Got some leftover roast beef and wondering what to do with it? How about this delicious Leftover Roast Beef Curry? It’s quick, easy and super tasty. No leftover roast beef? No problem! Read on for how to make this easy beef curry with steak instead…
I LOVE a beautiful joint of roast beef…but it is so easy to end up with leftovers hanging about in the fridge…of course you could eat them cold with vegetables and potatoes, or have roast beef sandwiches…but one of my favourite things to do with leftover roast beef is turn it into a delicious curry.
And the best thing about using leftovers is it means making a beef curry is much quicker and easier than if you were starting from scratch – it only takes 30 minutes, perfect for a busy week night…and, of course, using roast beef means it tastes amazing!
I have used red peppers and sweet potato to bulk this curry out and make my leftovers stretch further, but you can use extra meat if you prefer or alternatively use a tin of chickpeas and / or some leftover cooked vegetables instead.
Love the look of this curry but don’t have any leftovers? No problem you can make this beef curry with steak instead – decadent I know – but worth it! Beef steak curry is utterly wonderful. And not as expensive as it might sound – served as part of a curry like this, with rice and naans, 2 small steaks will stretch to feed 4.
Simply start by cooking your steak in the normal way, and resting as you would normally do too (instructions for how I do it below in the recipe), then chop the steak into small pieces and throw them into the curry a couple of minutes before the end.
Alternatively you can make this curry with other leftover meats – leftover roast lamb and leftover roast chicken work particularly well. Or turn this into a vegetarian curry by using leftover cooked vegetables instead.
More ideas for roast beef leftovers…
Need more ideas? Check out my other leftover roast beef recipes!
Leftover Roast Beef Curry
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 onions (red or white), diced finely
- 4 cloves garlic
- 2 cm ginger
- ½ - 1 teaspoon chilli flakes or to taste
- 2 teaspoons cumin ground
- 2 teaspoons coriander ground
- 2 teaspoons turmeric
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 2 teaspoons garam masala
- 2 tablespoons tomato puree
- 1 small sweet potato (roughly 250g / 9oz), chopped into 1cm / ½ inch cubes (ish!)
- 1 red pepper chopped into 1cm / ½ inch chunks (ish!)
- 1 tin coconut milk
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 600 g leftover beef chopped into bitesize pieces (or 2 x 300g steaks – see notes)
- Juice of half a lime plus extra for garnish
- 2 tablespoons fresh coriander/cilantro plus extra for garnish
- Rice and / or naans to serve
Method
- Place the onions and olive oil in a wide, deep saucepan or frying pan and cook gently over a low heat for 5 minutes or until soft, but not brown. Stir occasionally.
- Add the garlic, ginger, chilli flakes and all the spices and cook for 1 minute – add a splash of water if it gets too dry.
- Add the tomato puree and stir to combine, then add the sweet potato, red pepper, coconut milk, salt and pepper. Cover with a lid and simmer for 10 minutes until the sweet potato is soft.
- Add the beef and cook for a further 3-5 minutes until the beef is piping hot all the way through (but don’t overcook!)
- Add the juice of half a lime and the coriander leaves and stir.
- Serve with rice and/or naans and use the extra limes and coriander as garnish.
Notes
To make this with steak, heat a griddle or frying pan until smoking hot. Meanwhile lightly coat the steak with oil. Place the steak on the hot pan and cook for 1 minute each side. Lower the heat and cook the steak for 1-2 minutes each side, depending on thickness.
Remove the steak from the pan and allow to rest for 5 minutes, then chop into bitesize pieces.
Make the curry as above and then add the steak pieces to the curry instead of the leftover roast beef.
Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.
Need more curry inspiration? Check out my collection of Easy Peasy Curry Recipes
Love beef? Check out my collection of Easy Peasy Beef Recipes…
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Linkies
I am linking this up to Brilliant Blog Posts, Cook Blog Share, Free From Fridays, Cook Once Eat Twice and Recipe of the Week.
Yet another winner of a curry recipe Eb, I love the fact that I can get two meals out of one and this is perfect. Beef for dinner this Sunday…curry Monday xxx #RecipeoftheWeek
Aw thanks Rebecca 🙂 Yep, that is my thinking exactly… roast beef Sunday, curry Monday – brilliant!! And roast beef curry tastes soooo good. Eb x
This looks so appetizing! Yum! Thanks for sharing, Eb!
Thanks Jhuls…it’s a really tasty one! Eb x
I am really starting to love curries because of you! Thanks 🙂
Oh I am so pleased to hear that – thank you! 😀 Eb x
This looks so good – I just love all the bright colours in and it’s perfect for using up leftover roast beef. It’s definitely making me want to make traditional sunday lunch soon just so I can make curry afterwards! Thanks for sharing with #CookOnceEatTwice x
Thank you! You know me – just love colourful food 😀 Haha – yeah quite a lot of people have said to me they are inspired to make roast beef just so they can have this afterwards…if beef sales are up this weekend we’ll know why 😉 Eb x
that looks so good – and always great to have new recipes for leftovers. Yum!
Thanks Ema 🙂 I have a good stock of leftovers recipes on EPF and, don’t worry – I will keep them coming! Eb x
I ADORE leftover curry! Whenever we have leftovers from a Sunday dinner everyone asks for a curry. This looks so good! Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x
It’s a good’un isn’t it – worth making extra roast beef just to be sure you have plenty of leftovers for a good curry! Eb x
Oh, what a great way to use the leftover meats from the Sunday roast. I cant wait to try this #freefromfriday
Thanks Chloe – would love to know how you get on if you try it 😀 Eb x
I always make fajitas or curry with leftover chicken roast, but I have never done it with leftover beef. Great idea, and it looks delicious. I love a dinner that is ready is 30 minutes or less 🙂 Thanks for joining in with #FreeFromFridays.
Thanks Mel – you should so make curry with leftover beef – it’s the best!! 😀 Eb x
I am trying to do more cooking and seeing this inspired me to try this and it worked really well. My wife who is a really good cook liked so all good. Just needs more sauce for me so would like to know how to do that.
Also we have left over. Can we save that in the fridge aswell and re-heat? My wife thinks not but thought I would see what you think? The beef had been cooked 4 days before I made the curry.
Hi Mark – thank you so much for this lovely comment. I am really pleased my recipe inspired you…and it met with your wife’s approval! It means so much to me to know my recipes are being made and enjoyed 😀 To make the curry with a little more sauce, you have a couple of options…you could simply add a little water at the same time as the coconut milk, or you could add extra coconut milk. Not knowing quite how much sauce you would like, I can’t give an exact quantity, but I suggest trying about 200ml (if going for the water option, simply half fill the empty coconut milk tin with water.) You might find that this dilutes the flavour a little and you therefore want to add a little extra of the spices etc.
As regards reheating food that has already been reheated…it’s a good question, it’s not something I generally do so I looked it up…it seems that you can reheat most foods more than once, but you need to ensure you are reheating it to a high enough temperature (75C) and still abiding by the length of time recommended for keeping that meat in the fridge for after cooking (the first time) – so up to 4 days for beef. This is where I got my information from: https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/2017/04/03/how-many-times-can-you-reheat-leftovers – it’s quite an interesting article!
However I would always advise erring on the side of caution if you are unsure – it’s sad to throw away leftovers, but far better than getting food poisoning!
Hope that helps – Eb 🙂
beef curries are always my favourite dish,our local favourite side dish known as chapati would do justice to this meal.
Oooh yes – this would be lovely with chapatis! Thanks for all your kind comments. Eb 🙂
Fantastic recipe! I had leftover pumpkin puree and roast beef. I used the pumpkin instead of sweet potato- simply awesome!!
Thanks Cassie! I love the idea of using pumpkin instead of sweet potato – sounds delicious!! Eb 🙂
This was my first attempt at one of your recipes as I’ve only just discovered your wonderful website. It was a last minute meal so I didn’t have all of the ingredients but I was able to improvise well enough. My hubby is a real curry lover and loves it really spicy. My Mum enjoys curry flavours but not too spicy. I usually use a jar of curry sauce as it’s convenient and usually milder for Mum. However, I am so pleased I tried this from scratch. 3 empty plates and lots of great comments. The flavour was amazing and very authentic. It was spicy but not too spicy. Mum had a big dollop of Greek yoghurt to balance the spice. I didn’t have leftover beef so I used 2 beef steaks. I cooked it in my pressure king pro (my new bff) so it only took 25 minutes (plus prep time and pressure release). This is definitely one I will use time and again. I look forward to trying many more of your recipes. Thank you so much! 🙂
Hi Debs, thank you for this lovely comment! I’m so pleased you and your family enjoyed this so much. Love you pressure cooker tip! Eb 🙂