5 incredible ways to repurpose your thanksgiving leftovers

Happy Thanksgiving Eve! On Monday we spent a fast and furious hour troubleshooting many of your Turkey Day conundrums. You all had so many good questions! I highly recommend that you read through the thread — whether you’re hosting tomorrow or not, lots of good entertaining ground was covered.

In two days, fridges across America will be filled to the brim with leftover turkey, vegetables, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. If yours is one of them, you can go for round two and make another plate of exactly what you ate on Thanksgiving… or, you can do what I usually do, and transform your leftovers into entirely new meals!!

The recipe I’m sharing with you this Friday (yes, a day early!) — creamy turkey, sausage, and wild rice soup — will be an excellent option for using 2 to 3 cups worth of leftover turkey. In the meantime, here are some more ideas!

• Green turkey tortilla soup. Instead of cooking chicken in the pot, add shredded leftover turkey (2 to 3 cups) for the last 10 minutes of cooking. If you don’t have that much turkey left, you can add however much you’ve got plus a can of drained pinto, black, or white beans to bulk it up.

• Turkey Parmesan pot pie. Leftover turkey can be really dry. But when it’s enrobed in Parmesan gravy and baked into a pie? Not dry! Perfect! I wrote this recipe a few years ago with turkey leftovers top of mind.

• Thanksgiving leftover sliders. Aka cheesy cranberry turkey melt sliders! In this recipe we deploy my favorite move for feeding a crowd: slice a whole sleeve of King’s Hawaiian rolls in half horizontally, fill it with delicious ingredients, and bake until it’s golden, gooey, and delicious. This makes an absolutely elite day-after-Thanksgiving lunch.

• Lemon-Parm turkey, quinoa, and kale salad. Use some turkey to make a good-all-weekend, nutrient-packed salad!!

• Creamy leftover veggie soup. This is a good recipe to have in your back pocket any time of year. Blend any leftover roasted veggies you’ve got with stock (chicken, vegetable, whatever!) and a little Parm until it reaches a nice creamy consistency. Add kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste (which means you add a little at a time until it tastes perfect to you). Serve with grilled cheese OR topped with homemade croutons made from leftover stuffing/dressing!