nope, I don’t like my pizza cold. But I agree with @NorthernMom61 leftover pie for breakfast, that’s yummy.
I love leftovers. Generally I make about three meals a week and eat out twice. Two nights of leftovers. Saturday night is often stirfry with whatever veggies, fresh or cooked, and meats leftover from the week. That leaves an empty fridge and I start all over again on Sunday. I do not waste food.
Is the number of days thing primarily about getting tired of the same food or about food safety? I don’t mind eating the same thing two days in a row, but I prefer no more than that. And, I like my leftovers for dinner - not lunch. Except for soup. Sometimes I like to cook on back-to-back nights so I have leftovers two nights in a row but of two different things. So meal one, meal two, meal one leftovers, meal two leftovers. I do agree that reheating meats can be challenging. I’m also curious if, for those who don’t like leftovers, having variety is as important at other meals. I eat the same thing for breakfast every single day. I don’t have a whole lot of variety with my lunches either.
There’s plenty of variety because the leftovers get repurposed, and mixed in with other stuff. (With a tortilla for tacos/burritos; or mixed in with rice or noodles) Even if don’t do much, I’ll typically add extra fresh ingredients when reheating – maybe add some fresh tomatoes or sliced mushrooms – depends on what the food is and what I have on hand. Pretty much any type of meat can be chopped or diced into smaller pieces to become part of something else-- although personally I generally eat poultry & fish, so I don’t have red meat leftovers.
We love leftovers. With only 2 of us, we usually have them depending on what we’ve cooked. Some leftovers are put in the fridge to eat in the next day or two; some are put in the freezer to have sometime in the future. DH cooks the kind of stuff that makes good leftovers - casseroles, enchiladas, lasagna, stews. I tend to cook the one-shot meals - steak, other meats without sauces.
For some foods, I purposely make extra but don’t really consider it leftovers, just repurposed.
I’ll often cook 2 roast chickens and the leftover meet is used for sandwiches, chicken salad, cobb salad, enchiladas, soups, etc.
I’ll make extra salmon and use the leftover for a salad nicoise type salad.
Extra rice becomes fried rice.
Love leftovers! We often use leftover meat (pork tenderloin, chicken parm, steak) in a panini - you can bring the meat to room temperature if you dislike using the microwave to warm it up. Add carmelized onions, cheese, roasted peppers, etc.
The best way to reheat pizza: get a frying pan nice and hot over medium heat; add a slice or two of pizza (make sure there’s enough room that they’re not touching each other). Add a tablespoon or two of water to the sides of the pan; cover. Heat for 3-4 minutes. Once the top is melting, uncover and continue to cook for a minute or so. The crust should be nice and crispy and the cheese should be melted. Much quicker than using the oven!
For us, at least all but one of us in my family, cold pizza is far tastier than reheated pizza. I even prefer cold (refrigerated) pizza to freshly cooked pizza. I’m not sure why. Most typically heated things including things with cheese and sauce I prefer reheated and don’t necessarily even like cold. Cheese on its own is best at room temperature. Pizza is just its own taste.
It’s an interesting thread reading about other’s preferences (all sorts of leftovers).
So what I’ve learned:
Pieces of meat are not tasty warmed over (repurposed is another story)
Some prefer their food “fresh” - though when it’s cooked I don’t fully understand this. A fresh salad I understand.
Leftovers have an expiration time - a few days at most (unless you freeze them). Agreed. If I have to think “should I eat this?” - it’s been too long!
I agree on the meat - a grilled steak with leftovers is best used in stir fry or on a salad.
I hope those of you who don’t use/like leftovers really have a knack for cooking just the right amount so that you don’t have significant food waste!
My specific expiration is day after for seafood (so I’ll only eat it the next day), or 3 days after for all else. If I make it on Sunday, eat by Wed night. Or freeze on Sunday, of course.
“Fresh” means just that - mashed potatoes served as soon as they are mashed. Soup is ladled into bowls as soon as it is done (no re boiling of any kind), steak is served as soon as it is done resting after coming off the grill, still hot. And so on. Those were my uncle’s standards. 
My aunt had that “kitchen choreography” down to science. She knew how to time everything so everything would be served “fresh.”
They are great! always cook enough to have plenty of leftovers for lunch and possibly another dinner. Anything that freezes well, cook enough for multiple meals.
I’m an empty nester so, thankfully, I love leftovers. However, even when the kids and their families are home, I still like to have leftovers after cooking a big meal - particularly, Thanksgiving. I love the day after Thanksgiving when we can fill our plates with good leftovers and pop in the microwave.
Pretty much what intparent said also goes for how we handle ours. Now that our youngest is at college we have way less food on hand and leftovers are that much more valuable.
The main reason I started freezing everything is I lost track of how long things languished in the fridge and wasted too much food that way. Now the freezer is often the first stop.
I visited a German friend who moved from Germany to Hungary to start a business. He had come to visit me before, but after visiting him and meeting his Hungarian girlfriend who had never left Hungary before, I invited him to bring her to visit. I lived where there was plenty to see and do within a reasonable radius, so I just gave them a key to come and go as they pleased and they used my house as home base for a 2 week visit. It was fun for me to see her experience so many things for the first time, like seeing an ocean, her reaction to Costco, and doggy bags!
The first night, I took them to dinner and she couldn’t believe the size of the portions compared to Hungarian restaurants, and when I asked them to wrap the leftovers to take home, she looked horrified. She said that’s something people just don’t do where she’s from. She seemed truly embarrassed and said she’d NEVER eat leftovers from a restaurant, but my German friend had visited before knew this was normal here and was happy to bring home whatever he could so he could eat it later.
Well, at the end of her 2 weeks here, that poor girl was fully Americanized. They ate at least one meal out somewhere on most days, and even though I had stocked the house with food for them, it was only a couple of days into the trip when I found her sheepishly reheating restaurant leftovers in the microwave the next morning. After a week when we were out together on a weekend, she was the one flagging down the waiter and asking him to wrap the leftovers, and by the end of the two weeks, we had to go out and get her some new jeans because the ones she brought no longer fit. :))
We have a crazy schedule. For example, I left home yesterday at 7:15am and didn’t get back with the children until 9:40pm. I have begun to hate home cooked leftovers, mostly because I really don’t like to cook and our still at home children are exceedingly picky.
I love restaurant leftovers from meals I bought but hate when my husband buys too much take-out and we end up with too much of something only he will eat, like beans. I end up having to de-container the refrigerator and hate to see the wasted food.