It’s quite likely that you’ll have delicious leftovers from your Thanksgiving feast a week later. While I enjoy a Thanksgiving sandwich just as much as anyone else, there can come a time, particularly if you were the one hosting, when you find yourself with far more leftovers than you can handle. To help clear out your fridge and delight your taste buds, here are some fun and creative recipes to make the most of your day-after-Thanksgiving leftovers.
Turkey Soup
Every year after I host Thanksgiving, I make soup out of the turkey carcass. There’s nothing like homemade turkey soup. You can even use leftover mashed potatoes or stuffing to thicken up the broth if you’d like. Here’s the turkey soup recipe I used this year – it’s classic and simple, and you can make it your own very easily.
Cranberry-Carrot Muffins
I always seem to make too much cranberry sauce; I really love it as a dipping sauce, but there always just seem to be too much of it. This ingenious muffin recipe uses up the tart sauce as well as leftover cooked carrots!
Turkey Pot Pie
You can toss any leftover vegetables you have into a casserole dish with shredded turkey, use a prepared pie crust, and you’ll have dinner on the table in no time. Of course, you can always make your own crust or use puff pastry too. Here are a couple of recipes to try:
Sweet Potato Pancakes
Sweet potatoes are naturally sweet, but usually, sweet potato casserole is sweetened even more with brown sugar and sometimes even marshmallows. Follow this recipe for sweet potato pancakes and omit the extra sugar if your potatoes are already sweetened.
Stuffing Stuffed Mushrooms
Your Thanksgiving stuffing was so delicious, it will make perfect stuffing for stuffed mushrooms! No need to reinvent the wheel; just top the mushrooms with a little cheese, herbs, and oil and you have a delicious appetizer or side dish!
Turkey Hash
Turn your leftover bird into a delicious twist on breakfast with this turkey hash recipe. Pair it with a fried egg and a piece of leftover cornbread and you have a new fave breakfast dish.
Loaded Potato Soup
This recipe uses leftover mashed potatoes and even goes so far as to top the soup with leftover dinner rolls! While the recipe calls for ham, you can certainly sub in turkey.
Turkey Chili
While turkey chili usually calls for ground turkey, this recipe uses up the leftover shredded turkey from Thanksgiving dinner along with extra gravy! Try serving it atop mashed potatoes for the leftover usage trifecta.
Veggie Frittata
Have a bunch of leftover veggie sides that you don’t know what to do with? Repurpose them all in a mixed veggie frittata that doubles as breakfast and dinner! You can also follow this recipe for a turkey frittata that’s lighter on the veggies and uses up your leftover bird.
Turkey Quesadillas
This twist on a Mexican favorite uses turkey as well as leftover cranberry sauce. Not only does the leftover cran serve as a dipping sauce, but it also goes inside the quesadillas!
If you’re looking for even more day-after-Thanksgiving leftover recipes, check out this list of other recipes to make the most of your leftovers. That should give you enough to make a dent on those leftovers – some of these recipes are so delicious you may find yourself wanting to make more turkey or sides just to be able to try them all!