I’ve a carcass in my frig and I’m not too sure what I should do with the meat.
All suggestions complete with recipes are welcome.
Sandwiches of course. Complete with a dollop of leftover gravy, some stuffing. Good stuff.
I’m actually going to try some turkey soup for the first time ever in a few days. Saved the carcass. We shall see how that works out.
Keeping an eye out for more creative ideas.
Sammiches!
As **The Tof **states, leftover stuffing MUST be added, as well as a thin slice of jellied cranberry sauce (for those inclined to do so). Gravy, not so much (esp. after a night in the fridge {ew, a *slice *of gravy?})
I had my SIL’s “Turkey a la Sahara”, yesterday, and will fry up my “backup-in-case-my-SIL’s-turkey-sucked” 13.5 pounder this afternoon.
Take the meat and put it in a glass baking dish, slather it up with your favorite BBQ sauce and bake it until it gets bubbly. This also works really well with leftover ham. Then make sandwiches with leftover rolls.
I put the stipped-down and dismembered carcass outside for the wild animals. Should be all gone in a day or so, bones and all.
You can make a turkey pot pie.
As others said, soup and sandwiches. Also, turkey curry and turkey ala king are good. I usually make some turkey stock and freeze it for the next time around. It’s great for seasoning both the stuffing and the gravy.
Combine turkey and stuffing with a can of cream-of-something soup and heat in oven.
Wow, you have generational food for Thanksgiving? That’s kind of cool. I like that idea, some sort of culinary continuity.
Once you strip off the meat and make stock with the bones, turkey soup is the bestest. What kind of stuffing did you have? Mom usually makes wild rice and mushroom stuffing, which is fabulous in soup.
Nothing more creative than delicious turkey sandwiches (white bread, mayo, salt, pepper, breast meat and lettuce) and delicious, delicious turkey soup. I think I like my home made turkey soup even better than my home made chicken soup!
And thanks to the Dope, I simmer my stock instead of boiling the heck out of it, and my stock is clearer and just as tasty.
The unasked question–what do you do with the leftover little green balls of death? 
(Brussels sprouts.)
My traditional Friday-after-Thanksgiving meal is Turkey Tetrazzini.
My recipe for turkey spaghetti. Leftovers was the theme of the MMP this week!
I gobble, gobble it down.
Soup! Soup for you!! If there are any big hunks of meat left on the bird, put them in a baggie for sandwiches. Then put that carcass (small bones and all) in a big pot with some celery and onion and simmer it for a couple hours. Strain it.
My favorite combo for turkey soup is noodles, a can of tomatoes, carrots, and turnips, and some chunks of whatever turkey is left after you’ve made sandwiches. I once deterred a man from suicide with a bowl of this soup.
Sandwiches mostly. Then we say we’re going to make soup (let the carcass boil in the crockpot until everything falls off style) but never do.
This is what I like to do. I have a large cast iron skillet that I’ll start with some chopped onion, carrot, and celery, and I’ll saute those for a few minutes. I’ll throw in any leftover veggies (I made green beans with caramelized shallots), then a few cups of chopped turkey, then enough leftover gravy to cover everything. I’ll top it with biscuit dough, and then throw it into the oven to cook until the biscuit top is golden, and the gravy is bubbling through.
I gave this one last year, and nobody mentioned whether they liked it:
Turkey Popover Pie.
1 cup diced cooked turkey
1 tab. grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup milk
1 package (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach cooked, lightly
drained
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1 medium tomato, chopped
Preheat oven to 375 deg. F. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese into a buttered 10-inch quiche dish or pie plate. Combine eggs, flour and milk. Beat until smooth. Pour into quiche dish. Combine turkey, spinach, cream cheese, pecans, salt and nutmeg. Carefully spoon over egg mixture leaving 1-inch border around edge. Sprinkle Cheddar cheese and tomato over spinach mixture. Bake in oven 50 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve.
One hint: when you break up the carcass to make stock, make sure you get all the stuffing out of the bird, if you had stuffed it. I break the thing up pretty thoroughly and I actually rinse the interior bits under cold running water.
People often complain that the soup they make from a turkey carcass “tastes funny” and if it does, it’s because of the bits of stuffing.
Put your carcass (I even save the large already-eaten-from bones like the wing and drumstick bones, I rinse them off and they will be in boiling water for awhile, of course, but some people are creeped out by it just the same) in a pot, cover with cold water. Chuck in a couple of chopped onions, a couple of carrots chopped up, likewise celery. Add a bay leaf, a good biggish pinch of leaf thyme and of leaf rosemary, a dozen or so black peppercorns, a couple of cloves, a half teaspoon of red pepper flakes. If you have a lemon around, drop a half a lemon, skin and all, into the pot. Any skin, globs of turkey fat, the drippings if you didn’t make gravy, all of that can go in the pot. Not gravy, though. Don’t salt it, and don’t put any garlic in, garlic will sour the stock.
Bring it to the boil, cover, reduce heat to a simmer, and simmer for no more than 2 hours. Strain it and discard the veg and bones, etc. Chill overnight, skim the fat off and discard. You may, if you wish, also carefully pour the stock into another pot and leave behind the glop that has settled to the bottom.
Now you can make your soup, adding noodles and/or rice and/or vegetables and at the end, just before serving, add the chopped up leftover turkey. This stock might need a boost from the addition of a Knorr Swiss chicken cube or two. Taste for salt, chuck in a bit of freshly chopped parsley, and enjoy.
Specifically, you should make this pot pie. Use whatever veggies you like, but make the gravy and the herb crust from this recipe. Trust me. It is to die for. I’ll be making it later today, just like I do every year!
I might even like it a teeny bit better than the actual Thanksgiving dinner. It’s pretty close.