Easy Ways To Use Up Your Thanksgiving Leftover

As Thanksgiving comes to an end, we find ourselves in a post-turkey daze, surrounded by mountains of mashed potatoes, oceans of gravy, and a cornucopia of cranberry sauce. But the best part is just beginning, the leftovers! And we're here to show you the best ways to use them--not just reheating and eating!

This one is for those of us who’ve had our fanciful feasts on the Thanksgiving holiday but end up with a surplus of food, and that’s even after boxing up some of the leftovers and sending them on their way along with our friends and family members who’ve come to dine with us. Of course, leftovers don’t always just come from what you made, everyone contributes a little bit of something to add to the feast, and so even with your extra food being sent off, you may still end up with your fair share of extra leftovers that you may not know what to do with. If you’re anything like us, we hate wasting food but also don’t fancy the idea of having an endless amount of meals that are comprised of the same thing, meal repetition for those of us who aren’t conditioned for it, may be a bit hard to get through, and then freezing it to inevitably get freezer burn when we forget about it– it’s a nightmare waiting to happen. Rather than stressing over these leftovers, let’s reinvent them so you can still enjoy your leftovers without feeling like you’re eating the same thing!

Leftover stuffing can go into just about anything! 

If you’ve got yourself extra stuffing at the end of your Thanksgiving dinner, try stuffing it into your veggies! You don’t need to use an oven if you’re not about it, especially after having to use it to cook your turkey from the day before. Grilling the veggies works just as well, and it usually only takes around 10 minutes, or less, depending on how high the heat! After grilling your veggies until they’re soft and skin lightly charred. (If you’re not a fan of char, you can also pop them in a plastic bag after charring the skin to get them to sweat a bit and the skin should be able to peel off, leaving you with just the cooked shell.) Dig out any of the inside seeds or stems and warm up your leftover stuffing, and add it inside your veggies! Top with some cheese or gravy for an extra bonus and you’ve got yourself a culinary masterpiece using your leftover stuffing.     

Got some mash left over? Then you’ve got yourself some potato pancakes! 

Mashed potatoes and gravy often go hand in hand in the Thanksgiving feast, it’s a staple dish to a lot of different households and we get it. This dish is a great accompaniment to a lot of different dishes! The best thing about having extra mashed potatoes as leftovers is that you can truly have it with anything. If you’re making yourself some roast beef or grilling up some veggies, mashed potatoes can be a perfect carb to make your meal complete, but if you’ve had your fill of mashed potatoes and want to integrate it into something new, try your hand at making some potato pancakes! Just gather together some all purpose flour, an egg (or some other replacement that acts as a binder), and some spices like salt, pepper and whatever other spices you fancy, and mix it together with your leftover mashed potatoes until it’s a sticky dough type consistency. Oil up a pan and shape your dough into pancakes, cooking on each side until golden brown! Serve with some leftover gravy or ketchup and enjoy!  

Leftover turkey makes for the best stock and soup! 

Typically as the house who cooks the turkey, you’re usually the one left with the carcass, but just before you throw it out, maybe hang onto it for the next day if you’ll be craving some turkey bone broth because this will make for the perfect stock! You’ll need a bit of extra time on your hands for this one, simmering turkey bones to get out all that extra goodness and nutrients in the stock can usually take at the minimum 3 hours or so, so if you’re planning on having this as a meal for dinner, make sure you start early enough. Gather all the extra bits that didn’t make it to your turkey dinner last night (the giblet, the neck, all that extra stuff we usually don’t use, but if you don’t have those and just the carcass, it’s alright!) Heat up a pot with water until simmering (not boiling), and add in your bones, giblets and all that, along with some chopped up onions, carrots, celery and garlic, they don’t have to be diced up, you can just chop them so they fit into the pot. If you have a spice packet, you can use it to add in herbs like parsley, rosemary, thyme, star anise, cinnamon and the like, if you don’t have a spice packet, just pop them into the pot! A spice packet usually makes it easier to filter out those little herbs but if you don’t mind a few herb sediments in your broth, then don’t worry! Season the stock with some salt and pepper and let it simmer for 3 hours (or until the water turns a nice golden yellow hue and the vegetables and turkey bits are soft). You can use tongs to take out the bigger chunks once it’s ready and then use a colander to filter out anything you may have missed, leaving just the broth. Now you got yourself some turkey stock which you can use in your soup, to season rice, or to just enjoy as is!  

And there you have it, a simple guide for using your Thanksgiving leftovers so you don’t leave anything to waste!