Recipes  

10 ideas for wine leftovers

What should you do with the rest of the wine? We offer you 10 suggestions.

1. Wine in the freezer?

Absolutely! Don’t waste a drop of your precious nectar: freeze it in small plastic containers, 125 to 250 ml (½ to 1 cup). Perfect for improving a sauce or marinade.

2. Avoid excess

For cooking, bottles available in the 250 ml format are handy in the pantry. Besides white and red wine, you’ll also find cider.

3. Leftover champagne

Oops… there’s a bit of champagne in that bottle left open overnight. It cooks like white wine: no more bubbles, but its incomparable taste will bring back your smile.

4. Red tail

Add one cup to your spaghetti sauce recipe. Or, make a marinade for meat or game; use it to concoct a delicious sauce.

5. Change water into wine

If you cook for 1 or 2 people, the ice cube tray is the perfect place to store leftovers. After the wine has frozen, place cubes in a Ziploc®-type bag and they will keep up to one year in the freezer.

6. Add to dessert

We often forget the charm of poached pears in red wine and flavoured with spices, such a wonderful winter dessert.

7. A finger of Porto

Sauté pork tenderloin and deglaze your pan with porto (about 125 ml/½ cup) and a couple spoonfuls of maple syrup. Let it slowly glaze and enjoy.

8. Sweet wine leftovers ?

This is ideal to plump up plums, raisins or dried figs before making jam to go with your cheese or fruitcake. It is the holidays after all.

9. Corked wine?

Return it to the wine store or follow the advice of wine expert Christian Maurin, cork specialist at the Université du vin in France: make it into sauce! Within a reasonable limit, corked wine can be recovered to cook stew, beef bourguignon, coq au vin or another braised or slow cooker meal. He suggests adding mushrooms or bacon so that their flavours integrate those of the old wine. Do you dare try it?

10. White wine leftovers

Use it in your mussels marinière or to soak your grated cheese to make a good fondue.

Hélène Laurendeau

A nutrition and health enthusiast who loves to share: this description fits Hélène Laurendeau to a tee. She has been active for more than 25 years in the media and communications field. Nutritionist, host, columnist, author and speaker, Hélène holds a Bachelor degree in Nutrition and a Master degree in Epidemiology. She has spread her knowledge alongside Ricardo every week since 2005, as part of his daily show broadcast on ICI Radio-Canada Télé, as well as in Ricardo magazine, where she pens the Bien se nourrir (Eating Well) column.