Maybe it’s crazy, but I love leftovers. I deliberately make too much food just so that I can have leftovers to transform into something else later in the week. Thanksgiving is no exception. In fact, it’s safe to say that I plan my Thanksgiving leftovers almost as thoroughly as I plan the Big Meal itself.

I’m not talking turkey — there are eleventy-billion ways to use up the rest of the bird, so I will simply direct you to my earlier post on things to do with a leftover roast chicken and tell you to use your imagination.

No, it’s the rest of the traditional Thanksgiving meal that poses a real challenge to frugal and busy people like us. The stuffing. The green beans. The mashed potatoes. The rolls.

1.) Mashed potatoes: Make Paula Deen’s mashed potato pancakes or bake up some warm potato bread.

2.) Green beans: If they’re mushroom-soup-free, saute them with tomatoes and basil; if they’re coated with sauce and fried onions, slice them into thinner strips and add them to a cream-based pasta sauce or brown some crumbled sausage and create a new casserole. (Vegetarian? Skip the bacon, and use them to make a rich frittata.)

3.) Sweet potatoes: Are they wearing a blanket of melted marshmallows? Make a holiday sweet potato cake or whip them with condensed milk and bake them into a custardy pie. Did you mash them and serve them unadorned? Use them to thicken a hearty beef stew, or whip up a delicious sweet potato bisque.

4.) Cranberry Sauce: Whether you made your own or opened up a couple of cans, you can definitely make something else out of these ruby berries. The classic: Spread some on bread and build a Thanksgiving sandwich (my youngest brother once cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of the summer just so he could make this turkey-cranberry sauce-and-stuffing sandwich. ). Drop it by teaspoon-fulls into your favorite coffee cake batter, make a batch of morning-after muffins, and then invite me over for brunch.

5.) Stuffing: Use it to stuff something else, like a roulade, or update a shepherd’s pie with leftover turkey meat in a bechamel sauce and a sturdy stuffing crust.

What’s your favorite thing to do with Thanksgiving leftovers?

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