One of the best ways to have variety in your children’s Lunch Box is by packing left-overs or re-purposing your dinner meals so they are suitable for lunches.
This Leftover Roast Hash Brown Recipe is a great way to use leftover roast meat as yummy finger food for the lunch box. Perfect children that want to spend time playing rather than eating, and perfect for us mums who want to get more vegetables into their lunch box (they go undetected in this recipe).
When I make a lunch box food, I always try to come up with a name which is fun and appealing to the kids. I called this Leftover Roast Hash Browns because 1) the kids relate to the term Hash Brown thanks to McDonalds marketing, and 2) to show them what a real hash brown tastes like – lol!
Ingredients:
1 cup of roast meat – diced into small cubes
2 medium potatoes – grated
1 small onion – grated
1 small zucchini – grated
1 small carrot – grated
2 tablespoons of brown rice flour*
2 tablespoons of parmesan or tasty cheese – grated
1 tablespoon chia seeds (optional. I put chia in just about everything for a protein & omega 3 boost)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
small handful of parsley
1 egg
season with salt & pepper to test
I just used a hand grater for all of this, and I used roast lamb because that’s what we had in our Sunday Roast.
* We’ve been crowding out gluten from our diet because we’ve identified it creates anxiety symptoms in our daughter and aggressive behaviour for Israel. Therefore, I made this recipe is gluten free by using brown rice flour, but you could easily use just plain flour.
The How To:
- Combine everything in a large bowl
- Heat a small amount of coconut oil over medium heat in a frying pan
- Form the hash browns by picking up a handful and forming a pattie. Remember if these are for lunch boxes, make them a size that fits in the lunch box.
- Fry them in the small amount of coconut oil until they are nicely browned on each side
- Place them on a piece of paper towel to absorb any excess oil
This can be prepared in advance and used within 1-2 days of being made.
Other ways to use Leftover Roast:
I recommend you always find 3 different ways to use your dinner meals. For this one, here’s some different ideas on how to use Leftover Roast Meat
- Leftover Roast Hash Browns 3 ways – these can be used for the lunch box, made bigger and served for dinner with a garden salad, or used as a breakfast served on wilted baby spinach and topped with a poached egg
- Roast Meat and Vegetable Salad – this could be a salad with brown rice, quinoa or pasta. Add some cherry tomatoes, shredded baby spinach or lettuce, avocado and grated carrot. You could even throw in a few organic raisons for a sweet twist.
- Roast Meat Shepherds Pie – instead of using mince for a shepherds pie, change it up to use your roast meat instead. Then with left overs from this meal make Roast Meat Shepherds Party Pies. Kids love anything in pastry so cut circles out of a sheet of puff pastry, then pop these into a muffin pan, then top with a scoop of the shepherds pie. Bake until pastry is brown.
I got a bit carried away there but you can see how re-purposing left-overs can also be re-purposed to create yet another meal. Go nuts, use your imagination or Google. Your time is precious so adopt the philosophy of cook once, reuse as many different ways as possible.
Want Help With More Great Ideas?
If you want to learn more about how you can re-purpose leftovers and build your own lunch box cook book, you may be interested in the 5-Minute Healthy Lunch Box System eCourse. New Enrollments are now open for the next cCourse which starts on 24th March. Learn more about the 5-Minute Healthy Lunch Box System eCourse