The Vintage One-Pot Turkey Dinner That Deserves A Major Revival (Make It Tonight!)

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With budget-conscious cooks turning to Depression-era recipes for inspiration and help stretching their grocery dollars further, vintage is what's for dinner tonight. One-pot meals are an excellent way to keep kitchen clutter and dirty dishes to a minimum while yielding a hearty batch of food sure to satisfy even the most picky palates. If you love poultry, cream sauce, and the comfort of a plate of noodles, look no further than the humble turkey tetrazzini.

Made popular between the 1900s and 1950s, this is a vintage one-pot meal that deserves a comeback. It's low-effort, filling, and a great way to use leftover turkey from a festive dinner. Turkey tetrazzini is prepared using cooked turkey, your favorite type of pasta, vegetables including mushrooms, onions, and garlic, and a sauce made with a base of chicken broth and sour cream.

Everything cooks together in one pot, including the noodles, making this a cinch to prepare and allowing the pasta to become properly infused with the dish's flavors. Take inspiration from Tasting Table's one-pot turkey tetrazzini recipe, which includes dried herbs such as oregano and thyme, frozen peas for added nutrients and color, and shredded Parmesan cheese. There are countless ways to update this vintage recipe to suit modern tastes.

Turkey tetrazzini was originally conceived of as a baked casserole with a topping of cheese, breadcrumbs, and butter. Though there are a number of conflicting accounts as to the specific details of its origin, the generally accepted consensus is that the American dish was created by Ernest Arbogast, a chef at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, where famed Italian opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini lived for many years. Though vintage casseroles also deserve a comeback, this meal is easily adapted to a one-pot format for more convenience.

The recipe is often used as a vehicle to transform Thanksgiving leftovers into a new meal, but can also be a great way to repurpose a store-bought rotisserie chicken. Additionally, by grabbing a can of cream of mushroom soup for your base, you have a shortcut to making your cream sauce. Add in a bag of mixed vegetables for more nutrition or wilt some fresh leaves of spinach, kale, or Swiss chard for extra greenery.

Albeit a vintage favorite, there's no reason you can't give a modern makeover to a one-pot turkey tetrazzini. Spice things up with a shake of crushed red pepper flakes and extra cracked black pepper. Use fun shaped pasta that will easily soak up the sauce and make your dinner a bit whimsical. With our one-pot turkey tetrazzini recipe, a little creativity goes a long way to make a mouthwatering meal to feed many.