Twenty-Five Tasty Recipes Using Leftover Turkey (or chicken) and Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

If you happen to end up with some, here are 25 Tasty Recipes Using Leftover Turkey (or chicken!)

(Updated with more new ideas for turkey leftovers November 2013.)  I love to write round-up posts spotlighting my favorite recipes, but the problem with food blogging is that every year you try more recipes that end up being favorites.  That's why I'm updating my previous post of 25 Tasty Ideas for Leftover Turkey with a few new ideas from 2013.  After I finish this, I'm finalizing my grocery list, going shopping, and then I'm going to take the rest of this week off and spend some time with my family.  (Here are all the Thanksgiving Recipes in case you still need them!)

This year, and every year  I love the idea of a holiday dedicated to feeling gratitude, something I try to focus on every day.  And without turning this into a long list of all the things I'm thankful for, let me acknowledge how much I feel blessed to have a life filled with family, friends, interesting work, and all the cooking tools any food obsessed person could ever want, not to mention an amazing new kitchen where I have fun using them!  And on Thanksgiving and every other day I also give thanks for the people who read this blog and leave nice comments or send e-mails that enrich my life. 

Now here's my updated list of 25 Tasty Recipes Using Leftover Turkey (or chicken),  And for all my U.S. readers, I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration that's filled with love and good food.

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Recipe for Slow Cooker Lemony Turkey (or chicken) Soup with Spinach and Orzo

If you have leftover turkey this year, make this Slow Cooker Lemony Turkey Soup with Spinach and Orzo!  You can always make the soup with chicken if you don't have any turkey.

I realize plenty of people haven't even started looking for Thanksgiving Recipes (and here are my Top Ten Favorite Thanksgiving Recipes if you need ideas.)   But in the crazy world of food blogging, if I want people to find my ideas for leftover turkey, I need to post them well before Thanksgiving so search engines will index them and they'll get shared on Pinterest.  And truthfully, this Slow Cooker Lemony Turkey Soup with Spinach and Orzo was so delicious I couldn't wait to share it.  I gave some of the soup to my sister Pam, and everyone at her house pronounced it to be a keeper; in fact Pam asked when the recipe would be on the blog.  Of course, if you're not going to be having any leftover turkey, you can certainly make this with chicken instead.

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Recipe for Easy Brussels Sprouts Gratin with Swiss and Parmesan

This Easy Brussels Sprouts Gratin with Swiss and Parmesan is a bit of a splurge, but it's perfect for Thanksgiving!

For weeks now I've been sharing Thanksgiving Recipes to give my readers plenty of healthy Thanksgiving options.  I like getting started early, but now I've already posted my Top Ten Thanksgiving Recipes and yet there's no doubt this Easy Brussels Sprouts Gratin with Swiss and Parmesan would have made it on to that list if I'd tested the recipe sooner.  But even so, it's the weekend before Thanksgiving, and this recipe is just too amazing to save for another year.  These delicious brussels sprouts are the siblings of several other easy vegetable gratin recipes I've made through the years, and any of those recipes can be assembled earlier in the day and then put in the oven to finish cooking while you carve the turkey and make the gravy. And I tested this out on my gorgeous niece Alyson who stopped by to pick up some soup, and she gave it an enthusiastic two thumbs up!

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Recipe for Rich Salad with Hearts of Palm, Avocado, and Radicchio from The Silver Spoon

Maybe because of the pricey ingredients, this vegan salad with hearts of palm is called Rich Salad!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites, and all during November I've been spotlighting vegetables and salads that I'd love for Thanksgiving.  Now it has been brought to my attention that not everyone wants salad for Thanksgiving (you know who you are) but personally I'd love a salad like this to balance out the other higher-carb foods.  Check out the my Top Ten Thanksgiving Recipes or all the other Thanksgiving Recipes if you're still working on your menu!)

I love hearts of palm, a tasty and low-glycemic delicacy that I learned to like years ago when I worked at Le Parisien, a French Restaurant in Salt Lake that's no longer in business.  For years I would rarely buy them at grocery store prices, but that changed when Costco started selling them in two-packs of 25 oz. jars at a price that was a lot more affordable.  Now they're something I always have in my pantry.  Still this salad using them includes avocado, radicchio, butter lettuce, and pine nuts, all things that aren't really everyday ingredients which may be why it's called Rich Salad!  But when you need something for a special dinner party, this is a delicious salad that's sure to impress, and if you can get those two-packs of hearts of palm from Costco, you can have it a little more often.

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Kalyn's Top Ten Favorite Thanksgiving Recipes (and ten honorable mentions!)

My ten favorite Thanksgiving recipes, plus ten honorable mentions!

(Updated 2013)  Thanksgiving is almost here, and it's time to narrow down your menu!  I love Thanksgiving, both the idea of giving thanks for our lives of abundance and also the wonderful food that's enjoyed on that day.   For the last nine Novembers now I've been testing recipes that might be good for Thanksgiving and adding them to my list of Thanksgiving Recipes if they make the cut!  My standards are pretty high about what shows up on the blog, so when I try to make a list of all-time favorites for Thanksgiving it's not easy to narrow it down to just the top ten favorites you see here.  In the end I couldn't pick just ten, so I had to include ten "honorable mentions" which are also great recipes.

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Thanksgiving Green Bean Salad Recipe with Blue Cheese, Dried Cranberries, and Pecans

Thanksgiving Green Bean Salad has Blue Cheese, Cranberries, and Pecans, and it can be made ahead!

There's a lot to love about this Thanksgiving Green Bean Salad.  Not only is it Thanksgiving-dinner-worthy in the flavor department, but you can cook the beans and marinate them in the dressing, and toast the pecans, crumble the blue cheese and measure the cranberries all in advance, so when it's turkey dinner time all you need to do is toss the salad together.  The salad is great at room temperature too, so you don't even need much fridge space.  I'm calling it Thanksgiving Green Bean Salad because there are a few ingredients here (like dried cranberries and blue cheese) that are a bit of a splurge if you're trying to lose weight, but I'd definitely indulge in this salad on Thanksgiving.  

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Ten Favorite Deliciously Healthy Sweet Potato Recipes that are Perfect for Thanksgiving

Ten of my favorite healthy sweet potato recipes, just in time for Thanksgiving!

Healthy sweet potato recipes for Thanksgiving!  Just say NO to brown sugar and mini-marshmallows.

For many, many years I was one of those people who would wrinkle their nose up at the mere mention of sweet potatoes (or yams as they are often mistakenly called.)  I didn't think I'd ever like them, but then I tried Spicy Sweet Potato Fries and had a sweet potato epiphany.  I realized that what I didn't like was those overly-sweet dishes with sweet potatoes, brown sugar, and mini-marshallows,  the ones that so many people serve for Thanksgiving.  Since then I've experimented with different ways to prepare sweet potatoes sans marshmallows.  A few years ago I picked six favorite sweet potato recipes, and now I'm updating this post with four more.  That's a total of Ten Favorite Deliciously Healthy Sweet Potato Recipes to recommend for your Thanksgiving table.  Even if you're one of the people who like those marshmallow-topped holiday sweet potato dishes, I bet some of my favorite recipes for sweet potatoes for might be things you'd like to add to your sweet potato options.

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