This Leftovers Sandwich Is Even Better Than Thanksgiving Dinner (2024)

Once we sit down to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner, we’re already thinking about the leftovers we’ll get to have the next day. There are plenty of ways you can enjoy your holiday leftovers, but a Thanksgiving sandwich is the most classic. We stacked ours full of all the holiday staples: roast turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and gravy, with a few extra additions. We think our sandwich is the perfect combination of leftovers, but you can also use it as a base to make it completely your own. No cooking required here—take it easy the day after Thanksgiving and make this iconic sandwich instead.

The best bread for a Thanksgiving sandwich:
It’s no secret: the meat and toppings are the star of this sandwich—the bread is purely a vessel to carry all of the delicious filling. The most important thing to keep in mind is to choose bread that will hold your sandwich together. This sandwich isn’t shy when it comes to the filling—you want to choose slices that won’t fall apart when you try and pick it up for a bite. We went with slices of sourdough bread here, but feel free to use whatever you’re feeling.

How to make the best Thanksgiving sandwich:
While this sandwich may seem fairly straightforward, the components are all important to get right. We start with a mayonnaise and Dijon mustard mixture spread onto the base of one of our bread slices. Feel free to use one and not the other, but we think the mix provides the perfect base for this sandwich. We follow with roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, leftover stuffing, gravy, and baby spinach. While some people love a gravy-soaked piece of bread in their sandwich, we think our hearty stuffing and drizzle of gravy is the ideal way to create a moist sandwich.

We think this is the perfect combination of leftovers, but feel free to shake it up based on what leftovers you still have on hand! Want to make this sandwich extra flavorful? Make garlic mashed potatoes or cream cheese mashed potatoes for your holiday to not only have a delicious side, but for a killer sandwich the next day.

Other ideas for Thanksgiving leftovers:
While a sandwich is a classic way to use up your Thanksgiving leftovers, your options don’t stop there. We’ve created countless ways to use up every bit of your holiday leftovers, from Thanksgiving leftover tacos to our Thanksgiving ring (who could say no to crescent rolls?). Only have leftover turkey? Our turkey casserole and turkey noodle soup are the best ways to use up the rest of your bird.

Made this recipe? Let us know how it went in the comments below!