What are you doing with your holiday leftovers?
– 2025 Thanksgiving thread is here.
– 2025 Winter Holidays planning thread is here.
– 2025 Mishaps thread is here
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Inspiration from past years:
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This turkey and squash looks interesting!
Maybe I will make it with my leftover Canadian Thanksgiving turkey (in the freezer ) and my spaghetti squash from the garden.
Turkey congee is always the #1 leftover dish after Thanksgiving. I will get larger turkeys just to have more options for turkey congee (and my family all want leftovers to make the same).
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The best use of leftover turkey I think is to get far away culturally in the reuse — things where chicken would otherwise go – thai curry, curry noodle soup, indian curry preps (make the sauce entirely first), and kababs.
I just used up a pile of rotisserie chicken in kababs — food processor with spices and some lentils (cooked channa dal) and aromatics, form into patties and pan-fry or bake. Gone in a flash!
Though I do love turkey soup and pot pie.
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I use it for Turkey Avgolemono Soup and a Tom Kha Turkey. This year, I made Turkey Avgolemono Soup twice.
I haven’t ever made Turkey Tetrazzini.
I have made a good Coronation Turkey,
and a good Country Captain Turkey (which is a historical American curry of sorts, from the South ), but not recently!
I’ll include the Emeril recipe
This recipe calls for raw turkey tenders , instead of chicken. I would substitute the raw turkey with cooked leftover turkey.
Oooo, now you did it. perfect brunch item for the day after. Gracias por the suggestion. Congee Friday!
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https://www.brownhotel.com/dining/hot-brown
The whole reason for the turkey. 
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I’ve got the least Thanksgiving leftovers ever this year 
– mostly because I forgot to pack some to bring home 
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A small portion of the leek bread pudding I made couldn’t fit in the baking dish, so I had left it at home.
I’ve also got some extra cheese sauce from the mac & cheese and toffee sauce from the sticky toffee pudding.
And various quantities of ingredients – stuffing cubes, cream, lots of cheese, and I haven’t checked quite what else yet, but those will all become things in the next few days.
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I made broth today. I froze 4 cups, and 2 cups in the fridge will become turkey Avgolemono soup tomorrow.
Our wild rice pilaf became a rice casserole with white sauce, cheddar and thyme today.
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Giving thanks for leftovers over here. I made Thanksgiving sandwiches on toasted fresh sourdough with smoked turkey gently reheated in a bit of gravy, cornbread dressing, and cranberry aioli (swipe of mayo and a swipe of homemade cranberry sauce, but aioli sounds fancier).
On the side we had homemade bread and butter pickle chips and Kettle brand jalapeño flavored potato chips, which paired well with the cornbread dressing.
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Tomorrow night - turkey stroganoff, and then we’re done!
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We have a lot of leftover stuffing. I found a recipe for stuffing muffins with egg from Budget Bytes that seems intriguing. Anyone else have any tried and trusted ideas?
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Do you have a waffle iron? It crisps up very nicely!
Otherwise form patties and griddle them to crisp up.
Someone had mentioned a thanksgiving leftovers pot pie / shepherds pie a few years ago – mix the stuffing with turkey as the filling and top with mashed potatoes, or mix the turkey with veg & gravy & top with stuffing (might have been @MidwesternerTT).
I’m going to have some crisped up stuffing shortly with an egg.
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I have turned leftover stuffing into a savory bread pudding. Just added a mix of egg and milk (plus sometimes some gravy if there is any), let it soak for a bit, and bake it up. Makes a nice brunch, or lunch/dinner with salad.
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I like frying it and topping it with a crispy fried egg
a bit like Portguese migas.
I baked the remaining stuffing bread pudding yesterday, and had some with sour cream mashed potatoes and a pan-roasted chicken thigh.
This morning some of that stuffing bread pudding was pan-fried with two eggs.
I’ve got more stuffing cubes, and am contemplating making some stuffing balls because I missed them.
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I have the carcass of our turkey in the slow cooker for stock. First time doing it in the slow cooker- here’s hoping. We are in and out of the house today so I couldn’t do my usual stock pot on the stove method.
I made sandwiches today for lunch - TJ ciabatta rolls with stuffing patties, turkey, cranberry, and gravy. Incredible!
And with that- I’m leftover-ed out. Everything else will be going in the freezer for a few weeks or months from now! Fish for dinner tonight!
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For the most part I’m fine with just having turkey dinners over and over, interspersed with sandwiches. I used to make turkey and wild rice soup, and some years I make gumbo, but this year I already have like five quarts of gumbo in the freezer from using up late-summer produce.
So right now, as we start to use up the ends of the Thanksgiving sides, I’m making jambalaya. It’s a Cajun-style jambalaya, give or take (I have seen Louisianans claim that it’s not Cajun if it has celery in it, but a million church cookbooks will provide counter-examples … this one has celery, in any case). Peppers, “onions” (shallots and leeks: okay, that part’s untraditional), garlic, celery, leftover turkey, Poche’s smoked green onion sausage, some homemade hot sauce, Zatarain’s seasoning, very strong turkey stock, and rice.
There was a food truck in Indiana that claimed to be owned and operated by a fellow from Louisiana, who swore up and down to me that jambalaya is a sauce over rice, just like gumbo. I wish I could say he meant etoufee, but that was a separate dish on their menu, so I have no explanation. But the rice cooking amid everything else is as integral to jambalaya as it is for risotto. Sauce over rice is also good (there’s not much better than “rice and gravy” with well-browned chicken thighs and lots of hot sauce), just not in the same way.
I suspect I’m going to have lots of leftovers, it’s not easy to make a small batch of jambalaya. Timer went off, time to put the cover on the pot!
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Cheestoast / grilled cheese with the dregs of the Kenai / cheddar jalapeno dip plus more cheddar, and a frico fried egg with parmesan.
Lots of cheese to use or freeze.
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that sandwich, yum
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