After Thanksgiving, many people have their fridges filled with leftover turkey, which can lead to panic about how to use it. Cooked turkey typically lasts about 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator. Instead of letting it go to waste, one can employ innovative strategies to make quick leftover turkey recipes. These dishes are easy to learn and prepare, as one just needs a few additional ingredients to repurpose leftover turkey into another delicious dish.
Turkey Tetrazzini with Cream of Mushroom Soup
Soups and casseroles with leftover turkey are among the most common post-Thanksgiving delicacies. The ingredients needed for this creamy turkey and mushroom soup are spaghetti, cheddar cheese, cooked turkey, condensed mushroom soup cream, chopped onions, sliced mushrooms, green pepper, 2% milk, pimientos, and fresh parsley.
To prepare this dish, start by mixing all the ingredients except for the parsley. Preheat the oven to 375°F. In a separate pot, cook the spaghetti and then drain the water from it. Next, add the spaghetti to the large bowl along with the rest of the ingredients and mix it well.
Transfer the tetrazzini mixture into a greased 2-1/2-quart baking dish and sprinkle cheese over the top for added flavor. After a while, the tetrazzini mixture needs to be baked (uncovered) in the oven for about 40 to 45 minutes. Once the baking process is done, garnish with parsley before serving the dish.
Thanksgiving Leftovers Casserole
This dish takes a little over an hour to make and yields about 6 to 8 servings, making it one of the most efficient leftover turkey meal ideas. The ingredients needed to make this casserole are unsalted butter, a medium yellow onion, medium-sized carrots, large stalk celery, garlic cloves, fresh thyme leaves, kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, all-purpose flour, whole milk, low-sodium turkey, shredded leftover turkey, a cupful of frozen peas, leftover mashed potatoes, shredded sharp cheddar, leftover stuffing, and a canful of cranberry sauce.
Over medium heat, melt butter in a wok. Add chopped carrot, onion, celery, garlic, and thyme to the wok before stirring and seasoning this mix with salt and butter for around 8 minutes until it becomes soft. Next, add flour into the mix before cooking for around 3 minutes and get it to a lightly toasted texture. After increasing the heat to medium-high, stir this mixture for some more time before adding in broth and milk.
Bring this mixture to a boil until the gravy becomes thick and consistent. To this, add turkey and peas and heat it for about a minute. Season this mixture with salt and pepper for taste and flavor. Scrape this turkey mixture into a baking dish and add mashed potatoes and cheese on it before baking it for about 20 minutes. Once the process is complete, layer the casserole with cranberry sauce.
Hot Brown Turkey Sandwiches
To make this sandwich, one needs ingredients like sliced bacon, small chopped onion pieces, all-purpose flour, milk, low-sodium chicken broth, shredded Muenster or Monterey Jack cheese, kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, tomato slices, white bread slices, dijon mustard for spreading, shredded or sliced roast turkey, and chopped fresh parsley.
This is among the easiest leftover turkey recipes as it can be made in 35 minutes and yields four servings. Over medium heat, cook bacon in a large skillet until it turns crisp. Once cooked, transfer it to a paper towel-lined plate. To make the gravy, add onions to this skillet and cook for about 3 minutes until it gets golden and soft. After that, one can add flour to the skillet and stir for about a minute. After raising the heat to medium-high, add milk and chicken broth to the skillet before boiling them. This can be cooked in medium-low heat until it simmers. After taking it out of the heat, add a cupful of cheese before stirring the mixture.
After seasoning the mixture with salt and pepper, one can arrange some bread on a baking sheet. Top this with some mustard, a dollop of the prepared gravy, and some tomato slices. Leftover turkey pieces need to be added to the skillet along with the remaining gravy. Divide this soaked turkey evenly among the bread slices before sprinkling in a quarter cup of cheese. The layered slices should be broiled for about 2 minutes.
At the end, the bacon slices should be added along with the parsley over the sandwiched bread slices.
Leftover Turkey Pot Pie
Making a delicious pot pie is one of the ingenious ways to use leftover turkey after Thanksgiving. The key ingredients needed to make this dish are a dozen ounces of cooked turkey, mirepoix and other herbs, heated turkey broth, and pie crust.
In an oven-safe skillet, cook chopped carrots, celery, and some thyme in butter until the onion turns golden and soft. In the same dish, sprinkle some flour over the vegetables before pouring in a combination of broth and milk to concoct a supplementary sauce. To this sauce, add cooked turkey and frozen peas. This filling will be topped with pie dough.
One can cut a few slits into it so the steam can vent out while it bakes in the skillet. The filling was already cooked in the skillet, so, one just needs to bake the pot pie until it bubbles (about 20 minutes) and the crust turns golden brown.
Some other quick and delicious leftover turkey recipes are Turkey “Carnitas” with Green Mojo, Cranberry Brie Turkey Melts, and Turkey Vegetable Soup with Stuffing Dumplings.
