Great Ways to Use All of That Leftover Holiday Food
So I don’t know about you, but we love, love holiday leftovers in our house. In fact, we’ve been known to cook another holiday meal after Thanksgiving and Christmas so we can have plenty of yummy leftovers throughout December and January. And there are so many scrumptious ways to use leftovers in a variety of delicious dishes, it would be a shame not to have any available.
I’ll tell you right now that we already have another ham waiting for us in the garage freezer to cook up for “Christmas leftovers.” (We had a second turkey too.) The first thing I want is my husband’s favorite Hambone Soup. Yum! But who says you can’t also use leftover mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, broccoli, green beans, and even the cranberry sauce!
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You’re going to want to join us in this delicious after the holidays tradition after hearing some of these amazing recipes. The trick is not to give yourself more work after the stress of the holidays, but to use what you already have to make even more delicious meals for your family now that the festivities are over. Let me show you some of my favorites!
Crispy Leftover Turkey Alfredo Pizza
This delicious recipe is so incredibly easy to pull together, even when making the homemade whole wheat pizza crust and Alfredo sauce yourself. It’s a nice blend of flavors, and makes great use of all of your leftover turkey! And I am up for pizza any night of the week that my family will let me make it.
Delicious Leftover Turkey Enchiladas
Besides the pizza, this is probably one of my favorite go-to recipes for using leftover turkey because of the ease in just tossing some yummy ingredients together and rolling them up in tortillas. How could you go wrong? And in this recipe, I show you how to make your own cream of chicken soup and homemade whole wheat tortillas.
The Best Ever Leftover Turkey Pot Pie
This amazing recipe takes a bit more work on your part, and a little bit of time, but it’s totally worth it. In it, I show you how to make my yummy coconut oil oil pie crusts that you’re going to love. They are so easy! And then you just mix in the rest of the ingredients and pour it right in.
Leftover Holiday Ham Fried Rice
Honestly, every time we’ve made this recipe, it’s come out different. Not only does it use the yummy ham we have leftover from our holiday dinner, but it uses up any spare veggies we may have had that needed to be used in the refrigerator as well. We have never, not once, ever had a bad fried rice dinner.
Leftover Holiday Ham “Pulled Pork” Sandwiches
This is one of those dishes that’s great for making anytime, but especially when you have company over. Having family over after the holidays? Having a New Year’s party? Toss together some pulled pork sandwiches for everyone, along with some homemade coleslaw, included in this recipe for you, and they’ll be impressed.
Leftover “Holiday Ham”bone Soup
We have made this recipe on a number of occasions. I think it has to be the favorite recipe of the house right now. We made a delicious ham last year for Christmas, and bagged up all of the ham and broth from it, only to make at least 6 more dinners with it, most of them being this hambone soup. We just ran out tonight in fact and have another ham waiting in the freezer for that purpose.
Leftover Mashed Potato/Sweet Potato Pancakes
Yum! I have made these pancakes for a number of purposes with our meals. Yes, they have been breakfast pancakes with syrup, but they’ve also become dinner pancakes with ketchup, dessert pancakes with ice cream and whipped cream, and dinner with extra cheese, bacon and chives. They really are that good, especially as they are just made from your leftovers!
Leftover Twice Baked Mashed Potatoes
I didn’t officially have this one published yet, so you get it in full in this article. I make twice baked potatoes to store in our freezer quite often so you can have a delicious snack just about any time you want. But this dish is twice baked mashed potatoes. No skins, just the yummy goodness inside!
Ingredients
- 4 large baking potatoes
- 8 slices bacon, will set some aside for garnish
- 1 cup sour cream, with more for garnish
- 1/2 cup milk
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, with more for garnish
- 4 bunches green onions, with more for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a rectangular casserole dish generously with cooking spray.
- Wash your potatoes well with water and scrub the outsides to get rid of any debris.
- Poke tons of holes all over each of the potatoes
- Place them in the casserole dish and bake them for 1 hour.
- In the meantime, cook your bacon in a large skillet until crispy.
- When done, remove and place on a paper towel to soak up any extra grease.
- When cool, crumble it all up, separate it in half into two smaller bowls and set aside for later.
- Chop your green onions and separate them into two bowls, one for mixing and one for garnishing. Set aside for later.
- When your potatoes are done, let them cool thoroughly.
- When cool, cut them in half lengthwise. Scrape out the insides of each into a large mixing bowl. Be careful not to destroy your potato skins, as you will be using them again for refilling.
- In your large mixing bowl, crush up all of your potatoes.
- Then add your 1 cup of sour cream, the 1/2 cup of milk, 4 tablespoons of butter, salt and pepper. Mix well until relatively smooth. (You will probably want to use a hand mixer.)
- Add half of your bacon crumbles, your 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese, and your green onions chopped for mixing. Fold in your ingredients gently to mix all ingredients well.
- Lay out all 8 of your potato skin halves in your rectangular casserole dish.
- Spoon the potato mixture you’ve created evenly into all 8 of your potato skin halves. The mixture will probably overfill all of your skins. That’s wonderful!
- Bake your refilled potatoes in your preheated oven for about 15 minutes.
- When done, let your potatoes cool slightly before serving.
- Top with your extra sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, bacon crumbles and green onions for topping. Yummy! Yummy!
Leftover Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes
And here’s another great one I don’t have published yet. Of course, we have our twice baked sweet potatoes, both savory and sweet, that we make and also store in the freezer for a rainy day.But once again, this is a casserole including all of the yummy sweetness of the popular casserole, but with cheese and bacon mixed in. I know it sounds strange, but you’re going to love the taste!
Ingredients
- 4 large baking potatoes
- 8 slices bacon, will set some aside for garnish
- 1 cup sour cream, with more for garnish
- 1/2 cup milk
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, with more for garnish
- 4 bunches green onions, with more for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a rectangular casserole dish generously with cooking spray.
- Wash your potatoes well with water and scrub the outsides to get rid of any debris.
- Poke tons of holes all over each of the potatoes
- Place them in the casserole dish and bake them for 1 hour.
- In the meantime, cook your bacon in a large skillet until crispy.
- When done, remove and place on a paper towel to soak up any extra grease.
- When cool, crumble it all up, separate it in half into two smaller bowls and set aside for later.
- Chop your green onions and separate them into two bowls, one for mixing and one for garnishing. Set aside for later.
- When your potatoes are done, let them cool thoroughly.
- When cool, cut them in half lengthwise. Scrape out the insides of each into a large mixing bowl. Be careful not to destroy your potato skins, as you will be using them again for refilling.
- In your large mixing bowl, crush up all of your potatoes.
- Then add your 1 cup of sour cream, the 1/2 cup of milk, 4 tablespoons of butter, salt and pepper. Mix well until relatively smooth. (You will probably want to use a hand mixer.)
- Add half of your bacon crumbles, your 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese, and your green onions chopped for mixing. Fold in your ingredients gently to mix all ingredients well.
- Lay out all 8 of your potato skin halves in your rectangular casserole dish.
- Spoon the potato mixture you’ve created evenly into all 8 of your potato skin halves. The mixture will probably overfill all of your skins. That’s wonderful!
- Bake your refilled potatoes in your preheated oven for about 15 minutes.
- When done, let your potatoes cool slightly before serving.
- Top with your extra sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, bacon crumbles and green onions for topping. Yummy! Yummy!
Leftover Dressing and Cranberry Cookies
What! Dressing in the cookies? Gross, right? Well, you’d think so, but just like some of the other interesting flavor combinations in this, these cookies are actually delicious. For Thanksgiving, I make a sweet cornbread dressing to go with our meal. And just as I would eat cranberry sauce on my turkey, and every other side dish on my plate, that’s all we’re doing here. Think of it as a dash of cranberry sauce on your bite of dressing, only in a cookie!
Scrumptious Leftover Cranberry Bread
This is a pretty popular recipe, not being used as a leftover dish. It’s great for taking to parties, making to go alongside your Thanksgiving or Christmas meal, or anytime, as long as you can find the cranberries. However, in this house, we wait specifically for the holidays to be over to make this sweet treat. You should give it a shot!
Sweet Leftover Cranberry Barbecue Sauce
Why should bread and cookies have all of the cranberry fun! We love our cranberry sauce and thought we could squeeze a little more sauce usage out of it with just the right recipe. It just so happened that making this a barbecue sauce was just the perfect compliment to the natural sweetness of the cranberries. I know you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Leftover Holiday Pie Milkshakes
Finally, what kind of leftover article would this be if I didn’t somehow include the holiday pie?! I’m not sure many people have considered using the apple pie, pumpkin pie, or even pecan pie sitting in their fridge in quite this way, but boy is it amazing! In fact, I had a one with a slice of our leftover pecan pie this evening. Yum!
While it may be hard to fathom eating the exact same food over and over again for another month just to get rid of your leftovers, and not waste any food (please don’t throw anything out yet!), making it all into more amazing recipes will make you wish you had more. That’s why we usually make another yummy meal! We never get enough with just one time around.
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I personally couldn’t fathom having to do without some of our traditional leftover recipes after the holidays each year. This is food I look forward to all year long, and it would likely look funny if I tried to make this meal in the middle of July. So we try to extend the holiday yumminess for as long as possible.
Now you’ve gotten some great uses for all of those leftover dishes too. I just know that you’ll want to create this tradition in your household, like our family, once you try some of these creations. Don’t have any more turkey or ham? Need more stuffing or cranberry sauce? Make some more! The grocery stores likely want to get rid of their holiday ingredients for some great prices, and I’m sure no one will fault you. With my help you’ll have plenty for the next couple weeks at least! You’re welcome!
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