If you are a fan of fresh home-brewed coffee and have an espresso maker, we are confident that you often brew. And, being the barista you are, know how much coffee you need for yourself, family, or even guests.
But we also understand that there are occasions when you overestimate the amount of coffee that you need. Or, sometimes, you fail to finish up your brew for one reason or another.
Either way, you have leftover coffee that you don’t need. It would undoubtedly be a big shame to pour it down the drain. Indeed, you can reuse the extra brew and save a considerable amount of dollars in the long run.
Here are 6 Things That You Can do with Leftover Coffee:
Personal Care
We start with something that you don’t expect, but it’s pretty essential.
While hair makes a notable percentage of our overall look, it isn’t easy to maintain shiny and nourished hair.
Interestingly, coffee contains antioxidants and caffeine. These two compounds are incredibly beneficial to your hair, as they help get rid of dust and build up.
Using coffee as a hair rinse helps keep a shiny look and helps with hair growth. Thus, you can achieve conditioned hair without putting in a lot of cash on commercial conditioners.
Bake, Cook, and Blend
Of all the things you can do with a leftover coffee, most applications remain within your kitchen.
Many chefs or cooks with top culinary skills understand that there are many recipes with coffee or coffee water as ingredients. So, you can take this chance and try out a few of them.
Leftover coffee is ideal for making desserts and savory dishes. Besides, it is also suitable for brewing a variety of specialty drinks.
Let’s delve deeper.
Baking
Instead of water, you can conveniently use coffee for baking. This is pretty simple. And all you need to do is to substitute water with coffee in your favorite brownie, waffle batter, pancake, or cupcake recipe.
Follow the rest of the procedure you would typically do when using water and treat yourself to delicious brownies and cupcakes. You can also use any leftover coffee to make coffee-flavored frosting and icing on your cookies and cupcakes.
Additionally, you can refrigerate your brew and use it in the evening or when you are available. Just ensure that you don’t let it sit in the fridge for more than a day. Coffee loses flavor when left for too long.
Cooking
Ordinarily, leftover coffee is water with a coffee flavor. Thus, you may consider using the brew instead of water when preparing steak marinades. You will also find leftover coffee suitable for making morning oatmeal or fruit compote and enjoy a perfect breakfast.
Coffee also helps add the required acidity to sauces, salads, or whatever you intend to prepare. It acts as a perfect substitute for vinaigrettes. Therefore, you may try to substitute vinegar with brewed coffee and see the outcome.
There are endless possibilities when it comes to using leftover coffee for cooking applications. You can as well use it for barbecue sauces, salads, chili recipes, and many more.
Ice Cubes, Smoothies, and Specialty Drinks
Don’t get this twisted – we aren’t talking about iced coffee because the process of making that is pretty different. Instead, we are talking about coffee ice cubes and coffee ice creams.
Pour a cold brew of coffee over a bowl of vanilla or chocolate-flavored ice cream and refrigerate for some time to get the best coffee ice cream.
And making coffee ice cubes is just as simple as it sounds. If you have ice cube trays, you can pour the leftover coffee into the tray and refrigerate overnight.
Still, you can get amazing drinks from your brew. An incredible example would be to make a banana, coffee ice cube, and milk smoothie. You can even go a notch higher to play bartender by making yourself a coffee liquor to shake up a White Russian or martini.
Gardening Activities
Leftover coffee contains high acid content. And if you’ve been cultivating ornamental plants or a kitchen garden for some time, you understand that acid is vital for your soils. It not only helps to regulate the PH of your soil but also acts as a fertilizer.
So, you can use leftover coffee to water your flowers, vegetables, and any other plants. But while at that, it is essential to take into account some precautions.
Firstly, note that you cannot use the remaining coffee to water your plants daily. Too much of something is poisonous. And even plants that love acidity won’t thrive in overly acidic conditions. Again, find out that the plants you are watering thrive better in acidic conditions. Finally, you need to dilute the brew with water to a ratio of 1:4.
Cleaning
Coffee contains acid, which works well as a perfect cleaning agent. Notably, the cleaning agent that leftover coffee makes is pretty strong and ideal for cleaning up difficult stains. As a cleaning agent, brewed coffee will also handle grease and oils.
Therefore, it makes a perfect product for cleaning dishes, floors, grills, and many other surfaces with sticky or hard-to-clean stains.
Also, instead of pouring leftover coffee in your sink, you can pour it over the garbage to eliminate foul odors. Ideally, this is something that you can try from time to time. It helps you to save money that you could have used on commercial products.
Crafting
Coffee stains are a nightmare. We are all privy to that despite being coffee lovers.
But while they are pretty worrying, coffee can make fantastic art. That’s if you try to stain something with brewed coffee on purpose. Coffee art use brewed coffee as the pigment on watercolor paper. Coffee art is pretty cool, non-toxic, and cheap. Thus, kids will find them pretty exciting.
And you can stain the wood on your furniture with leftover coffee if you like furniture with a coffee finish. You can use a paintbrush to apply coatings over the wood as many times as you want. But wait for up to 15 minutes between layers to let the previous coat dry. Besides, you can choose whether to use a strong brew or a light brew.
Reheat the Coffee
Nothing beats the taste of freshly brewed coffee. But it would be best if you weren’t fearful of reheating your coffee in case you don’t use it for anything else. And you can add frothed milk to prepare a latte out of it if the taste of reheated coffee terrifies you.
Final Thought: Leftover Coffee
That’s a wrap, ladies and gentlemen. We have highlighted some of the most intriguing ways to use whatever is left of your brew. These methods are pretty simple and won’t cost you any extra penny. You no longer have an excuse to let any leftover coffee go to waste.
