What to Make with Thanksgiving Leftovers & Recipes from Last Week

My two go-to recipes for the day after Thanksgiving, roasted tomato soup, Michelin star grilled cheese, steak chimichurri sandwich, avocado cucumber wonton crisps

Hi everyone,

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Doug and I spent the holiday with his family in the Washington D.C. area, and it was such a nice day. His mom Andrea and I teamed up in the kitchen and everything turned out fantastic.

With the fam in DC

Our yummy meal!

I’m actually on my way to San Francisco to meet my mom, because tomorrow we’re flying to Japan for a week with my aunt and cousin. We’ve really been looking forward to this trip. But since today is the day after Thanksgiving and you probably have a fridge full of leftovers, I wanted to share two of my favorite ways to use them. One of these recipes has been in my family for generations (my mom’s parents used to make it), and the other is something my mom and I came up with a few years ago. We love it so much we make it all year round. I also included a sneak peek of an illustrated guide from my cookbook, which I’m so excited to share with you.

First, here’s a steak chimichurri sandwich with pickled onions and garlic aioli. I’ve been testing The Four Slice™️ Precision Toaster by Lotus for the past few months and I’m genuinely obsessed. It’s new to the market, with extra-wide slots that fit all different types of bread plus a frozen setting, which I use all the time since I often toast straight from the freezer. It’s a fantastic toaster, and I partnered with Lotus to bring you this sandwich. I’m linking the toaster here in case you want to check it out!

What I Cooked Last Week! ↓

Steak Chimichurri Sandwich

Everyone who tries this chimichurri asks for the recipe. Here, it’s served in a steak ciabatta sandwich with pickled onion and garlic aioli.

Steak Chimichurri Sandwich

81.4KB ∙ PDF file

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You can download the PDF recipe above and watch the video here :)

Two Delicious Recipes You Can Make with Thanksgiving Leftovers

The first recipe is jook, also known as congee, a savory rice porridge. We always save the turkey carcass so we can make a big pot of it.

We start by removing any large pieces of meat, then toss the carcass into a pot and cover it with water. It simmers for several hours until the liquid turns into the most flavorful broth. When it’s ready, we strain everything through a sieve to remove the bones, then we pick through them to find any smaller bits of meat to add back into the broth.

I always picture my grandmother standing at the sink, patiently picking meat from the bones, snacking on a piece here and there. Even my high school friends remember her doing this. Whenever I spend Thanksgiving at my parents’ house, my friends often come over the next day to help us eat leftovers, and we’ll hang out around the kitchen island while my grandma is at the sink, working through the turkey bones. My dad calls my high school friends “the locust” because we eat so much as a group (lol!).

In the kitchen with grandma ❤️

Once all the meat is back in the pot, we add some jasmine rice and cook it directly in the broth until it thickens into a porridge. Ours isn’t super thick, but it still has a nice body. We serve it in bowls with lots of chopped scallions for a fresh finish and a drizzle of high-quality toasted sesame oil for richness. I recommend choosing an Asian brand of sesame oil for the best flavor and making sure it’s toasted for that nutty depth. The jook reheats well and feeds us for days. It’s one of the coziest, most comforting meals, and something I’ve loved since I was a little girl.

Here’s our family recipe:

Grandma’s Jook

Ingredients:

• Leftover turkey bones (body, legs, wings, etc… with some meat on the bones)

• 24 cups (1.5 gallons) water

• 1½ cups jasmine rice

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

• Sliced scallions, for garnish

• Toasted sesame oil, for drizzling

Instructions:

1. Remove any large pieces of meat from the turkey bones (some meat on the bones is good, and skin is okay too) and make sure to remove any plastic leg holders attached to the turkey.

2. Place the bones in a large pot with the water (it’s okay if some of the bones stick out). Bring to a boil over high heat, then cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the meat is falling off the bones and the turkey frame is falling apart, 2 to 3 hours.

3. Remove the pot from the heat and strain the broth in a fine-mesh strainer set over a large bowl. Return the strained broth to the pot and place the meat and bones in the bowl to cool. (You can also remove the meat and bones with a mesh strainer spoon, but you may not be able to remove all the little pieces of bone, which is why I recommend straining the broth.)

4. Once cool enough to handle, separate the turkey meat from the bones and skin. Carefully shred the meat into small pieces with your fingers to ensure you’re getting rid of all bones. Add the turkey meat back into the broth and discard the bones and skin.

5. Bring the broth to a boil over high heat, then add the rice. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the soup has thickened into a porridge-like consistency, 30 to 45 minutes. (It will continue to thicken as it sits.)

6. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve in bowls. Generously top with the scallions and drizzle with some sesame oil. Enjoy!

Prep time: 20 minutes | Total time: ~3 hours 20 minutes

Serves 10 to 12

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The second recipe is a more recent one. My mom and I created it when I first started blogging and I’d pitched a concept to Buzzfeed about fun ways to use Thanksgiving leftovers. They didn’t pick it up in the end, but it pushed us to test a bunch of new ideas. That’s how we came up with “pierogistickers” (our name for them), and we’ve been making them ever since, even when it’s not Thanksgiving. They’re a perfect mix of my Asian and Eastern European heritage. The filling is just like a potato pierogi and uses leftover mashed potatoes, and the wrappers are potsticker skins. You cook them exactly like potstickers, steaming them with a splash of water and oil until the bottoms get crisp. They’re insanely delicious and always a hit.

Pierogistickers

Ingredients:

• 2 cups mashed potatoes

• ¼ cup sour cream, plus more for serving

• 2 tablespoons sliced fresh chives

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

• ½ package potsticker skins

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• ½ cup water

Instructions:

1. To a medium bowl, add the mashed potatoes, sour cream, and chives, stirring and mashing to combine. Taste and season with more salt and pepper, if needed.

2. Fill a small bowl with water. Working with one at a time, take a potsticker skin and place a heaping teaspoon of the potato mixture in the middle of the skin. Using your fingertip, moisten the perimeter of the skin with water (this will act as an adhesive). Starting at the top, fold the potsticker skin in half, and then pleat the sides shut. (See my illustrated guide below!) Repeat with the remaining ingredients.

3. Drizzle the olive oil to coat the bottom of a large nonstick skillet that has a lid. Place the pierogistickers in the skillet and drizzle in the water (this will steam the dumplings). Cover the skillet and cook over medium heat until all the water has evaporated and the bottoms of the pierogistickers are golden brown, about 7 minutes.

4. Uncover the skillet, flip the pierogistickers, and cook, uncovered, until crispy and golden brown on the other side, 3 to 5 minutes more.

5. Serve with some sour cream and enjoy!

Prep time: 20 minutes | Total time: 45 minutes

Serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer

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To help with folding these pierogistickers, I’m sharing a hand-drawn guide from my cookbook that teaches you how to fold a potsticker. You’ll find several of these step-by-step guides throughout the book to help you with trickier techniques, along with other beautiful illustrations by the very talented Liz Hart.

The potsticker guide from my cookbook! I’m obsessed with all the illustrations in the book 😊

Before I sign off, I want to say how thankful I am for all of you. I feel so lucky to do this work full time (it really is a dream come true) and I wouldn’t be able to without your support. Thank you for being here and for reading my newsletter. I’m sending so much love and wishing you a relaxing, joyful weekend.

Love,

Maxine