I know I’m not the only one who loves serving up a bottle of wine for every occasion. But after the party is over, what to do with all of that wine that was left out overnight at the bottom of the bottle? We HATE throwing food (or drink!) away, so we’re on a mission to repurpose anything you might have leftover after preparing meals.

Our Mission: Help give new life to your leftovers!

Our mission is to stop food waste at home! We have tons of ideas for proteins, but what about leftover wine?

Give New Life to Leftovers

If there is one thing we really don’t like, it’s food waste. Repurposing these leftovers in creative ways ensures that nothing will get wasted, which makes us totally happy! So much food is wasted in the US, but we are here to make sure that never happens again by bringing your leftovers back to life!

Extra Wine Ideas

Make Poached Pears with Leftover Wine!

#1: Make Poached Pears Using Extra Wine

Have a bottle of leftover wine hanging around? Finish it off by making one of my favorite desserts: poached pears! Use the mulling spices leftover from your cider to flavor the wine, then poach the pears until tender and delicious. We love serving poached pears with a scoop of ice cream, but you can also top it with a crumble topping from your favorite pie recipe or fresh fruit that you have laying around, like all of those cranberries.

You can use whatever type of wine you have leftover to poach the pears, but we recommend using red so you can get that striking color. As for pears, use whatever kind you have on hand. You can also use apples for this recipe, so dig into that fridge, and use what you have! Here are some of our favorite poached pear recipes:

#2: Save Extra Wine to Add to Sauces

Here’s our favorite hack for saving leftover wine: freeze it to use later in sauces and stews! Use any old ice tray or ice cube mold for this easy hack. Just fill the ice cube trays with red wine or white wine or even vermouth like you would with water, and freeze until solid. (Wine will freeze because it has a lower alcohol level than hard alcohols which can be stored in the freezer!)

Then, next time you’re making pasta sauce, a hearty stew, or even risotto, just pop a wine cube out of the tray, and use it like you would wine from the bottle! You’ll add an extra layer of flavor and rescue leftovers in one go! Here are some of the many ways you can use leftover wine to flavor dishes:

#3: Infuse Dessert with Extra Wine

Everyone knows that wine goes great with chocolate, but did you know that using wine in baking actually makes the flavor of chocolate deeper? Because chocolate can lose its flavor during the baking process, pairing it with a strong, underlaying flavor like coffee or hazelnut or, yes, even red wine helps the flavor become stronger and more delicious!

Decadent, delicious, chocolate with wine? I’m sold! Try out some of these creative dessert recipes for the perfect pairing of our two favorite things: wine and chocolate!

1 Comment

Lynn B Kera on 6/24/23 at 5:36 pm

I LOVE this series of dealing with leftovers (but what crazy person ever has “extra” cookie dough!!). I’ve tried the brownies because I did want to do something with some leftover red wine instead of using it for cooking wine). I look forward to trying more.