Best Leftover Turkey Recipe! (2024)

FAQs

How long is leftover turkey good for in the refrigerator? ›

USDA recommends using cooked turkey within 3 to 4 days, kept refrigerated (40°F or less). Refrigeration slows but does not stop bacterial growth. Turkey can be frozen for 3 to 4 months. Although safe indefinitely, frozen leftovers can lose moisture and flavor when stored for longer times in the freezer.

In addition to gravy, you can also save dry turkey with a little chicken (or even better, turkey) stock or broth. Place your carved meat in a shallow baking dish and cover it with stock. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and place in low oven, somewhere around 250 degrees, for 5-10 minutes.

Simply heat your oven to 300 degrees, put the carved meat in a baking dish, and add some chicken broth or turkey stock to the pan. The meat will absorb some of the liquid as it heats, making it nice and juicy. Cover the pan tightly with foil and place it in the oven until the meat is hot, 20 to 30 minutes.

Warm with chicken stock.

After you slice the meat off the bird, place it in a shallow baking dish, cover it with chicken or turkey stock, then put it in a 250-degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Cooked turkey and other leftovers can be kept in the fridge safely for about three to four days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FoodSafety.gov say. But after that time, "the risk of food poisoning goes up," the Mayo Clinic notes, pointing to the growth of bacteria in refrigerated leftovers.

As a general guideline, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services recommends eating or freezing turkey and other leftovers within three to four days.

To not dry out a turkey, you need to add moisture when you reheat the meat. You'll see in our reheating methods that we add homemade gravy, chicken stock or butter to the turkey before heating it up low and slow. This ensures that juices in the turkey won't escape as steam when they're exposed to heat.

How Long Can You Freeze Leftover Turkey? Leftover turkey freezes well for up to six months if properly handled, packed and frozen within three days of the original preparation. However, I like to try and use it within three months for best flavor and texture, and to avoid the possibility of freezer burn.

What you're doing is allowing the cooking to continue, but what you're really doing is allowing the protein, the collagen, the various juices to sort of cool down and solidify and trap the flavor. As you wait, the aromas diffuse through this big bird and even the inside tastes better.

Reheat Your Turkey the Next Day

You can bake it along with the stuffing (drizzle a little turkey broth over the stuffing before you bake it to add some turkey flavor) and side dishes, but watch the bird carefully, as you don't want to overcook it or dry out the meat by leaving it in the oven too long.

Why can you only reheat turkey once? ›

But we don't advise reheating turkey more than once. Every time you heat and cool food again, you're increasing the risk that the food will hang out too long in what the USDA deems the “danger zone,” the tricky range between 40°F and 140°F where bacteria tend to flourish.

Place the turkey pieces in a baking dish and drizzle with a few tablespoons of stock and/or butter. Cover the dish with foil and heat in the oven at 350°F for about 30 minutes. Alternatively, you can microwave the sliced turkey (cover with a damp paper towel) in a microwave-safe dish at 50% power in 1-minute intervals.

Place turkey or turkey breast in a roasting pan. (I use a disposable roasting pan) Combine melted butter and chicken broth. Pour over turkey. Rub mayonnaise all over turkey's exterior.

As meat cooks, its muscle fibers shorten and squeeze out the juices they normally hold. Just like when you squeeze a tube of toothpaste, this causes juices to be forced out of the bird. Heat them too much above 150°F (66°C) internal or so, and you end up with dry, stringy meat.

The answer is simple: leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for three to four days. This means you have until the Monday after Thanksgiving to eat all those delicious leftovers or place them in the freezer to enjoy later. If you store leftovers in the freezer, they will be of best quality within 2-6 months.

Storing Leftover Turkey

Use refrigerated turkey and stuffing within 3 to 4 days. Use gravy within 1 to 2 days. If freezing, use leftovers within 2 to 6 months for best quality.

Leftovers can be kept for 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator. After that, the risk of food poisoning goes up. If you don't think you'll be able to eat leftovers within four days, freeze them right away. Frozen leftovers will stay safe for a long time.

If properly stored, raw turkey can last in the fridge for 1–2 days, while cold cuts last up to 5 days. How long does cooked turkey last in the fridge? If you have leftovers that include cooked turkey, you can expect those to last in the refrigerator for 3–4 days.