Leftover Holiday Ham? This Might Be The Best Way To Use It Up

Holiday dinners are wonderful, oftentimes full of joy, good cheer, and a holiday ham. Once the meal is over, we're often left with a container of leftover ham in the fridge. One of the best ways to use leftover ham is to make ham fried rice. It's a quick and easy way to breathe new life into your leftovers that's suitable for any meal of the day.

Ham fried rice is exactly what it sounds like: fried rice made with ham. All you need besides the eponymous ingredients are a couple of eggs, some oil, your choice of veggies and seasonings, and a dash of stock and soy sauce to rehydrate the leftovers. You can make it in a pan or, to make things a little easier, a rice cooker. It depends on the ingredients, but ham fried rice is typically gluten-free and contains no major allergens aside from eggs and soy. You can easily alter the recipe to even exclude these, or really any other way, according to your preference.

Just like the leftover ham, the best ingredient for fried rice is leftover rice. Fresh rice tends to get mushy and sticky during this cooking process, whereas leftover rice (which tends to be a bit dehydrated at first) comes out with a much better texture. As long as your leftover rice has been stored and reheated safely, this is a great way to knock out two containers of leftovers at once.

Before you start making your holiday ham fried rice, consider a few key tips. First off, if you're using a pan to make your rice, turn the heat up high. Fried rice needs a high temperature in order to get it crisp and add flavor, so don't be afraid to turn up the stove. When you add ingredients, wait a minute or two before stirring to let the pan heat back up. Also, while fried rice doesn't need constant stirring, you should move things around frequently. Meanwhile, if you're using a rice cooker, it may be tempting to open it up partway to stir, but don't. It will let the steam out, which can lead to uneven cooking.

You can add most any ingredient to your ham fried rice to spruce it up. If you've got leftover veggies from holiday dinner, they're a great choice. Any other holiday sides you had with your ham can potentially go in your fried rice, even mac and cheese.

If you still have leftovers, you can freeze them to keep the food good for up to three months. Put your fried rice in a freezer bag, push all the air out, and seal (doubling up the bags can further protect against freezer burn). Be sure to label the bag with the date, too. When you want to have it again, let it thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating. You can use a little water to rehydrate the rice and make it taste fresher before reheating.