17 Recipes That Are Even Better As Leftovers

Fall feels like a whirlwind, whether your schedule is packed with sports practices and school meetings or social plans and work projects or all of those things at once. By the time you get to dinner, time is tight. Here at Epicurious, we often talk about solving the problem with“nextovers”—that is, purposefully cooking extras of some element of a dish—sometimes abig-batch protein, but sometimes a vegetable—so that the next day, you can transform those bonus, already-prepped ingredients into a whole new dinner.Slow-cooker porkworks in tacos or a stir-fry; you can roast a huge squash forvegetarian ramenand layer the extra into fantasticsquash sandwicheswith pickled onions and sharp cheddar.Marinated lentilsare great on a main-course salad, but also can bulk upthis pasta sauce; hunks oforange-and-chile roast chickenwork well as a second-day torta with pickled jalapeños and creamy avocado. Still, sometimes you can’t find the energy or the time for that kind of reworking, and you just need a full dinner that everyone in your household will be happy eating as is for two days in a row. Scroll down for some staff favorites from the Epicurious recipe archives, including cozysoups, luscious braises, and even a cake that gets better overnight.