The Day of Food Is Upon Us. Here’s a list of Creative Ways to Utilize Those Thanksgiving Leftovers.
Thanksgiving can be a great time to catch up with old friends or family members while stuffing your face until you’re comatose, only to do it again a few hours later—but the real star of the show is the leftovers.
The days upon days of food that you not only don’t have to prepare but also HAVE to eat since there’s usually so much of it—and we don’t want anything to go to waste.
Since you’re likely busy with work leading up to Thanksgiving and socializing the day of, we decided to plan the Thanksgiving leftover strategy for you.
Here’s a quick list of ideas to utilize those Thanksgiving leftovers.
Do Plan on Making Stock
Listen. Winter is coming, and you will thank yourself for planning and saving all the bones and veggie scraps for enough stock to keep your soup game strong through Spring.
If you’re not cooking this year, don’t worry. Call your aunt or grandpa or whoever is cooking and politely ask if they’ll throw their scraps into a plastic bag for you (and let them know there’ll be something in it for them if they do).
Next, you want to freeze all the veggie skins and bones as you work through the leftovers to make one epic batch of turkey stock.
Don’t Throw Anything Out
That’s right. Either gift it or eat it! Or compost it—but please don’t throw anything in the trash.
Millions of recipes are online to help you use every leftover you can think of.
So if those mashed potatoes or that cranberry sauce just seems like it’s going to sit in your fridge until next Thanksgiving—find a way to use it!
Make a Thanksgiving-inspired shepherd’s pie that uses every leftover ingredient—make two and bring one to the next family meal!
Do Throw a Friendsgiving
Throw yourself a post-thanksgiving Friendsgiving event to share and use up those leftovers!
Usually, a more casual and, depending on your relationship with your family, pleasant event, Friendsgiving can allow you to get creative with those leftovers and have fun with it!
Have you always wanted to make leftover egg rolls? Or tacos? Or some other non-traditional creation? Friendsgiving is a great way to ensure those leftovers get used before they go bad and share your creativity with your chosen family.
Don’t Give Up
There will come a point where the thought of turkey, yams, pie, and stuffing… is just too much.
But remember, you signed on for this. These leftovers only come once a year—you have to power through, and I believe in you.
One of the best ways to get those leftovers used up, and if you need to freeze, is to make soup.
Do Utilize Every Meal
If you’re having issues with the last “don’t” — you need to kick it up a notch and utilize every meal.
We’re talking breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, supper, and fourth meal.
Snacks are a great way to passively eat something and be pleasantly surprised when it’s gone. Throw some cream cheese and cranberry sauce on a cracker and do it five times every hour.
Honestly, there’s no wrong way to do Thanksgiving leftovers (except throwing them away because food waste is a real dilemma, and as food service professionals, we all gotta play our part as anti-waste heroes.)
From all of us at Poached—we hope you have a great holiday and continue to enjoy the bounty days after!
