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10 Ingenious Ways to Use Up Your Leftover Turkey
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It’s been a few days, and that giant mound of turkey is still staring at you. You’ve whittled down the pile with the usual turkey soup and cold turkey salad, but those get old fast. Finishing turkey leftovers shouldn’t feel like a punishment. Instead of a cold turkey sandwich for the fifth time in a row, make a meal you can look forward to again. Try any of these ten ways to add some pizzazz to your leftover turkey.

Make turkey nuggets

Make turkey nuggets
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They’re snackable, dippable, and shareable. Turkey nuggets have all the fun of fast food along with the home-cooked flavor of Thanksgiving. You can go about making these in two ways: whole pieces or fast-food style. If you still have a lot of bird left, whole pieces might be for you. Simply cut bite-sized hunks of the cooked turkey, about one or two inch pieces, and dip them into an egg wash, followed by a tumble in flour or breadcrumbs. If you have a lot of broken turkey leftovers, you may want to try a recipe like this one, where the turkey is chopped in a food processor with some onion. Mayo, egg, and cheese serve as binders, so you can make small turkey patties. Batter these in the same way you would with the whole turkey pieces. Bake, pan fry, air fry, or deep fry the nuggets to a golden crisp.

Roll rice balls (arancini)

Roll rice balls (arancini)
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For a fun, assembly-line dinner activity with family, make turkey stuffed rice balls, or arancini. Commonly hiding a well of cheese inside, arancini can also be stuffed with meat. Cook and slightly cool a short-grain, sticky rice, like arborio. Stir in some cheese and an egg yolk, and let the rice cool completely. Meanwhile, prepare your meat filling: Chop up the leftover turkey and stir it with anything you like—maybe cheese and spices, or a bit of tomato sauce and herbs. Once your rice has cooled, flatten out a disc of it in your palm, heap a small spoonful of turkey filling, and close the edges up and around it. Roll each ball in beaten egg whites, then bread crumbs, followed by a quick fry in oil.

Fill an omelet

Fill an omelet
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Omelets are the blank canvas of the savory food world, utterly delicious with a simple sprinkle of salt, or over the top, piled high with crab meat. Turkey isn’t crab meat, but it does work wonders in an omelet. Prepare your omelet as usual and add as much shredded turkey to the center as you like. Add cheese, cooked veggies, and maybe a little of the stuffing you found in the back of the fridge.

Stuff some shells

Stuff some shells
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Few things aren’t improved by a cuddle in a pasta hammock. This recipe idea is flexible; you can use as much or as little turkey as you have, and modify the filling as needed. Spread a thick layer of marinara sauce in a casserole dish. In a large bowl, chop or shred the leftover turkey and mix it with as much ricotta cheese, parmesan, and spinach as you need to fill a casserole dish worth of large shells. Stir in one egg yolk to help bind it. Fill each shell with a heap of turkey filling, and line them up in the dish. Bake until bubbly.

Fill a pastry pocket

Fill a pastry pocket

With the help of our biggest “elegant made easy” supporter, boxed puff pastry, you can turn leftover turkey into a lovely pastry. Make a filling with leftover turkey and some cheese or cooked veggies. Thaw and unravel a roll of puff pastry and add six to eight mounds of turkey filling, leaving an inch of space between each mound. Use a pastry brush (or your fingers) to egg-wash lightly around each pile of filling. Unroll the second sheet of pastry and lay it over the top, gently massaging the pastry down to touch the egg wash between each dollop of turkey mixture. Cut the pastry into rectangles, freeing up each turkey pocket. Crimp the edges with a fork to seal them well. Bake on a parchment lined sheet tray according to the package directions.

Buffalo turkey pizza

Buffalo turkey pizza
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Fans of buffalo chicken pizza: attention please. You can use those turkey leftovers to turn any pizza into a mashup of your favorite bar food with a bowl of buffalo sauce. Cube or shred (if you didn’t notice, I prefer the latter), any and all of your leftover turkey. Toss it in a bowl with homemade buffalo sauce, or a bottled one you like. Shake off the excess and top a fresh, or frozen, pizza with the buffaloed turkey. Sprinkle with additional toppings like crumbled blue cheese, sliced red onion, additional shredded mozzarella, and drizzle on the rest of the excess buffalo sauce. If it’s a frozen pizza, heat it according to the package directions. For a fresh pizza, warm it in a 400°F oven for 7-10 minutes to get the sauce to settle in. Finish the pizza with a scatter of chopped scallions, and feast.

Make a quiche

Make a quiche
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Quiche is an excellent fridge-clean-out food. It’s the perfect snack for any time of the day, and if you happen to have leftover frozen pie shells lurking in the freezer, your meal is already 50% done. Fill an unbaked pie shell with cooked veggies, chopped turkey, shredded cheese—heck, even mashed potatoes can fit in here. Scramble eight to 10 eggs, and pour it over the top. Bake the quiche in a 325°F oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until just set in the center.

Fill tacos

Fill tacos
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Forget Tuesday, it’s always a good time for tacos. Leftover-turkey tacos are tasty, and come together in record time because your protein is already cooked. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t add some flavor to it with a quick toss in a pan, though. Add some oil and seasonings to shredded turkey and cook it briefly over medium heat. Add this filling to hard or soft taco shells with a quick pickled cabbage slaw, Oaxaca cheese, and all of your favorite toppings.

Whip up a stir fry

Whip up a stir fry
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Shredded turkey is wonderful in a stir fry since its extended surface area takes on all the delicious flavors of the sauce. Over high heat, cook the veggies first and aromatics briefly, followed by sauces. Use fish sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, or if you happen to have one of those clever jars of premixed sauce, dump that in. Add the shredded turkey and give it a quick stir. Add noodles and toss until combined, or spoon over rice.

Warm up with turkey chili

Warm up with turkey chili
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Not only does chili bring the soothing comforts of warmth and spice, but your whole home will be filled with its fantastic smell. Finish up the final pieces of both light and dark meat in a slow cooker chili. Chop or shred the meat and fill up the slow cooker with onions, peppers, crushed tomatoes, plenty of spices, and beans, if you like. Add a few cups of broth and set the cooker to high for four hours or low for six hours. The benefit of slowly heating the pre-cooked turkey is that the long period of gentle cooking will break down any remaining connective tissue and allow the meat to marinate in the flavors of the sauce.