23 Best Thanksgiving Leftover Recipes

Once plowing through all the delights of the Thanksgiving Day table — from juicy roast turkey to moist herbed stuffing to tart, jewel-toned cranberry sauce — you might feel like you won't need (or be able) to eat again for days. But as we all know, that unbuttoned-pants feeling doesn't last long; You might even start to feel the faint growls of hunger, yet again, when you're packing away all those delicious leftovers. 

That's because Thanksgiving leftovers have such wide appeal for repurposed, day-after meals, from the classic loaded turkey sandwich to potato croquettes that turn extra mashers into a poppable fried snack. This Thanksgiving, if your fridge is still loaded with odds 'n' ends after the last guest has said goodnight, take a peek at these 23 recipes that are perfect for using up extra green beans, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and other standbys of the holiday meal.

This autumnal salad featuring bright and colorful roasted butternut squash, pomegranate seeds, baby kale or baby spinach, candied pumpkin seeds, and crumbled goat cheese is worth making from scratch, but is even easier when you've got baked butternut (or any other sweet winter squash) leftover from the Thanksgiving meal. You can even save any squash seeds from your holiday prep in order to make the honey-glazed pumpkin seeds. 

Tossed with a simple homemade honey Dijon vinaigrette, the light-yet-filling salad is the perfect antidote to the excesses of Thanksgiving dinner.

Recipe: Roasted Butternut Squash Salad

If you've ever tucked a spoon into the hot, savory Chinese rice porridge known variously as jook and congee, then you know how satisfying this homey, simple dish can be. A basic rice and stock (or water) porridge that's cooked until loose and soupy, jook is typically topped with a range of ingredients, from sliced scallions to dried shrimp to salted duck eggs (via Unfamiliar China). 

But in this case, the leftover Thanksgiving turkey carcass is used to create a rich stock in which to simmer the rice, which is then topped off with reserved, shredded turkey meat and roasted fall veggies such as Brussels sprouts, sunchokes, and carrots. If you've got vegetables left over from the holiday, you can go ahead and use those instead of roasting fresh ones.

Recipe: Turkey Jook (Rice Porridge)

Got some leftover turkey, ham, or both? A classic club sandwich is the perfect way to use up both. Just slice the meats thinly, pile them onto some Italian bread spread with herbed mayo, and add some crisped bacon, shredded lettuce, and sliced, salted tomatoes. 

A club sandwich is a tasty crowd-pleaser that's delicious at almost any time of day — so you might want to tuck this formula away for post-Christmas leftovers, too.

Recipe: Club Sandwich With Herb Mayo

This easy, hearty green bean and potato salad coated in honey mustard vinaigrette is simple enough to make from scratch, but even easier utilizing leftovers. 

Post-Thanksgiving, you can gather your leftover boiled (or even roasted) potatoes, plus any leftover green bean casserole (or steamed green beans), fold them in the homemade dressing, and call it a day. The original recipe even calls for a shake of dried onions as a garnish, so the French fried onions hanging out in your green bean casserole will go perfectly with the dish.

Recipe: Green Bean Potato Salad

One of the many flatbreads popular in India, dosas are a thin, crepe-like pancake made from a rice-based batter and then griddled until golden brown, lacy, and slightly crisp at the edges. Stuffed with a variety of fillings ranging from paneer to chopped green chiles, according to the India Times, one of the most classic dosa varieties is the masala dosa, stuffed with spiced potatoes. 

Tasting Table recipe developer Miriam Hahn's rendition calls for cooking raw potatoes, but it's the perfect vehicle for leftover Thanksgiving potatoes, whether they're baked or mashed. Once jazzed up with cumin, mustard seeds, ginger, garlic, and other seasonings, your formerly American spuds will take on a distinctly South Asian flair.

Recipe: Classic Masala Dosa

Turkey soup is a classic post-Thanksgiving dish when you're stuck with a mostly picked-at carcass and, most likely, have plenty of root vegetables and herbs still hanging around your fridge and pantry. 

Tasting Table recipe developer Hayley Maclean's turkey vegetable soup calls for chicken broth and diced or shredded turkey meat, but you could go a step further by making a simple turkey broth, or simply reserve extra meat and add it to the soup. Other tasty ingredients include carrots, celery, tomatoes, red bell peppers, peas, baby spinach, and orzo, but feel free to adapt the recipe to the veggies you need to use up.

Recipe: Turkey Vegetable Soup

A comfort food classic traditionally prepared for Mormon families in mourning, according to Atlas Obscura, funeral potatoes certainly don't need to be saved for solemn occasions. A great use for leftover baked or even mashed potatoes, the dish combines the spuds with canned cream of chicken soup, sour cream, and melted butter, and flavors the mix with onion and garlic powders. 

Once piled in a baking dish, the creamy mixture is topped with crushed cornflakes, drizzled with melted butter, and baked until hot, bubbly, and crunchy on top.

Recipe: Cheesy Funeral Potatoes

If you love zucchini bread and carrot cake, then you'll definitely enjoy Tasting Table recipe developer Kristin Carli's rendition of a carrot soufflé, which is based on the same principles of incorporating typically savory produce into a sweet treat. 

A puffy baked dessert that works soft cooked carrots into a batter along with eggs, milk, melted butter, brown sugar, and a little bit of flour, it's a wonderful, unexpected way to use up any boiled carrots you might have kicking around post-Thanksgiving. Served warm and dusted with powdered sugar, it feels totally unrelated to Thanksgiving leftovers — which might be just the ticket when you start to grow weary of them.

Recipe: Easy Carrot Soufflé

If you can't tell that we think reworking Thanksgiving Day leftovers into Indian food is a great idea, then here's yet another example: this creamy vegetable korma, which gets its rich silkiness from a cashew-coconut milk purée. That sauce gets poured over vegetables including potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, and onion, creating a hearty vegetable stew that gets a subtle kick from ginger, coriander, turmeric, and other spices. 

We think you could easily use chopped leftover Thanksgiving veggies in the stew. Just be sure to adjust the cook time as needed, only briefly simmering the ingredients in the smooth sauce until everything is heated through and the spices taste warm and coherent.

Recipe: Vegetable Korma

Folks who really and truly love the flavors of Thanksgiving might not be ready for the holiday to end when it does — and this fall shepherd's pie is for them. The rich, flavorful dish boasts all the comforting tastes of the holiday, in this instance combining shredded cooked turkey with leftover stuffing and gravy, mixing in milk to create a sauce, and adding some bright green peas to the mix. 

Once the turkey filling is spread into a baking dish, it's topped with a piped layer of leftover mashed potatoes mixed with grated Parmesan and egg yolks, which goes all burnished and fancy when the dish is baked in the oven. Alternatively, if you're burnt out on fancy cooking, you can simply spread the potatoes over the filling — the dish will be just as delicious.

Recipe: Thanksgiving Shepherd's Pie

Besides the turkey, extra baked or roasted sweet potatoes are, no doubt, one of the Thanksgiving dishes that tend to be left over after the big meal. And while eating them hot with butter or fried into a hash are both tasty ways to address the issue, we think a big ol' pot of warming soup is a great idea, too. 

For this recipe, you can start by heating the oil in a Dutch oven, sautéing the onions and garlic, then adding your leftover sweet potatoes and seasoning them with curry powder, chili, and cumin. Then, you can proceed with the recipe as it's written, incorporating carrots and apples, and finishing the soup by puréeing it with coconut creamer or heavy cream.

Recipe: Spicy Sweet Potato Soup