(updated 4/18/22)
During that time when you are kashering your kitchen for Pesach and can’t eat matzah products yet, it can be hard to figure out what to eat. Many of our weekly recipes we cannot eat because they contain soy or beans! I always try to keep notes from year to year of what works best, so we aren’t scrambling to feed everyone. Here are some ideas I have gathered to get through this “not Pesach yet, but already turned over” time.
1) If you can afford it, take advantage of any pre-Pesach dinners in your community. These might be take-out or sit-down at a school or shul.
2) Eat outside! You can either have non-chometz meals paired with bread or quick easy chometz meals (see Tips 5 & 6 below). This is fun for the family and helps avoid more crumbs in the house! We also send the kids out to eat any snacks!
3) Use paper goods for all meals. This way if you are eating something non-Pesadik (or kitnios), you don’t mess up your Pesach dishes (if you have any). See my post on “Saving money on Pesach needs.”
4) Buy kitnios snacks and cereals (like Rice Krispies, Rice Chex, a corn-based cereal, or a potato starch cereal) for your kids to eat before Pesach starts. Other good snacks include apple chips, applesauce, rice cakes, corn or rice crunchies. Keep the mess contained in your dining room, which you will probably clean one last time before searching for chometz. This makes it much easier to finish up your Pesach preparations and not have more chometz crumbs to worry about. This tip has helped us so much!
5) Use small kitchen appliances outside the kitchen for meal prep (like moving the toaster oven into the dining room, using your grill or heating up a frozen soup in the crockpot).
6) Chometz meal ideas that work well with #5:
- soup and salad
- pizza bagels
- hamburgers (or soy burgers) and chips
7) Non-chometz meal ideas that won’t mess up your Pesadik kitchen:
Some main dish ideas:
- eggs: scrambled, omelets, veggie frittata, or egg salad (However, we eat a lot eggs during Pesach, so you may not want this option.)
- blintzes
- salmon (Make either fresh or canned. Ideas: salmon hash, salmon patties, or fish tacos.)
- tuna salad
- mushroom soup
- hummus (Pair it with pita, veggies, cheese, and a side veggie and you have a great cold meal.)
- hamburgers or meatloaf
- chicken or turkey
- hot dogs
- cold cuts
- chopped liver
- chicken soup
Starch ideas:
- cook up some rice ahead of time and store in the refrigerator, reheat in the microwave
- potatoes or sweet potatoes (baked or boiled)
- potato chips
Vegetables:
This is an easier thing to come up with. The things, of course, to avoid are: corn, beans, green beans, and peas. You can either cook one of these vegetables by itself for a simple side or make a more complicated recipe combining a few of these.
- carrots
- eggplant
- zucchini, squash
- broccoli or cauliflower
- salad or slaw
- cucumbers
- peppers
- mushrooms and onions (great topping for hamburgers)
- olives or pickles
- tomatoes
Please share any meal ideas you have for this in-between time!
Related posts:
Surviving on a tight budget 
I approach this a little differently and we eat regular meals (planned and often prepared ahead of time) using other appliances: crockpot, toaster (like waffles!), rice cooker, etc…
Here’s the post I put together on this: http://organizedjewishhome.com/2012/03/26/meals-around-passover/
Great ideas! Our kitchen and dining room are small, so we don’t have room to leave those things out once we have turned everything over. However, we will have to remember that for later! I did remember some snack ideas I left out, though: apple chips, applesauce, and corn or rice crunchies.