5 Uses for Your Leftover St. Patrick's Day Corned Beef
St. Patrick’s day is over: The streets are littered with abandoned green paraphernalia, a lot of people are nursing some pretty serious hangovers and, if you played this holiday right, there is leftover corned beef to be eaten! This tender, brined brisket is now synonymous with the Irish holiday; many make it the centerpiece of their celebration (next to the pints of Guinness, of course). Make all of those patient hours of preparation worth it and recycle your leftovers into something entirely new and delicious.
Here, 5 of our favorite uses for leftover corned beef.
Brat Reubens
What can you add to corned beef to make it even better? More meat of course! These loaded brat Reubens call for topping toasted hoagie buns with thinly sliced corned beef, Swiss cheese, a grilled bratwurst, and tangy gardiniera. Sounds like a great hangover cure if I’ve ever heard one.
Corned Beef Hash with Fried Eggs
This vegetable-packed, chunky hash comes together quickly and is great for breakfast or dinner. Don’t feel like you’re committed to the vegetables in the recipe, either. Feel free to use what you have, be it parsnips, carrots, Brussels sprouts or even some sauerkraut.
Corned Beef Salad with Rye Croutons
Trying to be healthy? We get it. A night of aggressive beer guzzling can make even Channing Tatum feel like Jabba the Hutt (probably). This deconstructed Reuben-salad with corned beef, rye croutons and Thousand Island Dressing isn’t exactly a handful of carrot sticks, but hey, it has lettuce and it’s delicious!
Corned Beef Muffins
Corned beef? Good. Cheese? Good! Muffins? Hell yes. Try finely shredding any leftover meat and fold it into a savory muffin, likethiskiller version that tastes like pimiento cheese.
Corned Beef Quesadillas
Everyone loves a good mash-up, and this Reuben-meets-quesadilla combo checks all of the boxes: gooey, junky, salty, tangy and creamy. Smear some Thousand Island dressing on one side of a large quesadilla and then top with bite-size pieces of corned beef, shredded Swiss cheese and sauerkraut. (Here's a recipe you can riff on, for reference.) If you want to get fancy, you can add some snipped chives and a few toasted caraway seeds, but we imagine that you’ll want to get this quesadilla from the skillet to your mouth as soon as possible.