This Is the Thanksgiving Leftover Dish We’re Making on Repeat This Year

When you cook a holiday meal, do you purposely make more food than you know you’ll need so that you’ll have leftovers? We know it’s not just us. It’s never a bad idea to reach for one of the bigger turkeys at the grocery store, so you can make plenty of pot pie, turkey tetrazzini, or turkey chili in the week following Thanksgiving.

If we’re being honest with ourselves, the fridge is often packed with more than just leftover turkey after Thanksgiving. Right alongside the Tupperware full of turkey, there’s stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and gravy, too. That’s when the sandwich many people wait all year for is just a stone’s throw away: the Thanksgiving sandwich. 

You know the one I’m talking about. Think stuffing, turkey, cranberry sauce—and for those who like to get a little creative with it, mashed potatoes and gravy—piled in between two mayo-slathered pieces of toast. This is what the day after Thanksgiving is for. Who said anything about shopping?

Sure, fast food restaurants like Firehouse Subs and quick-serve marts like WaWa may start serving different versions of Thanksgiving sandwiches at the first sign of leaves falling from the trees, but they just aren’t the same. They may be good, but they are not made-with-Thanksgiving-leftovers good. 

And what if you want your Thanksgiving sandwich for breakfast? No law says you can’t have it for breakfast, but if you’re willing to switch it up a little bit, you can give the iconic sandwich a breakfast-y makeover.

Thanksgiving Leftover Waffles

The bread needed to make Thanksgiving sandwiches is basically there just to reign in the leftovers. Food influencer @alexawhatsfordinner recently shared an alternative, intriguing way to build the sandwich by waffling the stuffing. Add moist leftover stuffing to a waffle maker and “cook until crispy and golden.” It’s really that easy!

The video shows the waffle piled high with cranberry sauce, leftover ham, and sweet potato casserole, topped with mini marshmallows. It incorporates some of Thanksgiving’s greatest hits, except the green bean casserole, but no one wants that on their sandwich, right?

You could eat this delicacy as an open-faced sandwich with a knife and fork or pick it up with your hands and eat as is—but you could top it with a second stuffing waffle for a true sandwich vibe. 

Take this as your sign to buy extra stuffing ingredients so you can make stuffing waffles for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. If you have the traditional sandwich for breakfast, what’s stopping you from having the waffle version for dinner? With this new twist on the Thanksgiving sandwich, we’re even more excited for Thanksgiving to get here quickly!