stew in one's own juice

Idioms and Phrases

Suffer the consequences of one's actions, as in He's run into debt again, but this time we're leaving him to stew in his own juice . This metaphoric term alludes to cooking something in its own liquid. Versions of it, such as fry in one's own grease , date from Chaucer's time, but the present term dates from the second half of the 1800s.