What To Do With Thanksgiving Leftovers: 25 Recipes For The Next Day

ACROSS AMERICA — Throwing away Thanksgiving dinner leftovers is like lining trash cans and landfills in dollar bills.

Grocery costs are averaging about 12 percent higher than at this time last year, and a traditional Thanksgiving dinner costs 20 percent more this year, according to estimates.

Why waste a single delicious morsel? We’ve rounded up 21 recipes to turn your Thanksgiving leftovers into something completely different.

(By the way, the United States has a terrible track record on food waste, especially among people with comfortable lifestyles and healthy diet, according to a report two years ago from the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Americans waste $240 billion worth of food every year — 39.1 percent of the food brought home from the grocery store.)

Some things to keep in mind as you resolve not to waste food this year:

• Generally speaking, Thanksgiving leftovers stay good for three or four days in the refrigerator. If your guests are staying through the weekend, most of the items on your menu should still be good to eat for the duration.
• For Thanksgiving supper, nosh on salads and breads that are quick to wilt and dry out.
• Leftover turkey, casseroles and cooked grains freeze well for up to three months as long as bags specifically marked for storage or freezing are used, according to the Food Network.
• Whether you’re refrigerating or freezing the leftover turkey, remove the stuffing from the cavity of the bird and store that separately.

Of course, reimagining the Thanksgiving dinner with creative leftovers can be part of the fun. Below are 25 takes you may not have considered that will turn your leftovers into something completely different.

Cranberry sauce is a dish people want on Thanksgiving, but not necessarily in the days after the holiday.

One way to use leftover whole-bean cranberry sauce is to quickly throw together Cranberry Brie Bites, a recipe from Ahead of Thyme. You’ll also need frozen puff pastry (or your own pastry if you make it yourself), brie cheese, pecans (or walnuts, slivered almonds, pine nuts or pistachios), and fresh rosemary.

For Cranberry Sauce Muffins, a recipe from Foxes Love Lemons, you’ll use many of the baking staples most cooks have on hand — flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and vanilla extract — as well as butter, orange zest, eggs and sour cream.

For Cranberry Turkey Quesadillas, a recipe from Diethood, you’ll need flour tortillas, provolone cheese slices, and leftover turkey and cranberry sauce. (Chicken or ham may be substituted.)

Cheers To Cranberries

If none of these recipes do it for you, why not just turn the cranberries into Cranberry Sauce Bourbon Cocktail? For this recipe from The Roasted Root, you’ll need homemade or store-bought cranberry sauce, bourbon, ginger beer or club soda, and a lemon wedge. And, yes, if the sauce is whole berry, the cocktail could have chunks of fruit, which the recipe creator says is part of the fun.

This recipe from the Brazilian Kitchen Aboard for a Leftover Cranberry Sauce Cocktail, you’ll need cachaça, triple sec, fresh ginger and club soda.

For this Cranberry Sauce Moscow Mule recipe from Food, you’ll also need a couple of fresh limes, honey, vodka, ginger beer, cinnamon sticks and fresh cranberries, for garnish.

For the Cranberry Sauce Old-Fashioned Cocktail from Feast and West, you’ll also need a good quality bourbon, bitters (cinnamon, Angostura aromatic bitters, orange bitters or clove bitters), orange zest and burnt rosemary.

And what’s a fancy cocktail without a charcuterie board, anchored by Antipasti Skewers made from leftover salads and relish trays? The Food Network tells you how to make them. Ahead of time, pick up some ciliegine mozzarella (cherry-sized mozzarella balls), thin salami and fresh basil.

We love this idea for leftover mashed potatoes, Louis XVI’s Potato Croquettes from Fine Dining Lovers. A light, crispy vegetarian snack, it uses nutmeg, white pepper and Parmesan cheese.

Morning-After Brunch

Cranberry cocktails are great for brunch, too, but you’ll need some sustenance.

This recipe for Crustless Ham and Leek Quiché from Country Living Magazine is a good way to use ham left over from the Thanksgiving feast. Besides leeks and ham, you’ll also need an onion, Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, eggs, crème fraîche, whole milk, Dijon mustard, Gruyère cheese, fresh chives and fresh parsley.

Another quiché option: Leftover Stuffing and Cheese Quiché, from Insanely Good Recipes. You’ll need butter, milk, eggs, cheese and a bit of leftover turkey or other meat.

For folks who really like turkey dressing, Leftover Stuffing Waffles are another option. You’ll need a waffle iron for this recipe, also from the Food Network, as well as eggs and parsley. Top with reheated mashed potatoes and gravy and a dollop of cranberry sauce.

Sweet Potato Pancakes are great for brunch, too. Besides mashed sweet potatoes, you’ll need sour cream, milk, eggs, maple syrup, flour, baking powder, baking soda, kosher salt, nutmeg and cinnamon for this recipe from Serious Eats.

Not Grandma’s Leftovers

Let’s get on with the rest of the day. This recipe for Thanksgiving Leftover Casserole from Favorite Family Recipes started out as a way for the creator to avoid having a fridge full of plastic containers. Best of all, you’ll have most of what you need, but you should make sure you have cheddar cheese on hand.

The Spruce Eats came up with a gravy-smothered turkey burrito. You’ll need leftover turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy, plus flour tortillas, sour cream, cheddar cheese and chopped parsley, for garnish. Cranberry sauce can be added as well.

For Leftover Turkey and Stuffing Stuffed Peppers, a recipe from Delish, you’ll need leftover turkey and stuffing, eggs, red and yellow bell peppers, shredded mozzarella, kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and fresh parsley, for garnish.

Butterball Foodservice offers this recipe for Moroccan-Spiced Turkey Salad. Besides the leftover turkey, you’ll need plain Greek yogurt, cumin seeds, slivered almonds, lemon zest, honey, cinnamon, dried apricots and salt. Serve it on rye bread with watercress or baby arugula.

For Coconut Turkey Curry, another recipe from Ahead of Thyme, you’ll need leftover turkey, onion, garlic and ginger, coconut milk, turkey stock, sugar, lime juice, a green bell pepper, fresh cilantro and steamed rice for serving.

This recipe for a Thanksgiving Turkey Po’ Boy sandwich shared a couple of years ago in The Washington Post is based on the once-a-year concoction served at the Parkway Bakery & Tavern in New Orleans. You’ll need Leidenheimer French bread loaves (or any other 11-inch loaf of New Orleans-style French bread), 7 ounces of turkey, 12 ounces of stuffing, 4 ounces of gravy and 4 ounces of whole-bean cranberry sauce.

Sweet Potato Soup with Blue Corn Tortillas, another recipe from the Food Network, also calls for low-sodium chicken broth, ground ginger, allspice, freshly grated nutmeg, crème fraîche, adobo purée, black pepper and fresh cilantro and crushed blue corn tortilla chips for garnish.

If you’re planning to make green bean casserole and anticipate leftovers, pick up some puff pastry sheets in the frozen aisles at the supermarket, so you can turn it into a main dish, Second Day Turkey and String Bean Pot Pies, also from the Food Network. Besides the leftover casserole and pastry, you’ll need milk, stock and turkey.

This recipe for Thanksgiving Pizza from The Gunny Sack gets rid of a lot of your leftovers in one fell swoop. You’ll use leftover mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, turkey and stuffing and this recipe. It also calls for a puff pastry sheet, cheddar cheese, French fried onions, freshly ground pepper, and basil, parsley or thyme, for garnish.

Desserts Reimagined

Pumpkin Pie S’mores, another recipe from Delish, offers a different take on a Thanksgiving dessert staple. Make sure you have marshmallow roasting sticks on hand. You’ll also need Graham crackers, Hershey’s chocolate bars, marshmallows and warm caramel, for drizzling.

Speaking of dessert, you probably didn’t see this coming: Leftover mashed potatoes are stuffing for a tasty-looking Homemade Peppermint Patties knockoff from Heavenly Homemakers. Besides the leftover potatoes, you’ll need butter, peppermint extract, powdered sugar, chocolate chips and coconut oil.

Who knew there were so many confections using spuds? Mashed Potato Brownies, an offering from Farmer’s Wife Rambles, calls for unseasoned mashed potatoes (meaning no garlic or pepper), butter, unsweetened chocolate squares, sugar eggs, vanilla extract, salt, flour and, optional, semi-sweet chocolate chips and chopped walnuts or pecans.