Found this. My apologies if this sounds ”out there.”

https://alwaysusebutter.com/leftover-french-fries-casserole/

Could you chop them up for latkes?

I used to just toss them, until my sister told me about putting them in the air fryer to reheat.. Tried it and they were fresh tasting and crispy just like the day before.

I dunno. I regularly make stuff that's farther out there. This sounds like bury them in mixed Mexican-ish high-fat baked potato fixings. I had thought of putting them in the bottom of a casserole instead of rice or pasta, but couldn't think of anything that wouldn't be better with rice or pasta. This recipe sounds okay for what many people like, and an easy way to fill up teenagers, but like it would be a lot better with a proper mornay, lots of veg and some shredded beef. Perhaps shoved into a crunchy taco shell. And even better without the potatoes. LOL! It's certainly the most creative idea I've seen. And at the end, with the variations, it says to crisp them up in the air frier. I don't make french fries, but maybe using these as an air frier experiment would be a worthwhile endeavor!

I think you could make some kind of latke out of them, but for the trouble one could make real latkes.

Thinking further on those themes, I wonder if they'd make a good pie shell? Maybe mixed with cheddar and crumbs for a binder? I have some ground beef. Cheeseburger pie? Sloppy joe bake? With Anaheim chilis, onions, little mixed tomato pieces, maybe some kale instead of lettuce. Hm...maybe the shell would work better if the fries were mashed up. Maybe an eggwhite. But then it's just potato. I'm not sure it's worth the bother, but it's worth a thought, which I never would have come to without your post, Chloebud!

Thanks, Orchidrain! I think that's a winning suggestion, No bother. They weren't ever crisp, but that would give them a chance to redeem themselves.

Air fryer!

I agree Air Fryer!

To the back yard for the squirrels to enjoy.

LOL! Rho, that's really funny! But the last thing I'm doing is feeding the squirrels on purpose! This is Southern California where we have tree rats and ground squirrels and a tremendous smörgåsbord for them without me having to encourage them.

About one third was in one bag, so I tried the air fryer french fry button....and got distracted emptying the dishwasher. They got overdone and kind of petrified. But not burnt. I'll probably break the bigger bag up into portions to try out different times/temps. Unlike the toast it does so poorly, the air fryier did make the fries brown...though still dried out. It's really good at drying things out. Still, they weren't bad. :)

Deep fry.

since you have dried fries, cube them and turn into pot salad ...

If you dont;' want to feed the squirrels then compost them....but unless you have a covered compost bin you might as well feed them directly to the squirrels.

Left over fries are right up there with leftover green salad.....nope! Not eating that!

It depends on how you store the salad. It can be disgustingly gross if stored wrong, but will hold for hours up to more than a whole day if loose in a container, with no dressing. The fries were undercooked to begin with and were better overcooked out of the air fryer than they were the day they didn't get eaten.

And of course the compost bin is covered! This is the city! Not acreage where one can put out decaying heaps of garbage to do their own thing. Home composting here is done in closed barrels on gimbals. In California, all garden and food waste, including meat, bones and eggshells (except large amounts of fat, like frier oil), plus non-waxed plain paper food packaging and napkins, go in a great big bin, with a hinged cover, for pickup and composting in a big facility. One can fetch the finished compost as needed. I do the latter.

Dave, they were crunchy dry coming from limp and blah.

< If you don't want to feed the squirrels then compost them. >

I would like to compost the squirrels in my back yard.

As for the leftover French fries - you could make poutine with them, although I've never had it.

What are they?

“They?” Leftover fench fries? They come from a place that makes loaded fries. In this case, a huge helping of fries with toppings you might find on creative pizza. None of us could eat all their fries, plus one got a ”side” of chicken so got a side of fries to go with it, but the side of chicken came with its own side of fries, and a side of fries is the same bushel of fries that are holding up the other mains. It was a lot of fries. Definitely too many for one sitting. And like the ”personal” sized pizza with too much crust, where at the end diners start picking off the goodies, especially the proteins, the toppings got piced off at the end. But the sauced ones weren't part of the query. Just the undercooked, naked ones that didn't even have salt.

Under normal circumstances, with normal portions, I get the bewilderment. ;)

Round 2–I was trying to turn on the light and accidentally turned the air fryer off. Less than half the time on the french fry setting, for sure. Hard and dry on the outside, a bit browner than they started, fluffyish inside tasting potatoy, but not particularly good tasting overall, even after I thought to salt them (probably too late). The overcooked ones tasted a lot better.

Islay, french fries are thin chips.

Oh! I thought the question was facetious, like how could there be leftovers (not eaten).

Yes. I was being silly. Such a thing doesn't exist in our house LOL. If it did, I would throw them away. I don't think re-cooked chips sound very appealing. You do seem to have a heck of a lot of them!

Indeed. I would have thrown a handful in the compost bin without hesitation. ;)

I saw the last of the fries when I was looking for a snack, and thought I might like to eat fries. We'd had too hard, and too soft, so I went for about 2/3 of the recommended time. They were perfectly golden brown, hard rather than crisp, some were dried on the inside,, and they had little potato--or any other--flavor.

I'm thinking the problem is my air-fryer, or maybe I should have put them in the drum rather than a basket/shelf/tray thing. What they did have going for them is that without turning them, they did all brown evenly. It's probably worth trying with non-leftovers, but french fries aren't something I've ever felt a need to serve at home....

When I have leftover fries, I often will throw them in with some eggs. I chop them into chunks, and add some diced onions and whatever else I might have hanging around in the fridge that needs using up. I scramble some eggs and throw them on top, either just making myself an egg mish-mosh, or sometimes I throw some cheese on top and stick the skillet in the oven to make a frittata.

I just did this yesterday! I threw in some leftover roast beef, some diced garlic, the fries, and some onions. I just sautéed everything in the cast iron skillet, topped it with eight eggs, some shredded cheese, and some paprika for color.

Into the oven for 15 minutes and the result was a delicious meal for four.