"If I had to pick my favorite meal of the year, it would hands-down be Thanksgiving dinner, even though I’m actually one of those people who doesn’t like the turkey. Don’t @ me (do people still say that?), it’s just who I am. But give me every possible side dish and I’m a happy woman. Multiple desserts? Yes please! A (usually) dry piece of meat? No, thank you. I’ll typically have one bite of turkey, because people get very heated about my dislike for the main dish. And even though that’s all I take at Thanksgiving dinner, I actually love repurposing turkey after the fact with Thanksgiving leftover recipes. Turkey smothered in pesto? Pass it my way!
So while Thanksgiving dinner ranks number one in my book, the leftover meals that follow are a close second. From breakfasts, to salads, soups, and sandwiches, to desserts and more, we’ve rounded up 40+ mouthwatering recipes that will turn your turkey and other leftovers into delicious meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Breakfasts
1. Baked Eggs with Ham and Cheese
I grew up eating the classic egg in a hole. Something about cutting out the bread to make space for the egg is a simple way on how to make breakfast fun and creative. This recipe calls for leftover ham, and it adds a little color and flavor to your breakfast.
2. Turkey, Smashed Avocado, Cranberry, Brie, and Mashed Potato Waffle Melts
A waffle sandwich with mashed potatoes? Yes, please. These melts combine all your Thanksgiving favorites in a delectable new way.
3. Fluffy Sweet Potato Biscuits with Salted Cranberry Maple Butter
As much as I love sweet potatoes, I’m never quite sure what to do with the leftovers. But this recipe turns your sweet potatoes into a fluffy biscuit. I might just be making this outside of the holiday season, too. Who doesn’t love a sweet biscuit?
4. Everything Bagel Breakfast Sandwich
Bring the deli straight to your kitchen with this mile-high bagel sandwich piled with leftover stuffing, mashed potatoes, turkey, and cranberry sauce cream cheese. Rather than drizzling it in leftover gravy, the recipe includes a fried egg so that the yolk drips all over the sandwich’s fixings for that essential moist-maker.
5. Denver Omelette Egg Cups
One of the issues I have after Thanksgiving is the abundance of leftovers. Once you’ve made a meal, I still have leftovers upon leftovers that I ultimately throw away. However, these Denver omelette egg cups are perfect to store in the freezer. No food wasted, here!
6. Thanksgiving Leftover Turkey and Stuffing Muffins
How adorable and colorful are these little muffins? This is a breezy recipe of eggs, your leftover turkey and stuffing, and turkey or chicken stock. Topped off with a dollop of leftover cranberry sauce, you have a wonderful solution for a breakfast, dinner roll replacement, or snack that’s packed with protein.
7. Leftover Turkey and Sweet Potato Frittata
Wonderful for a weekend morning breakfast that can then be saved and reheated for later on in the week, this frittata is a fragrant combination of spices and Gruyere cheese alongside the eggs, leftover turkey, and sweet potatoes. While the recipe calls for freshly-diced sweet potatoes, if you have any type of sweet potato leftovers (that aren’t smothered in marshmallows!), you can definitely swap those in.
8. Leftover Stuffing Cakes
Put the buttery, breaded, and herbal deliciousness of stuffing to use with these scrumptious little golden cakes. By mixing mozzarella cheese and a scrambled egg into your leftover stuffing, they act as binders so that you can form the mixture into patties that are easy to fry in a skillet. Topped off with a fried egg, you have a protein-rich breakfast that will be dripping with sunny goodness.
9. Low-Carb Turkey Stuffing Waffles
Perfect as a breakfast-for-dinner meal—or really any meal—the only special tool you’ll need for this recipe is a waffle maker.
10. Cranberry and Turkey Turnovers
Grab an extra container of puff pastry when grocery shopping to throw together these three-ingredient turkey turnovers.
11. Leftover Thanksgiving Eggs Benedict
The perfect fuel for Black Friday shopping, leftover turkey and gravy get a breakfast makeover as eggs Benedict.
12. Vegan Orange Cranberry Waffles
For a festive breakfast, these waffles are topped with a maple cranberry compote to further repurpose your cranberry leftovers.
13. Thanksgiving Leftovers Waffle
I know, there are multiple waffle recipes within this list, but they’re all different renditions. This recipe uses leftover stuffing as your crispy waffle. It gives the stuffing a completely different texture and makes it into something new.
14. Baked Cornbread French Toast
I have a confession: cornbread isn’t my favorite. There, I said it! But I will say, French toast is. So, I can’t wait for you to try this version of French toast this year. Top it with some confectioners’ sugar and maple syrup, and you’ll be wondering why cornbread isn’t served like this at Thanksgiving in the first place.
Salads
15. Roasted Vegetable Thanksgiving Bowl
This dish packs all the Thanksgiving flavors into one bowl. The addition of the wild rice pilaf makes it hearty, and it’s a great contrast to the veggies.
16. Copycat Sweetgreen Harvest Bowl
You had me at ‘Sweetgreen.’ Take some of your leftover roasted sweet potatoes and use them to make a copycat dish from the popular salad chain. It calls for ingredients that you already have from making Thanksgiving dinner, so nothing goes to waste.
17. Ham Cobb Salad
If your family uses ham in lieu of (or in addition to) turkey, try this Cobb salad recipe with Greek yogurt ranch dressing.
18. Thanksgiving Leftovers Kale Salad
With its emerald green and bright orange colors, this wholesome salad is as much of a garden of eden to eat as it is to behold. Besides being a medley of the turkey and veggies that may have graced your Thanksgiving table, there’s a yummy homemade cranberry balsamic vinaigrette recipe so that your leftover cranberry sauce doesn’t feel left out!
19. Leftover Turkey Salad
Top a bed of lettuce or some fresh bread with this turkey salad for an easy and fresh after-Thanksgiving lunch.
20. Loaded Turkey Nacho Salad Bowls
Leftover turkey and seasonal veggies—like carrots and sweet potato—come together deliciously in these turkey nacho salad bowls.
Soups & Stews
21. Turkey Soup with Sweet Potato Dumplings
This takes your leftover turkey and mashed sweet potatoes and channels them into an entirely fresh and exciting dish. Soft, sweet potato-filled dumplings soak up a creatively spiced turkey soup, making for a tastiest of Thanksgiving leftover recipes that you’re going to want to make again, even without leftovers on hand!
22. Leftover Turkey Pho
Elevate your leftover turkey with pho soup. Pho is a dish that truly warms my heart because it’s flavorful and a good boost to your immune system. I’m also a fan of a meal that that isn’t a classic leftover dish like a turkey sandwich.
23. Turkey Pot Pie Soup
This recipe’s creator calls it “coziness in a bowl,” and we couldn’t agree more. If you’re seeking a divine comfort soup as these months are cooling down, this is it. It has all the hearty add-ins and warm seasonings of a welcoming pot pie—which she makes extra enticing by shaping the pie crust into fun shapes. Perfect if you have little ones at the table!
24. Vegan Corn Soup
My advice with this recipe is to set aside extra raw corn if you have some. It’s so easy to make and ready to be served within 30 minutes. Pair it with one of our favorite sandwiches from this list.
25. 30-Minute Leftover Turkey Chili
The robust flavors of a Thanksgiving meal merge with the spiced delight of chili for a resulting recipe where each bite is something different to savor. Taking only 30-minutes to create, you’re really getting the best of both worlds—the complex flavors of a more elaborate dish and an easy-to-make recipe!
26. Turkey Tortilla Soup
Soup is such a handy hack for leftovers, and this turkey tortilla recipe repurposes Thanksgiving dinner for a totally different flavor profile.
27. Easy 30-Minute Turkey Noodle Soup
The quintessential Thanksgiving leftover recipe, this turkey noodle soup will taste just like your grandma made it.
28. Creamy Turkey Soup
This hearty chowder can feed the whole gang—or you can freeze for a winter day when you need a quick and easy meal to warm up.
Sandwiches
29. Turkey Pesto Panini
These easy-to-make turkey paninis have a little Italian flare with tomato, pesto, and mozzarella.
30. Croque Madame
These fancy-looking sandwiches come together in 20 minutes using eggs, leftover turkey, Gruyere, prosciutto, and even mashed potatoes and gravy.
31. Thanksgiving Burrito
Denise, who wrote this recipe, mentioned her son loves a meal called the ‘gobblerito.’ This is her take, and I would say we’ll be gobbling this all up.
32. Loaded Turkey Panini
For yet another delicious sandwich, switch things up a little bit with this panini that uses fried sage leaves and a “cheese bomb” of Muenster and goat cheese.
33. The Thanksgiving Burger
The idea to make your leftovers into a burger is a clever one. There’s only so much you can do with mashed potatoes, but why not add them as a layer in a burger? This might just be a repeat every year.
Pizza, Pastas & More
34. Turkey and Cranberry BBQ Sauce Pizza
Thanksgiving flavors come together in a unique and delicious way with this turkey and cranberry pizza.
35. Turkey Cornbread Casserole
This casserole takes 20 minutes to prep and can be a great savory option to feed a larger family the day after Thanksgiving.
36. Turkey Tetrazzini with Cream of Mushroom Soup
Named after an Italian opera star, this nourishing pasta casserole is something you can meal prep and have on hand for the week (or freeze for an easy reheat down the line). It’s a nourishing blend of leftover turkey, cream of chicken and mushroom soups, mozzarella cheese, sour cream, and linguini. Could it get any creamier or dreamier?
37. Turkey Tetrazzini with Crunchy Honey Dijon Topping
Is your extended family sticking around after Thanksgiving? Here’s another idea for a turkey tetrazzini that uses fresh mushrooms. It feeds eight, and cooks in one pot for easy clean-up. Plus, the crunchy dijon chips baked into the top are a welcome complement to all of this dish’s creamy features.
38. Green Chile Butternut Squash and Turkey Enchiladas with Crispy Sage
Crispy sage is the special ingredient in many of these Thanksgiving leftover recipes, like these squash and turkey enchiladas. You can also reuse your cranberries as a salsa topper for this yummy dish.
39. Leftover Turkey Casserole
If you need a recipe that calls to throw everything into one pot, this is the dish for you. You need lots of gravy, so make sure you have it available. When the ingredients call for leftover green bean casserole, I know it’s one to try.
Desserts
40. Leftover Cranberry Sauce Mini Cheesecake Recipe
By giving cranberry sauce the limelight, this recipe ensures that you put every detail from your Thanksgiving meal to precious re-use! We’ve seen cheesecake recipes in a lot of flavors, but cranberry is certainly a novelty. To contrast some of the cranberries’ tartness, you can always add mix-ins like orange zest, mini chocolate chips, or chopped pecans to the cheesecake base.
41. Orange Cranberry Crisp
‘Tis the season for apples, but surely they don’t mind sharing the dessert stage with this alternative recipe for a warm streusel-topped crisp. Rather than creating this recipe’s cranberry sauce filling from scratch, all you have to do is swap in your leftover cranberry sauce mixed with orange juice, orange zest, and maple syrup (unless your sauce already included these ingredients). Pair it with your favorite whipped cream, vanilla, or coconut ice cream, too!
Patty Schepel, Editorial Intern
As the editorial intern, Patty works with The Everymom’s team on pitches, creating original articles, updating existing content, photo sourcing, writing shopping product descriptions, inputting freelance articles, and more. When she’s not working, you can find her spending time with her family, training for half marathons—she ran one 16 weeks pregnant—traveling, cooking, reading a rom-com, and keeping her sourdough starter, Rose, alive.
Katherine Ballesta-Rosen, Former Editorial Intern
Besides being an avid reader and writer since girlhood, Katherine decided to kick her literacy-laden background up a notch by receiving her Master’s in teaching, and went on to teach English Language Arts to high schoolers for several years. As a former intern at The Everymom, Katherine wrote about topics such as maternal wellness, sex and relationships, and more.