Leftover Turkey Shepherds Pie Recipe + Batch Cooking With Turkey
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Filled with all the delicious flavors of Thanksgiving, our Leftover Turkey Shepherds Pie Recipe is going to become your FAVORITE thing to do with your Thanksgiving leftovers! We’re sharing the recipe plus tips for batch cooking with turkey!
Disclosure: Thank you so much to Canadian Turkey for working with us on this post. As with all articles on Hello Creative Family all thoughts and opinions are 100% our own. We only share things we love and we certainly love Canadian Turkey!
I’m back with another delicious recipe idea using our favorite lean protein source– Canadian Turkey! This recipe is packed full of all the flavors of Thanksgiving! It can be made using your Thanksgiving leftovers, or you can do a bit of batch cooking and make this a weeknight meal!
Thanksgiving is one of those weird holidays for me. I grew up in the US where Thanksgiving is in November, but now live in Canada where Thanksgiving is in October. My family still lives in Washington (hence they celebrate Thanksgiving in November) and The Hubs’s family all lives in different provinces (so it’s not the easiest trip to share a Thanksgiving meal together).
Thanksgiving at our house is usually celebrated with just the 4 of us, so if we cook a whole turkey we have a LOT of leftovers, which is awesome because it means I can do some batch cooking!
A good rule of thumb when thinking about how much turkey to make for Thanksgiving if you want to have leftovers for batch cooking is to calculate 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of turkey per person who will be eating with you!
For our family that means we want a 6-8 pound bird, so if I’m only cooking for us what I often do is get a turkey breast roast! It cooks up quickly (which makes it perfect for a weeknight dinner, a Sunday supper or Thanksgiving) and it gives us plenty of leftover turkey to repurpose into other meals!
Leftover turkey can be shredded, cubed or sliced, and stored in the freezer to be used as a handy base for a healthy meal, like soups, salads, pastas, casseroles, wraps, sandwiches and our Turkey Shepherds Pie Recipe! With a little planning, there are endless ways to use these protein packed leftovers!
10 WAYS TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TURKEY LEFTOVERS:
- To plan for leftovers, order a turkey that is several pounds bigger than what you need. That way you can be sure to cook once and eat twice, with leftover turkey to spare for additional meals once everyone has had their fill.
- Plan for leftovers by allocating 1½ – 2 pounds of turkey per person. This will give you ½ to 1 pound of extra turkey for each person at your table.
- Make sure you pack your leftovers within 2 hours after cooking to maintain the quality and safety of the food.
- Save and freeze the turkey carcass and bones, too. Use these to make a delicious turkey stock that can easily be frozen for use in soups, sauces, gravies and mashed potatoes.
- Freeze any leftover gravy in muffin tins or ice cube trays. Once frozen, store in a zip top bag or air tight container and use as needed.
- Leftover turkey freezes well, so make sure you fill your freezer! Wrap your turkey leftovers in plastic to avoid freezer burn and you’ll have ready portions on hand. Visit www.canadianturkey.ca for recipe inspiration and make salads, soups, pastas or casseroles in a snap!
- Store your leftovers properly for best results. Shred your turkey or cut it up into slices or cubes and freeze in convenient 1lb meal base portions that are ready to use right from the freezer. Store in an airtight container in the freezer for a quick start to weekday meals.
- Divide your leftovers into dark and white turkey portions before freezing so it will be easy to choose what works best in your recipes.
- Make a list of your favourite leftover turkey recipes. Add to that list so when the holiday season comes around every year you will have a head start with a selection of go-to recipes on hand.
- Stock up on air-tight, leak-proof containers or plastic bags for your leftovers or prepared meals so you’re ready to size up your meals any time.
Ready to learn how to make our Turkey Shepherds Pie Recipe? Read On!
Don’t Miss These Thanksgiving Dessert Ideas! Click On Photo To Go To The Recipe.
Turkey Shepherds Pie Recipe
A delicious Turkey Shepherd’s Pie starts with a delicious roasted turkey! Check out my White Wine and Garlic Turkey Breast Recipe as well as my How To Roast The Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey With Two Brine Suggestions for two delicious ways to prepare your turkey!
I’m sharing recipes for both the topping and the base of the Shepherd’s Pie. Have fun modifying this recipe in any way you see fit– using leftovers from a full turkey, turkey from a single turkey breast, or even ground turkey! I’m sharing my favorite mashed potatoes recipe for the topping but feel free to use your own mashed potato recipe. That’s my favorite part about cooking! Putting your own creative spin on different recipes.
The Topping: Rustic Garlic Mashed Potatoes Recipe
We use baby potatoes for our garlic mashed potato recipe, which means that you can leave the skin on and enjoy the rustic taste of these delicious spuds. Loaded with butter, sour cream and cream cheese and garlic these mashed potatoes are filled with flavor. The perfect mashed potatoes for a turkey side dish or for topping our shepherds pie recipe!
Ingredients:
-6 cups of baby potatoes
-1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of kosher salt
-1/2 stick of butter, softened
-1/2 cup of sour cream
-2 tablespoons of cream cheese
-Cracked black pepper
-2 teaspoons of dried granulated garlic
Optional: Additional mix-ins like fresh rosemary, chives and bacon.
Directions:
Bring a pot of boiling water to a boil over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of kosher salt to the water and baby potatoes. Boil for 10 minutes or until fork tender.
Drain potatoes and then use your favorite method for mashing your potatoes. We’re partial to using our kitchen aid mixer! Add butter, sour cream, cream cheese, black pepper, salt and granulated garlic to your potatoes and whip until light and fluffy.
Rustic Garlic Mashed Potatoes Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 cups baby potatoes
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of kosher salt
- 1/2 stick of butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 tbsp cream cheese
- fresh cracked black pepper to taste
- 2 tsp dried granulated garlic
- Optional: Additional mix-ins like fresh rosemary, chives and bacon.
Instructions
- Bring a pot of boiling water to a boil over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of kosher salt to the water and baby potatoes. Boil for 10 minutes or until fork tender.
- Drain potatoes and then use your favorite method for mashing your potatoes. We’re partial to using our kitchen aid mixer! Add butter, sour cream, cream cheese, black pepper, salt and granulated garlic to your potatoes and whip until light and fluffy.
Leftover Turkey Shepherds Pie Recipe
Filled with all the delectable flavors of Thanksgiving, our Leftover Turkey Shepherds Pie Recipe is going to become your FAVORITE thing to do with your Thanksgiving leftovers! It’s so good you’re going to find yourself making turkey every Sunday so you have leftovers for this recipe!
Ingredients:
-2 tablespoons of avocado oil or your favorite cooking oil
-1 small onion, diced
-1 rib of celery, diced
-1 carrot, peeled and diced
-4 cloves of garlic, minced
-1 can of kernel corn
-1 large turkey breast cut into cubes
-1/2 cup of turkey drippings (if you don’t have any substitute chicken broth)
-1/2 cup of white wine
-2 tablespoons of all purpose flour
-1 teaspoon of dried thyme
-4 to 6 cups of mashed potatoes
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400F.
Add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil to a frying pan set over medium heat. When oil is hot sauté onions and celery for 2 minutes, add carrots and minced garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes.
Add corn, turkey breast cubes, turkey drippings and white wine. Toss to combine.
Add flour and dried thyme and mix thoroughly.
Top with mashed potatoes.
Put in oven for 20 minutes or until shepherds pie is heated through and the top is golden brown. Make sure to put a baking tray underneath your frying pan! It’s going to bubble and get messy!
Optional: broil for last 2 minutes for an extra crispy topping!
I hope that you have loved our Canadian Turkey Recipes and that they have inspired you to do some batch cooking for your family!
Leftover Turkey Shepherds Pie Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp avocado oil or your favorite cooking oil
- 1 small onion, diced
- 1 rib of celery, diced
- 1 1 carrot, peeled and diced
- 1 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 can of kernel corn
- 1 1 large turkey breast cut into cubes
- 1/2 cup turkey drippings (if you don’t have any substitute chicken broth)
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1 tbsp tablespoons of all purpose flour
- 1 tsp teaspoon of dried thyme
- 4-6 cups mashed potatoes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil to a frying pan set over medium heat. When oil is hot sauté onions and celery for 2 minutes, add carrots and minced garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes.
- Add corn, turkey breast cubes, turkey drippings and white wine. Toss to combine.
- Add flour and dried thyme and mix thoroughly.
- Top with mashed potatoes.
- Put in oven for 20 minutes or until shepherds pie is heated through and the top is golden brown. Make sure to put a baking tray underneath your frying pan! It’s going to bubble and get messy!
- Optional: broil for last 2 minutes for an extra crispy topping!
Pin this recipe to refer back to!
For additional tips, recipes, Turkey Basics videos and HOW TOs? Visit canadianturkey.ca for all your cooking inspiration.
Disclosure: Thank you so much to Canadian Turkey for working with us on this post. As with all articles on Hello Creative Family all thoughts and opinions are 100% our own. We only share things we love and we certainly love Canadian Turkey!
Tell me… Do you celebrate Thanksgiving with a lot of people or is it a more intimate celebration? Do you prepare a full turkey for Thanksgiving or something else? What’s your favorite thing to do with Thanksgiving leftovers?
Like our Leftover Turkey Shepherd’s Pie Recipe? We’d love for you to pin it to refer back to.
Make sure you check out our White Wine and Garlic Roasted Turkey Breast Recipe!
Love turkey like we do? Check out all of our delicious Canadian turkey recipe ideas!
like the left overs as much as the first day I cook my turkey
This leftover turkey shepherds pie looks so so delicious could almost eat the page – hmm good. We are a family that loves leftovers so this recipe would fit in nicely.
Oh this shepherds pie looks excellent! My husband decided we’ll be doing a turkey AND a ham this year for Thanksgiving, so we will have plenty of left overs to use up! I will definitely be saving this recipe for later. Thank for sharing!
Delicious food.
Thanks for sharing this delicious recipe with leftover. Pinned!
That looks delicious! We make a leftover pie after Thanksgiving that uses the leftover turkey, squash, gravy, stuffing and mashed potatoes but I am definitely pinning this since we always have more leftover turkey than anything else.
i like the left overs as much as the first meal with the turkey.
This will be a great recipe to use for leftover Christmas turkey.
That shepherd’s pie looks amazing! Thanks for all the great ideas!
Looks like a great recipe will have to try it out after the holidays.
Looks really good! What a great way to use leftovers!