These Ultimate Turkey Day Leftover Waffles are the perfect way to use up all of your leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner.
We’re talking perfectly crispy potato-laced waffles topped with all your favorite Thanksgiving fixings – juicy roast turkey, sweet and tart cranberry sauce, your favorite stuffing, even gravy if you please. Basically all of the delicious things we look forward to for arguably the biggest food holiday of the year served up in one delicious dish that is perfectly acceptable for to be enjoyed as breakfast, lunch or dinner – Ultimate Turkey Day Leftover Waffles, your day has arrived!
Well, on Friday it will have arrived, but I’m planning on taking a little break from this here blog for the long weekend so we can really enjoy our time up north with our family – and introducing everyone to our newest little addition! Plus, I figured everyone would be either (a) too busy Black Friday shopping or (b) too lazy watching football on the couch to be catching up on their favorite blogs the day after Thanksgiving, hence why I’m hitting you with my new favorite Turkey Day leftovers recipe today while we’re still craving alllll those foods and wondering what we’re going to do with the monstrous amounts of leftovers.
Okay, to be honest, The Ultimate Turkey Day Leftover Waffles don’t REALLY involve that much of a recipe, because they are totally customizable to whatever types of leftovers you have on hand. The one constant that I highly recommend is the potato waffles. I adapted them from Justin Chapple’s recipe for Food & Wine and they are the perfect hybrid of a typical Belgian waffle and hashbrowns/your favorite potato latke.
Even better, they can easily be made in advance and frozen until ready to use, so if you know you’ll be low on cooking steam by Friday, whip some of these waffles up in the next couple of days so you can just pull them out and defrost them in the toaster or the oven as soon as you start craving that first hit of leftovers. I mean, I wouldn’t even blame you if you turned to these for a late-night snack on the big day itself!
After you make the waffles, you can really go in whichever direction you want as far as toppings. The hubs and I had a blast doing an early Thanksgiving back in September when I was working on stockpiling content for maternity leave, and I roasted up a simple turkey breast to enjoy with this Zucchini Stuffing and some simple cranberry sauce. All of these made the perfect toppings for potato-y waffles, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish I’d made more of them to have ready to go this weekend.
Now, I kept it fairly traditional/simple with the toppings for my Ultimate Turkey Day Leftover Waffles, but the sky’s the limit when it comes to possibilities. Here are just a few of the many ways to dress these waffles up:
Gravy
Sweet Potato Casserole
Green Bean Casserole
Roasted Vegetables
All creative license is yours!
I’ll be back on Wednesday with one more fun Thanksgiving weekend cocktail to share with you all (HINT: It involves everyone’s favorite espresso drink of the season!) before I sign off for a few days, but until then I hope you get yourself in the kitchen and start prepping all the delicious components of The Ultimate Turkey Day Leftover Waffles!
These potato-laced waffles are loaded with all of your favorite Thanksgiving leftovers - turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and more!
- 2 pounds baking potatoes, peeled, coarsely shredded and squeezed dry
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
- Assorted Thanksgiving leftover toppings such as turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, casseroles, roasted vegetables, etc.
Plug in a waffle iron to heat up and preheat the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Combine all ingredients except toppings in a large mixing bowl to form the waffle batter.
Scoop batter into preheated waffle iron and cook according to manufacturer’s directions (about 5-7 minutes.) Once waffle is done and golden-brown, transfer it to a rack in your preheated oven to keep warm.
Repeat process until all batter is used up.
Top waffles with your favorite Thanksgiving leftovers and enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Justin Chapple’s Loaded Potato Waffles recipe for Food & Wine.
