Leftover food during Tet and extremely smart ways to process and reuse it

1 Square sticky rice cake, cylindrical sticky rice cake

After Tet, square sticky rice cakes and cylindrical sticky rice cakes often experience two phenomena: one is the cake becoming slimy, and the other is the rice being undercooked.

If the cake is undercooked, you can boil it again to enjoy it hot as usual.

If the cake is sticky but does not have a sour smell, mold, or bitterness, you can fry the cake. People often fry thick slices with hot oil. This way, the cake will be crispy and golden on the outside while still maintaining its chewy and fragrant interior.

If you don’t like too much grease, you can use a non-stick pan to fry without adding more oil. At this point, the fat in the cake will render out and make the cake crispy.

Whether it’s boiled or fried chưng cake or tét cake, eating it with pickled onions, mixed vegetables, or papaya dip is the right way. Additionally, you can dip it in chili sauce or mayonnaise.

Refer to 4 ways to fry chưng cake (tét cake) with water, oil, and sweet and sour sauce to relieve greasiness

Refer to some recipes for pickled onions to eat with fried chưng cake, tét cake that are extremely appropriate

See the guide on how to make mixed vegetables and papaya dip to eat with fried chưng cake, tét cake that are extremely delicious

2 Boiled chicken

The custom of offering chicken at the beginning of the year has been around for a long time during each festival. Therefore, after Tet, there will be some boiled chicken left.

You can re-boil the chicken to eat or transform it into many different dishes. If you have time, tear the leftover chicken into pieces to make porridge, sticky rice, soup, chicken salad, or fry it with rice for the whole family to enjoy.

Refer to some dishes made from shredded chicken that are extremely delicious and appealing

For the larger pieces of meat, you can braise or stir-fry them to eat with white rice, which is also extremely delicious!

3 Beef

Beef is also one of the foods that can be “leftover” after Tet. You can combine leftover beef with ingredients such as carrots, wine, tomatoes, and vegetables to create many unique and delicious beef stew dishes.

In addition to stewed beef, you can also prepare dishes like beef in red wine sauce, passion fruit sauce, or green pepper sauce, and other sauces to change the flavors for the family.

Alternatively, you can make shredded beef salad as a light appetizer!

4 Various types of sausages, cold cuts, and sausage

With items like pork sausage, beef sausage, cold cuts, and sausage,… you can buy some bread or steamed rice cakes and make breakfast for the whole family.

Or you can transform them into stewed or fried dishes with pork sausage, beef sausage, or sausage to enjoy with hot rice, which will be very delicious!

Refer to delicious dishes made from Vietnamese pork sausage

Experiment with beef sausage to create unique dishes

Each day a dish with sausage for you!

Additionally, when you haven’t used up all types of pork rolls, sausages, or cold cuts, you can refer to the preservation methods in the articles below to keep them for a long time and use them gradually!

5 Various types of food

For dry foods such as dried fish, dried squid, dried chicken,… to preserve them, you should wrap them in aluminum foil or newspaper.

Then, place them in a plastic container or a tightly sealed plastic bag before putting them in the refrigerator’s cool compartment, which will help keep the food for a longer time and reduce spoilage.

Moreover, sorting food and placing them in different compartments of the refrigerator is also an effective way to preserve and use food.

With the above suggestions, TasteVN hopes to help you learn more about how to handle leftover food on Tet so that you do not waste the food you have painstakingly bought. Please visit the Cooking Tips section to see more great food tips!