Your Thanksgiving Leftover Roundup

Greatest hits, plus new recipes, too

Several years ago, I published a piece in The New York Times Magazine called “A Radical Rethinking of Thanksgiving Leftovers.” It’s a list of mini recipes (somewhere between ideas and full-on instructions) for what to do with the four Thanksgiving leftovers that many of us are most likely to have lying around come Friday: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. It remains my favorite collection of Thanksgiving leftover recipes that I’ve done and, rather than re-jigger the whole thing, I’ve turned it into the equivalent of an album with bonus tracks. Version 2.0 (below) includes all of the original recipe ideas, many of which have been updated to weave in different ingredients and flavor profiles, along with a handful of recipes that were (due to space restrictions) left on the cutting room floor. 

Of course, your leftovers may not match these exactly, but there’s enough variety here for you to find at least a few things that will work for what you’ve got on hand. At the very least, consider these “recipes” as a way to stimulate your imagination past the point of the requisite next-day sandwiches.