Turn Thanksgiving Leftovers Into The Hands-Down Best Breakfast With This Trick

Everyone loves a good Thanksgiving meal, but only those who prepare it from scratch know the Herculean effort that can go into bringing the spread together. To put it into context, Anthony Bourdain's efficient Thanksgiving cook schedule takes three days! The reward, though, is manifold. Not only do you have a gorgeous meal at the end of it, but the leftovers can be repurposed into a flurry of delicious snacks and daytime meals of all shapes and formats. Of course, the Thanksgiving leftover sandwich is a classic, but most festive dishes are difficult to contain between slices of bread. For a heartier post-Thanksgiving meal, consider using the leftovers to make a frittata.

The versatile egg dish is one of the best fridge-cleaners out there, essentially wrapping all the ingredients into a thick, fluffy open omelet, made richer with the addition of cream. The thick, round egg slab, brimming with flavor and texture, can be sliced like a pie and makes for a hearty breakfast or brunch. Making a frittata from scratch requires cooking the vegetables and meats individually and then mixing them with raw eggs before cooking the mixture. With leftovers, all the ingredients are already cooked to perfection, so you can simply mix them together with eggs and cook them in a skillet. Turkey, corn, green bean casserole, and even mashed potatoes or a dollop of gravy complement a frittata perfectly. You can try various combinations depending on your leftovers since the dish can take any flavor direction you choose (except sweet, so skip adding cranberry sauce to the mix).

The Thanksgiving leftover frittata won't feel like you're eating leftovers; it's an entire dish on its own. Whether you're making it with leftovers or from scratch, the cardinal rule is to ensure you don't include ingredients that release moisture when cooked. Therefore, skip any leftover raw vegetables or salads, but use up that side of roasted vegetables in the egg dish. While both make delicious frittata ingredients, stuffing and dressing are slightly different, and if you have very moist leftover stuffing, you may need to dry it out in a low-temperature oven before adding it to the egg mixture. If you have too many ingredients to choose from, simply pick the combination that appeals to you. Some roasted onions and garlic, cubed cheese, and fresh herbs can help tie together the flavors of the other leftovers in the dish. You can't really go wrong as long as you get the basic frittata ratio of eggs to cream right.

A traditional frittata is made by first cooking it on the stove to set the eggs at the bottom, and finishing it under the broiler to cook the rest of it through. With this extended heat from all sides, even cold ingredients will get heated through, so you can use leftovers directly from the fridge. Just remember to cut them down to bite-sized pieces, which helps spread them evenly around the egg mixture and avoids any large cold spots from developing as you cook. And, for an even easier breakfast version that skips the two-step stove-to-broiler process, make your frittata in the air fryer, which is simpler than it looks.