How to Make Delicious Meals with Leftover Vegetables

The only thing worse than a bad meal is a drawer full of wasted leftover vegetables. I LOVE my veggies and hate to see them get thrown out. If you’re wondering how to make delicious meals with leftover vegetables in the Instant Pot®. I can guide you.

Finding Joy

Last month was a crazy busy month for me, and I spent a lot of time away from home. Here it is, another new month, and I am preparing to be away again soon. In the meantime, I’m enjoying spending some downtime with my husband and getting back into the kitchen; both are things that bring me much joy.

Something else that brings me joy: a vegetable bin full of almost fresh veggies caught before they disintegrated into something unrecognizable. My husband likes to joke that he won’t open the vegetable bin for fear of what he’ll find while I’m away. The amount of food in there was substantial considering how many times I had been home and how many opportunities there had been to use them up.

Using Leftover Vegetables

:Using up leftover vegetables is easier than you might think. You absolutely do not need to make soup, unless of course, you want soup. A perfectly enjoyable new meal can be made with what you have in your vegetable bin along with some staples from the pantry. These are the vegetables that I had on hand: onion, garlic, ginger, beet greens, kale, mushrooms, English peas, asparagus and broccoli .  You will likely have something different. I am sharing this so that you can see that you can use many vegetables in a dish. The timing is what matters.

For this meal, I pulled out some garlic and ginger. I also had 1 potato and 6 sweet potatoes in the pantry but decided against using them. I had plenty of other good eats to use and so on I went. After defrosting a bit of millet tempeh that was stashed in my freezer, I added a package of rice that I had purchased while I was traveling but hadn’t gotten around to eating.

Use whatever leftover vegetables you may have and supplement with fresh as needed using my very flexible recipe as a guideline.

Veggies and Tempeh in the Instant Pot®

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Ingredients

  

• ½ sweet yellow onion chopped
• 1 large clove garlic minced
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
• 1/3 cup broth or water
• ½ cup chopped Trumpet Royale mushroom
• ¼ cup chopped oyster mushroom
• ¼ cup maitake mushroom peeled into strips(Or 1 cup sliced any mushrooms that you have)
• 1 cup chopped beet greens
• 1 cup chopped kale stems removed
• ¼ cup shelled English peas
• 1 ½ cups asparagus cut into 1-inch pieces, leaving the tips intact
• 1 cup broccoli florets and stems
• 2 to 4 ounces tempehLemon juice vinegar, or tamari (choose one)
• Tahini optional

Instructions

 

• Saute onion for 1 minute. Add the garlic and ginger and saute another minute, adding 1 tablespoon of the broth or water. Stir well. Add the mushrooms and greens and another 3 tablespoons of liquid.. Set your pressure cooker to 2 minutes at low pressure. If you don’t have low pressure, set it for 1 minute at high pressure.
• Quick release the pressure, opening the lid, tilting it away from you. Add the remaining ingredients and the rest of the liquid. Set the cooker for another 2 minutes low pressure. If you don’t have low pressure, this time set the cooker for 2 minutes high pressure so that the second batch of vegetables gets cooked through.
• Quick release the pressure. Open the lid, tilting it away from you. Add a squeeze of lemon juice, tamari or vinegar. Drizzle on tahini, if you like it. Personally, I love it!

Notes

Don’t be afraid to add any leftover vegetables you may have, adjusting time and liquid as needed.