Best Recipes for Leftover Turkey + Easy Meals to Save Your Sanity Pre- and Post-Thanksgiving {Great for Company!}
This post is everything you need for those days when you’re up to your ears in leftover turkey and need some ideas for how to use it!
You are probably elbow deep in cranberry sauce, homemade roll dough, and/or apple pie filling.
Or maybe not?
Either way, keep this post in mind for TWO reasons:
1) If/when you have turkey leftovers coming out of your ears later this week, this post will be right here waiting for you. Patiently and with love.
I’ve gathered all the recipes on my blog that are just dying to be made with leftover turkey! And if none of those float your boat, here’s a whole list of recipes that use cooked chicken…which means leftover turkey will sub in just perfectly.
P.S. That turkey, cranberry panini is one of my favorite sandwiches/leftover turkey solutions EVER.
2) So unless you missed the memo, Thanksgiving dinner is NOT the only meal that needs to be made this week. At least in my house.
For some reason all the little peeps around here feel like they need dinner more than just once a week. Weird.
Below I’ve also included a few of my go-to meals for days that are crazy with other holiday food prep or when the motivation to cook is low but the masses still have to eat or when you have company coming into town (expected or rather unexpectedly).
Most all of these meals can be made and kept warm and/or served casually and family-style to make the evening stress-free.
For those of you celebrating Thanksgiving this week, I hope you survive the wonderful chaos!
Our plans have changed slightly (my brother and his family can’t come anymore), so we’re keeping it low key, and I’m excited to bust out the slow cooker turkey and tons of homemade rolls. Honestly, what else do you really need?
Happy Thanksgiving!
This is a great post and perfect timing. I’m getting ready to host Thanksgiving. 5 days with my in-laws at my house..will need a whole lot of Jesus to get me through those days.
I’m looking forward to trying your cranberry relish this year. I’m also trying to plan ahead with ready to bake breakfast casseroles, muffins, soups, and some type of sandwich ready stuff…pork bbq, sloppy joes or chicken salad. Wish me luck!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Good luck, Andrea!!
I made your Chicken Broccoli Stuffed Alfredo shells with our leftover turkey breast. It was so good. Now, each year I will covet the turkey leftovers since I have a yummy dish to use them in.
What a great use for those leftovers!!
At least two of your recipes are showing up at our Thanksgiving. Wait… three of them (crescent rolls, crumb top apple pie, and cranberry salsa). You are far and away my best resource for recipes on the internet. Thanks Mel! Happy thanksgiving!
Thank you, Hilary! Happy Thanksgiving!
We’re having a giant Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of friends at church, because we’re all grad student families and none of us can afford to go home for Thanksgiving. It’s a potluck, so we each get to choose what to bring, and as I was pulling together my options, I found that every. single. recipe. was from you. So basically, you’re awesome. Have a fantastic Thanksgiving!
Oh, that’s awesome, Nicki. Thank you so much! I hope you have a great Thanksgiving; awesome you can celebrate with friends!
Girl, you just rock this world with your awesomeness! Thank you for being a presence and help in my life. I’m thankful for your sweet friendship and for your mad kitchen skills- you’re the one who taught me how to cook (seriously!!!), among other things. Thinking of you and yours and sending a warm Thanksgiving hug your way.
Love you right back, Amy!
Happy Thanksgiving Mel!!! I️ know we are all grateful for many blessings in our lives, but I’m sure I speak for everyone who enjoys and loves your blog, that we are really grateful for you and all of your amazing recipes !!!
Wishing you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving
Thank you so much, Linda! Happy Thanksgiving, sweet friend.
Seriously, I count down the days that I can have a turkey cranberry panini! Yay for god comas and LOTS of homemade rolls!! Happy Thanksging Mel’s Family!!
Or FOOD comas! Geesh
Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Shanell!
Perfect timing for easy meals! My parents arrive sometime tomorrow. With prepping for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, all easy meal ideas for tomorrow are greatly appreciated. Thank you! One of our favorite leftover remakes is to put leftover dressing in the waffle iron and use the stuffing waffle as a base for a hot turkey sandwich with potatoes and gravy. The crunchy edges of our stuffing waffle are positively addictive! Thank you again for the recipes!
Oooh, that sounds awesome!
When I try to share this on Facebook, the box that opens to preview the “share” shows a heading “Page Not Found – Mel’s Kitchen Cafe”. Just FYI. I’m holding off on sharing it because even if it shows up in my Facebook feed, people might not click on it if the first words they see are “Page Not Found”.
I’ll look into it, Deborah! Thanks for the heads up.
It’s all fixed, Deborah!
Happy Thanksgiving, Mel! Words simply can’t express how grateful I am for your help in feeding my friends and family. You have made it possible to nourish hearts and bodies and keep my sanity (or what’s left of it anyway).
Thank you so much, Sara! Happy Thanksgiving!