Every year, the question is: What can I make with my Thanksgiving leftovers? Today, I’ve got the answers for what to do with leftover mashed potatoes, and mashed sweet potatoes! I’ve got some quick, easy, and delicious recipes for you!
Incredibly, research shows that the average American consumes 140 pounds of potatoes per year, 4 pounds of which are in chip form. That’s a lot of spuds! And I bet that if we started dipping more of those chips into my warm and creamy bacon cheddar dip, or *gulp* into melted chocolate, the numbers would climb even higher.
Incidentally, if you’ve never eaten chocolate dipped potato chips, don’t knock ’em until you’ve tried ’em. They’re a salty sweet snack that you’ll need an extra pair of stretchy pants for, but well worth every single calorie. At any rate, that’s a blog post for another day. Let’s attack the Thanksgiving leftovers!
So what can be done with the mountain of mashed potatoes that will likely be staring at you when you open the door of your fridge on the day after Thanksgiving? I don’t know how it is that everyone raves over my creamy mashed potatoes during holiday meals and then I still end up with a fridge full of leftover spuds.
I suppose it could be that I make enough of them to feed a naval squadron…
Fortunately, there are lots of ways to use leftover mashed potatoes Here are a few suggestions:
Tackling the Thanksgiving Leftovers
One of the easiest ways to use up the leftover sweet potatoes is by making a pan of sweet potato casserole, but I’m betting that you just ate a plate full of them on Thanksgiving. Keep this southern sweet potato casserole handy, though. It’s a great side dish any time of the year. With or without the marshmallows.
Cottage Pie, or it’s common name, Shepherd’s pie is a great meal to make with leftovers any time of the year. If you have a few extra green beans or some rotisserie chicken left over from a weeknight dinner? Maybe some plain hamburgers that need to be eaten?
Nobody says that you can’t switch out the meats and veggies and make a fun casserole from a traditional recipe. Heck, that’s how I cam up with my recipe for Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie!
Homemade soup is one of the most economical meals you can make, and with a a little bit of creativity, they can also be one of your most delicious recipes using Thanksgiving leftovers.
If you have a mixture of sweet potatoes and Idaho spuds left over, go ahead and use them both in this mashed potato soup recipe. The color will be a little bit different than you might expect, but the taste will be amazing!
Duchesse Potato Cakes (with carb free Alfredo sauce!)
I made this recipe on a complete whim one afternoon, and I can honestly say that it was one of my best recipe decisions ever. If you’ve ever had potato pancakes or even Duchesse potatoes, these are similar, but so much creamier!
Creamy mashed potatoes with a bit of egg yolk and roasted red pepper stirred in. Oh, and butter. Lots and lots of delicious butter. Then they’re baked up and drizzled with a silky, guilt-free Alfredo sauce. Seriously amazing.
Zucchini Bacon Potato Pancakes
This recipe starts with shredded raw potato and shredded zucchini, which are mixed with a few other ingredients and formed into patties. Don’t let that stop you. Substitute some cooked mashed potatoes for the raw and give this recipe a try. Maybe coat the patties with a bit of flour so they’ll crisp up in the pan.
Speaking of potato pancakes, Pin this next recipe to your favorite Thanksgiving recipes Pinterest board and make a batch of these for Christmas, because you won’t want to wait until next Thanksgiving to do it. Trust me on this.
Cranberry Brussels Sprouts Potato Pancakes
If you have any great ideas on how to use up the Thanksgiving leftovers, please share them with me in the comments. I love hearing from you!
How do we get your recipes ? These potato pancakes look and sound delicious and I like the looks of this sweet potato dish too, how did you make it look so pretty ? Sorry, found this on Twitter, but I do not see a recipe……I’d like to make this one too.
Can I subscribe to your blog this way ?
Thank you,
Hi there! Thanks for coming over from Twitter 🙂
There are links to all of the recipes in the text of this blog post, but for your convenience, here they all are. Just click on the name of the dish you want the recipe for. 🙂
Southern Sweet Potato Casserole
Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie
Loaded Mashed Potato Soup
Duchesse Potato Cakes
Zucchini Bacon Potato Pancakes
To make the top of the sweet potato shepherd’s pie look that way, I just ran a fork through the top of the sweet potatoes.
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Thank you!
Looks delicious! I don’t know that we’ll have any mashed potatoes left, but if we do, one of these is gonna have to happen! <3
My husband is a mashed potato fiend, so we almost never have leftovers. But if we ever do, I”m heading straight back to this post – love some of these ideas. The zucchini Bacon potato pancakes are currently my faves, but who knows which one I’ll pick when I have a tub of extra potatoes in hand?
This post is just right for me because I don’t like mashed potatoes (I KNOW!) and as a result there are always leftovers. It’s not that I’m opposed to potatoes, so repurposing them in these recipes – especially the little potato cakes – sound ideal for me!
When we were still going to my grandmother’s (approx 30 of us, kids, cousins, aunts, uncles and anyone else that wanted to spend the day with us) I always got the turkey carcass and the left over potatoes to take home. I always used the turkey carcass to make the best turkey rice soup and the cold potatoes were always made into potato salad. I miss those days, My son now makes the deep fried turkey with an assorted number of flavors that don’t deal with making soup and there is seldom mashed potatoes made for the meal.
I’m sorry to hear that your leftover tradition has ended, but remember those times fondly! I love using as much of the bird as possible!