What do top chefs like Rick Stein eat on Boxing Day?

After the lead-up to Christmas and the family-filled chaos of the day itself, Boxing Day can feel like a welcome relief of proper rest, more festive films and, most importantly, making your way through the ample leftovers of food.

Chefs, even if they have the day off, are still likely to be cooking on Christmas Day for their families, so a low-effort Boxing Day is in order.

From turkey and potatoes to Brussels sprouts and gravy, here’s what top chefs and cookery writers like to create with festive leftovers.

Rick Stein

“We tend to have a walk on Boxing Day, quite a long walk, over Bodmin Moor and find a pub somewhere, have a couple of pints and go home and just have a late afternoon, early evening dinner. Quite a few other people come around and then we sort of collapse and watch TV,” says Rick Stein.

“Boxing day for me is leftover turkey, leftover ham, baked potatoes with lots of butter, winter salad, cabbage salad with sort of beetroot in it, celery, nuts, apple, cabbage and some mayo, sort of slightly coleslaw thing, and lots and lots of condiments; chutneys and pickles, and so when I get, like, I don’t know, 10 jars of stuff out of the fridge and the cupboard to serve with it. You have it cold except the baked potatoes.

“That’s almost as enjoyable as Christmas lunch or dinner,” says the 78-year-old,  who also enjoys making bubble and squeak cakes – “which I find delicious” – or a Mexican taco. “You use the turkey, chop it and reheat it, then put various Mexican flavours like coriander, raw onion, tomato, chilli, smoky pepper, chipotle, maybe some cream, then you make a fresh slow-cooked taco with it.”

Rick Stein’s Christmas: Recipes, Memories & Stories for the Festive Season (BBC Books, £28) is available now.

Donal Skehan

“We’re all about the leftovers,” says Donal Skehan. “We have St Stephen’s Day in Ireland – it’s very much the same vibe. It’s the hangover after Christmas.

“You want something that’s different after having such traditional food the day before. I do a lovely turkey banh mi I borrow from Vietnamese cuisine. I love those fabulous crusty baguette sandwiches with paté and pickled vegetables and then you can stuff it with leftover turkey, leftover ham, and it’s absolutely gorgeous.

“If you’re still in the indulgence mode, I do a lovely mac and cheese, extra-gorgeous because you can fold through the contents of the leftovers of your cheese board, and you can add ham, you can add turkey, whatever you fancy.

“To be perfectly honest, I tend to kind of go towards fresh flavours and a lot of Asian ingredients. I love those crispy, crunchy salads with the leftover scraps.”

Donal’s Real Time Recipes by Donal Skehan (Yellow Kite, Hodder & Stoughton, £25), is available now.

Suzanne Mulholland – aka The Batch Lady

“Christmas day in our family, we are always very well-dressed, in our Sunday best. And we do a proper, traditional sort of day. There’s no sort of lying about in pyjamas – so Boxing Day is the ultimate lying about in PJs, usually getting a lovely loaf of white bread and getting to put leftovers on it. It’s very relaxed compared to Christmas day. I absolutely love it,” says Mulholland.

“What I do try to say is only buy what you need. So I only buy enough for Christmas day and one day’s worth of leftovers. If you’ve bought a big turkey, you then have to process the leftovers after Christmas. You’re just adding more stress. So instead, have that extra bit so you’ve just got enough for the leftovers that you actually want.

“I love doing things like macaroni cheese and putting stuffing and the turkey through it. It’s a really comforting dish.

“I quite often make sausage rolls with anything that I’ve got left over, because a bit of puff pastry, that’s all you need to make it into something else.

Or a pie. “A bit of turkey, a bit of ham, put all your veggies in there as well, and you just really need a spot of milk and some creme fresh and a bit of pastry, and you’ve made it into a Boxing Day pie.”

The Batch Lady Saves Christmas by Suzanne Mulholland (Ebury Press, £25), is available now.

James Martin

“I cook Christmas Day, I’m cooking this Christmas day,” says James Martin. “I’m at home cooking, I’ve got my family around, but Boxing Day really is a time we kind of chill out as chefs. I think we’ve done our bit, it’s somebody else’s turn now.”

So what does the ITV Saturday Morning star rustle up on Boxing Day?

“Toasties are my thing – I’m just obsessed with toasties at the moment. I want them to come back. Toasties used to be really popular in the Seventies and Eighties.

“We’ve got bloody air fryers. The toastie machine, I want to be the new air fryer. It’s bloody great.

“Caramelised onions and a bit of stuffing, on a bit of beef with some cheese. You put it in a toastie with sliced roast beef or stuff like that. But I bloody love it.”

James Martin’s Saturday Morning cookbook by James Martin (Quadrille, £25), is available now.

Clodagh McKenna

This Morning’s resident chef Clodagh McKenna says: “I love a Christmas sandwich on Boxing Day; turkey, crispy cos lettuce, I get my cranberry sauce, and I mix it with the mayonnaise and put that on top. I put stuffing on there, tomato.

“Usually, if we have a bigger crowd around and we’re all out walking that day so it’s more of a kind of a supper thing.

“I’ll make a turkey curry, and I’ll make it with butternut squash in it and a coconut base which is really yummy. Or if I’ve cooked a ham, I do love a ham pie, which can be really delicious as well.”

Clodagh’s Happy Cooking by Clodagh McKenna (Kyle Books, £25), is available now.

Jon Watts

“Boxing Day, for me, is Christmas without the chaos,” says Jon Watts. “All the good bits stay, the food, the family, the slow morning, but the pressure melts away. It feels like the first proper exhale after the big day, and it is also when my head naturally starts drifting toward the New Year and what is coming next.

“I always spend it with family, usually still eating and drinking our way through the day. People assume I take a break from cooking, but that never really happens. I love the rhythm of it too much. The actual break comes a day or two later when I finally realise I have become 40% gravy!

“Leftovers are the whole point of Boxing Day in my house. Turkey is my non-negotiable, and my absolute comfort move is the simplest one, thick slices of turkey tucked into soft bread with butter and a pinch of salt. It is a small tradition that never gets old. But turkey is incredibly versatile, so I like pushing it in different directions. It is brilliant in a creamy casserole or folded into a proper pie with leeks and tarragon. One of my favourites is throwing it into a quick curry with coconut milk, tomatoes, and whatever veg is hanging about.

I also love using leftover pigs in blankets as the base of a hearty hash, or stirring chopped stuffing into an omelette, trust me, it works.”

Speedy Comfort by Jon Watts (Bloomsbury Publishing, Hardback, £22), is available now.