Rachael Ray’s 5 tips for turning Thanksgiving leftovers into delicious family meals

Rachael Ray shared her go-to recipes to transform Thanksgiving leftovers into delicious meals, including pasta ragu and a savory stuffing waffle.

You don’t need to let a fridge full of Thanksgiving leftovers go to waste.

B-17 spoke to celebrity chef Rachael Ray at last year’s Burger Bash, an event during the New York City Wine & Food Festival, about her go-to recipes for transforming Thanksgiving leftovers like turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce into delicious meals.

Ray built an empire after her “30 Minute Meals” classes were noticed by a local news station at a food market. She secured her own Food Network contract with multiple shows, bestselling cookbooks, and a successful magazine, and she also has a home-goods brand under her belt. Her recipes include quick weeknight dinners, comfort foods, budget-friendly meals, and ways to get creative with leftovers.

Here are five easy ways to transform your Thanksgiving leftovers, according to Rachael Ray.

Curries and chilis are an excellent way to utilize leftover turkey.

Turkey curry in a bowl with white rice.

Turkey curry and chili are two great options for day-after-Thanksgiving recipes because of how easy they are to prepare.

“Curries, chilis … those are your basics,” Ray told B-17.

Ray’s recipe for turkey corn chili takes only 25 minutes to prepare and uses simple ingredients like cooked turkey meat, chopped onion, chopped bell pepper, crushed tomatoes, chicken stock or broth, and frozen corn.

Ray said “any kind of ragu” is a useful way to use up leftovers.

Ragu pasta with cheese.

Who doesn’t love the smell of a pot of ragù simmering on the stove during the colder months?

Ray’s recipe for turkey porcini ragù uses dried, sliced porcini mushrooms, a pound of leftover Thanksgiving turkey, turkey or chicken stock, red wine, onion, garlic, crushed tomatoes, and more.

She recommends making a matzo-ball-style soup out of leftover stuffing, cooked meats, and vegetables.

Balls of stuffing in broth.

For this recipe, Ray recommends rolling leftover stuffing into a ball and dropping it into broth like a matzo ball.

Add “leftover vegetables, any sort of meat, turkey, chicken, or ham, and you have the equivalent of a matzo-ball soup,” Ray said.

Ray also suggests making a burrito with your leftover turkey.

A turkey wrap with cheese, lettuce, and tomato.

One of the simplest ways to reuse leftover Thanksgiving turkey is to make a sandwich, wrap, or even a burrito, which Ray said is one of her favorite methods.

You can add other Thanksgiving fixings like turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and gravy to your tortilla, or you can go a more standard route with fillings like shredded cheese, turkey, lettuce, and tomato.

You can also make a waffle out of leftover stuffing.

A waffle made out of leftover stuffing and topped with cranberry sauce.

One of the most unique ways to use leftover stuffing is to make her recipe for savory stuffing waffles.

“You can put your leftover stuffing in your waffle iron, and then just put the turkey or the pheasant on top of the crispy stuffing once you take it out of the waffle iron,” Ray said.

“[Top it] with a little bit of fruity maple syrup, like cranberry sauce and maple syrup, or some sort of warm honey drizzled over the top.”