What would you do with leftover porchetta?

November 20, 2021 6:05 PM

Assume that we have the ramen angle covered.

We’ve come into the possession of 4 pounds of delicious cooked porchetta to devour between the two of us. While eating it straight for a couple of meals, adding it to hash, and making ramen and quesadillas are all things we’d do, after that it’s going to pall. We tend to eat smaller portions of meat, so our list of usuals will run out before the porchetta does.

Bonus points for non-European flavor profiles, although we’re not averse to European. Neither of us can stand cruciferous veggies or squash, alas, but will happily substitute other veg for those.

I have also seen this Ask, although this stuff is not overcooked in the least.

posted by telophase to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

Best answer: Porchetta makes an amazing sandwich. I would also think that you could freeze anything you don't end up eating, and add it to pasta or ramen or hash at a later date (anything where it won't be the star of the show should be just fine for previously frozen porchetta.
posted by hydra77 at 6:35 PM on November 20, 2021 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Very yes to sandwiches--especially with mustard and pickles, or tangy-sweet fruit preserves, or sometimes cheese.

I also like small bits served on top of polenta or grits, with a sauteed leafy green on the side or mixed in.

And I don't know how similar this is to "eating it straight" for you, but I also love it as one component on a larger charcuterie board.

This is blasphemy in a lot of ways, but I've always been curious to try it in place of guanciale in pasta carbonara.
posted by rhiannonstone at 7:32 PM on November 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

(Four pounds of porketta between two people reminds me of the scene in the movie "Strange Brew" when Dave Thomas's character is locked in a beer tank by the evil brewer to be drowned, and says, "My brother and I used to say that drownin' in beer was like heaven, eh? Now he's not here, and I've got two soakers... this isn't heaven. This sucks." I hope your embarrassment of porchetta doesn't suck.)
posted by wenestvedt at 8:45 PM on November 20, 2021 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Top a salad with it.

Freeze until a later date when you’re not tired of it?

Scramble into eggs or omelette.
posted by slateyness at 10:25 PM on November 20, 2021

Best answer: Slice and stack and freeze for future Cuban sandwiches.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:40 AM on November 21, 2021

Best answer: Maybe not a huge departure from ramen, but I'd be tempted to chop some up and make a big freezer batch of fried rice, probably with something sweet (pineapple, yam, taro) thrown in.

It sounds like it might be a punchline, but leftover twice-cooked-pork daal is really nice. I imagine this would be similar.

Banh mi might be worth a try if you get tired of Cuban sandwiches.
posted by eotvos at 8:19 AM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you, everyone! We now have a shopping list for Cubans and banh mi and fried rice (and plans to freeze fried rice). I also discovered last night (after making porchetta hash) that I'd saved this recipe for mini pork pies in our recipe app, and that we had the ingredients for half of it, so I made ten mini pork pies, some of which were frozen and some of which will be dinner tonight, and which took care of 25% of the porchetta.
posted by telophase at 9:20 AM on November 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

Oooooohhhhhh, pies. Yessss!
posted by wenestvedt at 1:10 PM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]