Last week, Michelle from Nom Nom Paleo posted Food 52’s version of a Thanksgivukkah sandwich (without actual bread of course) on her Facebook page and needless to say, I had to wipe the drool off my keyboard. This recipe’s very much inspired by that photo, but I resolved to make one of my own in my signature stupid-easy style. The result is stripped down a bit in terms of complexity but still huge on flavor.
How to Use Thanksgiving Leftovers
What we’ve got here are sweet potato “buns” serving as the bread of the sandwich, layered with super yummy cranberry apple sauce, roasted peppered turkey breast and some shaved Brussels sprouts with bacon. I served it with the pan juices on the side…fancy gravy not necessary.
You could certainly make the components separately and use for any application you’d like or put it all together and make your own “sandwich” to savor the flavors of Thanksgiving before the holiday actually hits.
The sweet potato buns were inspired by Melissa from The Clothes Make the Girl‘s BBQ Beef “Waffle” Sandwich (p 116) in her killer new book, Well Fed 2. Sadly, I’ve got no waffle iron, so I tweaked the ingredients a bit and made them in potato pancake / bun form.
Paleo Thanksgiving Leftovers “Sandwich”
Make the most of your turkey day leftovers with this Paleo Thanksgiving Leftovers "Sandwich." It's gluten-free and so delicious!
Ingredients
For the Roasted Turkey Breast
- 1 lb leftover turkey
For the Cranberry Apple Sauce
- 10 oz g fresh cranberries
- 2 cups chopped apples any kind
- 1 large orange zest and juice
- 3 large dried figs chopped
- 2 tsp cinnamon
For the Sweet Potato Buns
- 1 batch Sweet Potato Waffles Recipe
Garnish
- 8 oz leftover Brussels sprouts
Instructions
In a pot over medium heat, combine all the cranberry sauce ingredients. Use a microplane grater to remove the orange zest and add that. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer over medium-low heat until the cranberries pop and the apples soften. This keeps for several days so you can make it ahead!
Make the Sweet Potato Waffles according to this recipe: https://www.stephgaudreau.com/2017/01/21/paleo-sweet-potato-waffles-gluten-free/
Finally, assemble your sandwich: Half a waffle as the base, turkey, cranberry sauce, leftover Brussels sprouts, and the other half a waffle.
Pin this Paleo Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich for later!
even though we already had our thanksgiving back in october…. i will definitely make these 😀 i love all of these flavours especially when they are together and those buns! yum! can’t wait to make this!
I want to eat these now. They look SO good. There will be plenty of leftovers come Thanksgiving with the 25+ lb. turkey I have coming from my meat farmer. 🙂
THIS RECIPE makes me EVEN MORE EXCITED FOR THANKSGIVING!!! I will purposely try not to eat too much so I have left overs to make these!!!
Yay!! I hope it brings you continued leftovers joy!
Thanks for the cranberry sauce recipe!
I’m getting into gathering food as well, and berries are an easy way to start (easier than telling one green leafy thing from another or making sure you don’t have the poisonous version of mushroom) but the only thing I know to do with rowan berries or rose hips for instance, is making sugarbased sauce, syrup or jam. And most wild berries are not sweet like cultivated fruit.
I’ll try this recipy with other berries and let you know how it works out.
That sounds really fun to go out and forage. Let me know!
Any response on my previous comments I had no luck with the sweet potato patties, they did not stick together.
Hi Moira! Gah! I must have missed your post. One thing that can help is that the potatoes must be really dry or else the moisture will make them fall apart in cooking. You can always try adding a bit more coconut flour to assist with that.
I tried making the sweet potato buns once and failed – I tried to modify the recipe to make just 2 buns but used a full egg and didn’t squeeze enough moisture out of the potatoes, so they ended up being pretty mushy buns. However, I was in love with the idea and tried again two days later. I still adjusted the recipe to make one burger, so I used half of an egg and adjusted the rest of the ingredients accordingly. The bun was brown in some parts (not all like in this picture) and a bit less flat and firm (I think I took too much care with fork-flattening and didn’t press down enough), but they sure held up for a delicious fork and knife burger. The standard gluten bun has nothing on this one. Thanks for the great alternative!
I made the sweet potato buns only and was happy they went well! I used two extra large yams and kept the rest of the ingredients in the same amounts. I was worried at first when I put the whole mix together because it looked too loose to me, but they stayed together very well in the pan (I used cast iron to fry them up). I used these as latke-like sides – yum!
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