Leftover, Slightly Stale, Corn Chips

Background: I often find myself with a half a bag of leftover, slightly stale, corn chips. I also have mild-food-waste-trauma from a heavily tattooed sous chef yelling about P & L– and how his bonus was tied to the amount of food that was wasted in the kitchen–every time he saw someone waste food. I was also a poor graduate student for much of my life. So even if my chips are stale, I’m going to try to make something from them, just like I do with Three Day Old Bread. Here are my favorite moves.

1. Make Migas, duh.
2. Grind them up to use for a crispy coating for trout.
3. Garnish chicken tortilla soup with them.
4. Make a kind of non-Frito frito pie with chips on the bottom and chili and fixings on top.
5. Use them to make a Panade for meatballs.
6. Use them in a taco salad or southwestern chicken salad.
7. Put them in Cauliflower Quesadillas.
   

Why It Works

1. You can adjust the chip-to-egg-to-veg ratio based on what you have on hand.
2. They are thicker than some other breading, so they are especially good at protecting thin fish that could overcook quickly.
3. Add these just before eating.
4. The old-school camping way to do this is to roll down the sides of the bag to make a kind of bowl-bag and then put the chili right in the bag with the chips. Top with sour cream, chives, and your favorite peppers.
5. This is my favorite idea that I’ve not actually tried. I’ll keep you posted.
6. My favorite version of a southwestern salad is romaine lettuce, charred corn, chilled black beans, chips, a few halved grape tomatoes, green onions or chives, and poblano ranch dressing.
7. It adds a little extra crunch like putting potato chips on a sandwich.

Mods:

1. Add leftover grilled shrimp to the southwestern salad under no. 6 above.
2. Bread chicken cutlets instead of fish as in no. 2 above above.
3. Imagine a version of meatballs that uses both leftover chips as a panade as in no. 5 above and the leftover salsa that came with the chips. Serve over rice.