This year, like the past two years, I have decided to make Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks before the actual day of Thanksgiving to have leftovers for planning out my yearly leftover Thanksgiving sandwich. This year I decided to make turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce a couple of weeks ago and this is the sandwich that I ended up making.
Here are the sandwiches I made with leftover Thanksgiving ingredients for the past two years. Bookmark them out if you want but keep scrolling to read more about this year’s version.
The Yesterday-was-Thanksgiving sandwich
The point of these sandwiches has never been to create a new sandwich from raw ingredients like I do with the other sandwiches I write about so I have to change my way of sandwiching to figure out what to do with leftovers from Thanksgiving.
I was inspired to tackle this leftover Thanksgiving sub by an Instagram reel from a restaurant chain named Capriotti’s. They make a sandwich named “The Bobbie” which is mayonnaise, slow-roasted turkey, handmade stuffing, and cranberry sauce in a soft submarine roll.
Capriotti’s sells both a normal (or cold) version as well as a Hot version which is the same sandwich except the turkey and stuffing have been crisped up on a flattop griddle. I decided to make their cold version, their hot version and then I also got the great idea to make a version with cheese.
First, we need the best soft roll I can make for a comforting sub sandwich.
Soft submarine sandwich roll
I think this roll is probably the first or second most consistent sandwich roll that I have created a recipe for. It’s an easy dough to work with and when I want a 10 to 12-inch soft, sub or hoagie roll, this recipe produces an extra consistent roll. Some recipes will require you to do a little guesswork when mixing the dough to add small amounts of water or flour depending on the humidity of your kitchen, but for me, this recipe is perfect every time (as long as you use the gram weights to measure ingredients).
For this sort of long roll that you might find sandwiching an American-style sub at your local deli or sandwich shop, I use a silicone sub roll mold to help shape the rolls for consistency reasons. I have made this recipe several times with and several times without this mold and I find myself grabbing it often since I purchased it. It’s less than 20 bucks on Amazon but you can probably find similar versions elsewhere.
You don’t have to use the sub roll mold if you don’t have one, this recipe works just fine without it, but the mold just helps your rolls expand in the right directions and keep much more similar and consistent shapes. Plus, the mold rolls up and comes with what is effectively a snap bracelet that your friends had in middle school to keep it tightly rolled up for storage.
Below is my sub roll recipe that you should try if you’re a beginning baker or an intermediate baker. If you’re one of those super experienced, almost professional bakers I bet you’ve already got a favorite sub roll recipe in your back pocket.
Sub sandwich rolls
This is a great recipe to use when you need a sub sandwich roll. These sub rolls are not too crusty with a soft interior and pleasant chew for a sub sandwich, cheese steak, or po-boy.
Get RecipeCranberry sauce
I didn’t find cranberry sauce as something I enjoyed at Thanksgiving until recently. I usually just passed over it, but it really does bring a lot to a plate full of fatty, rich foods that might or might not be covered in gravy. The tang of the cranberries and the sweetness from sugar really go a long way in complementing all the brown food we serve at holiday time.
This recipe is super easy as well, it just takes 20 minutes or so on the stove and you can make cranberry sauce well in advance so that it’s not a hassle to make it when you’re cooking for the big day. Cranberry sauce also freezes very well so you can make a batch at Thanksgiving and save half in the freezer for Christmas if you want.
Cranberry sauce
Adding tartness and sweet elements to a regular turkey or ham sandwich can be life changing. Cranberry sauce is a staple at many Thanksgiving tables, but really, it's something we should have in our fridge all year round.
Get RecipeStuffing or dressing?
What is the difference between stuffing and dressing? If you go looking around the internet for the answer to this question you will find a lot of old articles from Food Network or Food & Wine, and they typically will say that stuffing is something that was stuffed and cooked inside the bird and dressing was served alongside the turkey. But I don’t really think that is what the difference is in 2023.
In this day and age, I don’t think most people are putting wet, seasoned bread inside of a raw turkey to bake. Doing this means that you must cook the turkey for a super long time or else you will give all of your Thanksgiving guests some sort of foodborne illness. This is anecdotal and I have no actual data to back it up, but I believe most people are cooking stuffing in a pan when Thanksgiving rolls around.
In my experience from my own childhood eating dressing and from scouring the internet for dressing recipes vs stuffing recipes, a dressing is typically packed much denser in the casserole/baking dish to form a bit of a soft brownie consistency. Stuffing on the other hand seems to be packed into its baking dish much looser so you can see the individual pieces of bread and the top of the stuffing has more nooks and crannies because of the loose packing. Either way, they both use almost the same ingredients and are both great side dishes if gravy is on the table. You can’t go wrong with either one in my opinion.
Stuffing science
The formula for good stuffing or dressing requires a balance between the bread and the liquid. I have read (somewhere a while back that I can’t source) that you can think of the bread and the liquid being equal by weight. Grab your scale and get to work.
The main issue with this method is that it gets difficult to write an exact recipe, so if you’re not weighing your bread and liquid, you will just have to learn how to judge the balance by how the stuffing mixture looks and feels.
For my recipe, I go with 1 pound or 16 ounces of bread and 1 pound of low-sodium chicken broth which translates to 2 cups. This mixture seems to work great for my stuffing recipe, and you can size it up or down depending on the size of your baking dish.
One pound of bread to one pound of liquid = stuffing/dressing.
A good thing about using a 1-to-1 bread-to-liquid in the base of your stuffing is that you can make a small amount or scale it up for a bigger event. Once the stuffing ingredients are all combined and mixed well you can bake it in pretty much any oven-safe dish if you cook it covered with foil for the first 45 minutes and uncover it for the last 15 minutes to allow the stuffing to brown.
My stuffing recipe below is meant to be baked in a 9 x 13-inch baking dish until it reaches 165 degrees F. As you can see below the method I use cooks the stuffing much higher than the required temperature but that doesn’t mean it’s overcooked like it would be if you overshot your meat temperature.
Here’s my stuffing recipe that you can use for this sandwich, or you can use whatever stuffing that your aunt made for Thanksgiving. Bring your own Tupperware.
Homemade stuffing
A crispy top and a soft, flavorful center make stuffing a perfect side for turkey and gravy.
Get RecipeRoasted turkey
I only cooked a boneless skinless turkey breast for this sandwich because I didn’t have the time or stomach capacity to eat a whole turkey by myself two weeks before Thanksgiving. I used my Cajun roast turkey recipe that you can find below which is basically perfect for quite a few sandwich applications.
You don’t have to season a turkey breast with Cajun seasoning if you think it will interfere with the other flavors, but it worked for this sandwich for sure. If you just want to use salt and pepper, that works well too, just make sure to be overly aggressive with the seasoning because there’s only a little bit of surface area on a turkey or turkey breast and way more internal meat that you can’t apply seasonings to.
I don’t list a time in my roast turkey breast recipe because it will vary from oven to oven, but in this case, it took me exactly one hour and twenty minutes to get my turkey breast to 155 F in a 375 F oven. In the past, my attempts have been around this and 1.5 hours in my oven.
Here’s my Cajun spiced roasted turkey breast that I make quite often to slice for sandwiches.
Oven roasted Cajun turkey
A little spicy and super seasoned moist turkey, ready for slicing. Sandwich turkey is at the next level right here.
Get RecipeGiving thanks for this cheesesteak
This is a comforting sandwich that will use up some of the more expected items that you might have left over after Thanksgiving. At least, that’s the case in my house. There is always a little bit of turkey and some dressing/stuffing left over. And no one eats all the cranberry sauce. So, we can put them to work here with some cheese and turn leftovers into something magical.
Giving-thanks turkey cheesesteak process
I’ve written about several different cheesesteaks and cheesesteak-adjacent sandwiches for this blog and this one is pretty similar in the cooking process. I use a fairly inexpensive griddle when I’m making cheesesteak-style sandwiches because it has plenty of space for moving things around and since it is cast-iron, I can use metal flat-top spatulas without scratching anything.
You can make a cheesesteak in your mom’s non-stick skillet if you want, it just might be a tiny bit harder to move the ingredients around as easily.
Basically, we want to crisp up the stuffing, warm and crisp up the turkey, and then use these hot ingredients to help melt the provolone cheese. The whole process will only take ten minutes or so and things move quickly so get your ingredients ready before you start.
Now that we have our hot turkey, crispy stuffing, and melty cheese, we’re done and ready for the tart cranberry sauce to complete the whole package.
Here’s my recipe for the Giving-thanks turkey cheesesteak that you can make with your Thanksgiving leftovers. Or you can be like me and make all the ingredients two weeks before the big day.
Giving-thanks turkey cheesesteak
This warm and comforting sandwich made from leftovers from your latest holiday gathering has melty cheese piled on top of crispy stuffing, warm turkey, and tart cranberry sauce.
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil
- 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 cup leftover stuffing or dressing, broken into pieces
- 6 to 8 ounces sliced or pulled turkey
- 2 to 3 slices provolone cheese (or other sliced cheese)
- 1 6 to 8-inch sub roll
- mayonnaise (optional)
- 3 tablespoons cranberry sauce
Directions:
Add a tablespoon of oil to a large griddle or pan over medium heat.
When the oil starts shimmering, place some stuffing in the oil and toss it around, breaking it into smaller pieces if needed.
Cook the stuffing for 3 to 4 minutes or until it starts to crisp up on the sides. Add turkey, using a spatula to break it up, and mix it in with the stuffing. Cook everything for 3 to 4 more minutes allowing the turkey to warm and brown a little.
Using your spatula, form the pile of stuffing and turkey into a shape similar to the size of your sub roll. Top the pile of stuffing and turkey with sliced cheese while still in the pan or griddle. Cook for 2 more minutes with the cheese on top.
Slice your roll if needed and open it up like a book. Add any mayonnaise if desired. Place the open roll, inside down, on top of the cheese, turkey, and stuffing mixture. Cook everything for another 1 minute with the roll on top to soften the bread.
Using a spatula with your dominant hand, scoop under the turkey, cheese, and stuffing mixture. Using your other hand to hold the top of the bread, flip everything out of the pan while keeping the turkey, and stuffing mixture inside of the roll. Scoop up any mixture that you might have left on the griddle/pan and add to the sandwich.
Add a slathering of cranberry sauce onto the rest of the sandwich and serve.
Check back next week
Next week I will be writing about my next Patreon sandwich. It’s gonna get a little German but also a little local. Join the Bounded by Buns Patreon community to get insider-information about upcoming sandwiches and get an opportunity to suggest future sandwiches that I will make.
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