Thanksgiving leftovers: Love them or hate them, they seem to be an inevitability…unless your guests are much hungrier than you planned on!
You’ve gathered with family.
Eaten enough to warrant loosening your zipper (or maybe you just wore sweatpants…you smarty, you).
Watched plenty of football.
But now you’re stuck with a fridge full of half-eaten food.
Here are a few ideas to inspire you to whip yesterday’s dinner into today’s goodies.
Thanksgiving Leftovers Idea #1: Use the turkey carcass / bones to make bone broth.
Bone broth – or stock as it’s sometimes called – is a really great way to use up your leftover turkey bits.
Not only does it taste great, it’s also rich in gelatin / collagen which is great for gut health and maintaining your skin, joints and hair. Rad, right?
Now, to make a good-sized batch of bone broth, you’ll probably need more than one turkey carcass, but the leftover bird will get you most of the way to a full pot of stock.
To ensure you have enough cartilaginous bones to get really jiggly broth, consider adding in extra chicken backs, feet or even beef knuckle bones.
Thanksgiving Leftovers Idea #2: Make a leftovers mashup.
Last year, I made a Thanksgiving Leftovers “Sandwich” with cranberry sauce, turkey, shaved Brussels sprouts and sweet potato “pancakes” as the “bread.”
Needless to say, the idea (which I borrowed from Food52 and made Paleo) was a hit, even making it to BuzzFeed. Guess that means folks liked it!
Use this idea as a jumping off point for your own reinvention or individual recipes for the Thanksgiving Leftovers “Sandwich” as I posted them last year.
Thanksgiving Leftovers Idea #3: Make a curry.
Probably the hardest part of Thanksgiving leftovers to deal with is the turkey: Unless you drown it in gravy, it just gets so dry. One of my solutions: Make a curry with it.
My recipe for Leftover Turkey Yellow Curry gives you the best of both worlds, combining the win of using up leftovers with the seemingly impossible feat of bringing dry turkey back to life.
This mild yellow curry is great served over some cauliflower rice and really changes up the flavors from everyday to exotic.
I’m sure you have your favorite way to use up Thanksgiving leftovers, so be sure to share it in the comments below!
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6 Responses
I love the sandwich idea! It reminds me of the episode where Ross’ coworker eats his leftover Thanksgiving sandwich with the moist maker!
awesome ideas!! we love leftovers!
Hi Steph!
Great ideas! I love making curry out of left-overs!
In England, we throw everything in a huge frying pan, mush it all together and cook it on a medium – high heat for about ten minutes with plenty of butter and any left over broth thrown in. It’s called ‘bubble and squeek’ and it tastes epic hehe.
I love bubble and squeak!
Don’t forget to add bacon to the bubble and squeek! :p
Oooh of course, can’t be forgetting the bacon!