Save this Day after Thanksgiving Soup recipe! My family loves it and I hope yours does too. It's our favorite way to use Thanksgiving leftovers, I hope it becomes a family favorite for you too.
Every year, the day after Thanksgiving I use up all the leftovers in a big pot of yummy soup. I've been meaning to share it with you for years. As I make the soup, I take pictures and then I realize, you've probably already eaten your leftovers too. So the soup gets eaten and the photos get archived as proof that once again we've enjoyed Thanksgiving 2 days in a row.. with no one to see it but our own bellies. So this year, I planned ahead. I a gathered all the photos and even made fresh batch of soup. In reality it's probably more like the Day-After-Wednesday soup, but the concept is the same. I hope you love this as much as we do!
Day After Thanksgiving Soup
This Day After Thanksgiving soup is essentially a big pot of potato soup with a bunch of other stuff mixed in.. delicious, mouth-watering stuff. Every year the soup is a little different because every year the left overs, quantities and flavors, are a little different. I start out with a batch of mashed potatoes and milk and then I add in whatever else we have. The key is good potatoes, so of course cheesy garlic mashed potatoes are one of our favorite choices for Thanksgiving! One year we had asparagus and bacon for Thanksgiving so in the pot it went and we've even had some sweet potatoes included too. It's all so good!
Now, I understand not everyone has the same things on their Thanksgiving table. So some of your leftovers might not be so tasty in this soup. You call the shots and decide what you want to include. I'll tell you want we typically have. We always have mashed potatoes, turkey and some kind of vegetable, usually green bean casserole. Anything else is a wild shot and you can choose what to do with it.
Typical ingredients
You will not find measurement here because the “how much” of each thing will really depend on what ingredients are available to begin with. See below for more insight about this.
- Mashed Potatoes
- Milk
- Turkey, chopped into bite-sized pieces
- Vegetables – we usually have green bean casserole, sometimes sweet potatoes
- Other left overs – I'd added stuffing, rice, carrots.
- You could add mac n cheese or another pasta. Just make sure the flavors don't gross you out if you were to mash them all together on your Thanksgiving plate. If they taste good in a big bite on your fork, they are going to be great in this soup!
I do not have measurements because you're not going to measure you're ingredients in order to save enough for this soup. The potato base we typically have at least 2 cups of mashed potatoes and then add 4-6 cups of milk. Anything after that is just extra.
How to make Day After Thanksgiving Soup
- This is a soup that can be cooked on the stove or in a slow cooker. usually I use the slow cooker. I'll throw all the ingredients in in the morning and then by mid-afternoon everyone is ready to scarf it up.
- Start off by adding the mashed potatoes and milk. You want to be making a potato soup to start off with. So, add the mashed potatoes and then add enough milk to make a nice chowder type consistency.
- Stir in the turkey and whatever vegetables you'd like. Take a little taste – even if it's cold, to get an idea of the flavor you have going on. Add some additional seasoning if you need it.
- Only add one ingredient at a time and then stir so you can get a feel for the thickness of the soup and the flavors you are combining. Like i've said, every batch varies, so make sure you aren't just dumping in the entire refrigerator and then wondering why it tastes like the entire refrigerator.
You can top this soup with whatever you like. Sometimes I add shredded cheese, sometimes the kids throw on some cheddar Goldfish crackers. This batch got a little crumbling of good-for-you, gluten free, nutty crackers. The topping just adds a little more texture to the soup and makes photos pretty. Get creative and add whatever sounds delicious to you!
So this Thanksgiving, as you're packing up the leftover turkey and wondering how many lunches you'll need to sneak in a turkey sandwich, just pull out the slow cooker and get ready for some of the best leftovers you've ever had! I'd love to hear how you make your Day After Thanksgiving soup! I hope you love it too!
