It’s easy to get buried in a bunch of leftovers after Thanksgiving. These delicious recipes will help you make more great meals using Thanksgiving leftovers!
Use Those Thanksgiving Leftovers
Tips:
- If you have a small amount of whipped topping left over, place dollops of it on a wax paper and freeze. Then place in an air tight container. When you need a quick topping for a dessert or some to go on a late night cup of hot cocoa you can just grab one out of the freezer.
- Don’t throw out that pickle juice from the pickles you used on your relish dish. Use it to make French dressing next time instead of vinegar.
Try these great recipes to use those Thanksgiving leftovers:
Saucy Turkey Sandwiches
In place of the usual lettuce and mayo, try making your turkey sandwiches with a slice of leftover cranberry sauce and cream cheese instead. Spread butter on one slice of bread and cream cheese on the other adding a slice of turkey and cranberry sauce in the middle.
Swiss Turkey Stuffing Pie
3 cups prepared stuffing
2 cups cooked turkey, cubed
1 cup (4 oz.) Swiss cheese, grated
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
Press stuffing into a greased 9 inch pie plate, coming up the sides, too. Layer with turkey and then cheese. Beat eggs and milk and pour over everything. Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean. Let stand 5-10 minutes before serving.
Turkey Hodge Podge
1 cup turkey gravy
2 cups turkey, cooked and cubed
2 cups mixed veggies (frozen that have been thawed or leftovers)
2 medium potatoes, cubed and cooked
1 can refrigerator buttermilk biscuits
Mix all but biscuits together and heat through. Pour into an 8 inch square baking dish and top with biscuits. Bake at 400° 12-16 minutes until biscuits are golden and mixture is bubbly.
Candied Carrots
3 cups (about 5 small) carrots, cooked
2 Tbsp. margarine
1/4 cup jellied cranberry sauce
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
In sauce pan, melt butter. Add cranberry sauce, sugar and salt. Add carrots and simmer 3-4 minutes. This can easily be doubled or tripled.
Vegetable Vinaigrette
Here’s a different way to use the leftovers from the relish dish.
2 tomatoes, sliced (could use cherry tomatoes, too)
1/4 lb. mushrooms, sliced
1 cup broccoli florets (pieces of broccoli)
1 cup cauliflower pieces
1 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup vinegar
2 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. each sugar, salt and parsley flakes
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp garlic powder or 2 cloves of fresh garlic crushed.
Mix and place all the veggies in a casserole dish. Combine the rest of the ingredients and pour over veggies. Cover and chill for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally. Garnish with diced green onions.
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CCBelle says
These recipes sound yummy. I may want to skip the Thanksgiving meal and go right to the leftover recipes. Thank you!
Grizzly Bear Mom says
We call you “hodge podge” pot pie at my house. Thanks for showing up how to use things up.
Lesha says
I also like to take the turkey bones and some meat leftovers along with the relish fish and make turkey broth got later. I had an early Thanksgiving with some friends and got about 10 points of broth.
Dee says
I make homemade turkey vegetable soup with the leftovers. I take either chicken or vegetable broth and add the turkey. Then I add carrots, celery, onion, garlic and any other fresh veggies I have. Sometimes I even add cabbage and spinach. I cook a bag of noodles on the side. Then I slow cook it either in the crock pot or on the stove with a low flame. I freeze the soup we don’t eat. Then we thaw it out and enjoy it on another cold winter day. I get several meals out of oe turkey. It’s very healthy, tastes great and nothing goes to waste!
Jill says
Thanks Dee for the tip. Turkey soup is sooo yummy. For those of you who need a basic recipe here is one from our site. Basic chicken and turkey soup.
Brenda D says
I had a horrible head cold for Thanksgiving last year and the day after still felt blah. I wanted something hot and nourishing so I had boiled the turkey carcass for broth. I then dumped in the remaining left-over noodles and a couple cups of diced turkey and diced up the candied carrots and we had soup. Left-over noodles are always a challenge to rewarm and not get glompy, but evidently the extra broth was what they needed. The soup was slightly thickened and oh so delicious. To use our little dab of left-over dressing, I smashed it out flat and “recooked” it in the oven until it was pretty crispy on the top and bottom and made kind of like croutons or biscuits to float in our soup. The left-over cranberry sauce I reused making an ice cream dessert. I lined a bread pan with plastic wrap then used softened vanilla ice cream to make a layer about 1/3 the way up the pan, added a layer of the cranberry sauce and sprinkled on some candied pecans then continued layering ending with a thin layer of ice cream. The family really enjoyed this dessert.