Recipes to Use Up Leftover Roast Beef (2024)

FAQs

What can you do with over cooked roast beef? ›

A simple fix for overcooked meat is to dump it in your food processor with some olive oil, purée it, and use it as a stuffing for everything from hand pies and empanadas to dumplings and ravioli.

USDA recommends using cooked beef within 3 to 4 days, kept refrigerated (40°F or less). Refrigeration slows but does not stop bacterial growth. USDA recommends using cooked leftovers within 3 to 4 days.

Soup is a fantastic option for using leftover beef, and adding barley is a great option if you want to bulk it out. Beef and Barley Soup is great if meat is tough, but it's also a fab way to cook on a budget. Just make sure you cut your beef up small.

Simmer in liquid. Just like for burnt meat, if your meat gets tough and dry then you can simmer it in a little bit of broth for a couple minutes. Don't allow it to overcook again but just allow the liquid to penetrate the meat.

Oven: Cover beef with foil and reheat in a preheated oven at a low heat of around 160C for 5-10 minutes. Microwave: Transfer roast and any juices to a microwave-safe dish. Cover with a microwave-safe steamer, and reheat using 30-second intervals on “reheat” setting.

Beef, veal, lamb and pork roasts, steaks and chops may be kept 3 to 5 days. After cooking, meat, poultry and seafood can be safely stored in the refrigerator 3 to 4 days.

Perishable foods like meat should not be left at room temperature for more than two hours (or one hour if the temperature is above 90°F or 32°C) as bacteria can multiply rapidly at room temperature, leading to foodborne illness. It's best to discard the roast beef to avoid the risk of food poisoning.

Any ground meat should be used within one to two days of purchase, and cuts of beef within three to five days. Beef that has gone bad will develop a slimy or sticky texture and smell bad or "off."

Reheat with a liquid: One way to add moisture back into the beef is to reheat it in a liquid such as broth or gravy. You can do this by placing the beef in a pot or slow cooker with the liquid and heating it until it's heated through and tender.

How do you reheat beef without it getting tough? ›

They recommend placing a damp paper towel on top of the steak, using your microwave's medium heat setting, and heating the steak in 30-second intervals, while flipping it in between. The total time depends on the size and thickness of the steak, as well as your microwave, but 90 seconds to 2 minutes is a good estimate.

Using a slow-cooker appliance or simmering the beef in a skillet with a lid that fits also works for tenderizing cooked beef. Thinly slicing or shredding the beef helps the meat break down faster. Braise or simmer it for at least two hours.

If your pot roast is still tough after cooking for 6 hours in a crock pot, it's possible that it simply needs more time to cook. Tough cuts of meat, such as chuck roast or brisket, have a lot of connective tissue and require a longer cooking time to break down and become tender.

It sounds odd, but meat can become dry even when it's cooked in moisture. The most likely cause of this is overcooking. As meat cooks, its muscle fibers shorten in both length and width and eventually squeeze out the juices they normally hold.

Tenderize a tough roast that's already cooked by pounding it, cutting it against the grain, adding some marinade or commercial tenderizing agents or braising the meat.

The meat will just twist off the roast if it's ready. But don't cook it too long, or it will end up too dry. Check your roast to make sure liquid is still in the pot. Depending on how big your roast is, check for doneness after two or three hours.

If your meat is well-done, a skillet or microwave can be one of the easiest ways to reheat it, without the need for any special equipment. It's worth slicing the leftover roast beef before you put it in the fridge, so you can heat individual slices as required.