Our Thanksgiving dinner, like most Americans, consists of a buffet that includes too many heavy dishes. And on Thanksgiving Day, I allow myself to indulge.
However, I try to make up for that indulgence by using the leftovers to create healthier and lower calorie meals. I will make quite a bit of turkey soup and freeze it to use later on hectic evenings. I also use the leftovers in salads on the weekend following Thanksgiving.
This salad uses many traditional Thanksgiving foods, but the curry dressing gives it an exotic twist. The dressing is made using yogurt, which is much lower in fat than mayonnaise based dressings. This mollifies my guilt when I decide to enjoy some leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast! 🙂
Curried Turkey Salad
A delightfully fun way to repurpose leftover turkey.
Servings - 6 servings
Ingredients
- 2 cups leftover turkey cubed
- 1 large sweet potato or yam cubed
- 2 cups cooked rice
- 1 small apple cut into bite size pieces
- 2 stalks celery diced
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- 1/2 cup pecans chopped
- 3 green onions thinly sliced
- 3/4 cup plain yogurt 6 oz. container
- 1 tsp honey or sugar
- 1 12 tsp curry powder
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
Instructions
- Place cubed sweet potatoes or yams in a double boiler and steam for 8 minutes or until just fork tender. Be careful not to over cook.
- In a large bowl, combine turkey, rice, yams, apple, celery, onions, cranberries, and pecans.
- In a small bowl, mix together yogurt, honey, curry, and ginger.
- Pour dressing over the salad and stir until thoroughly combined. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
- Serve on a bed of greens.
Amy's Stocking Stuffers says
This does sound lovely! Since there are only two of us, I make a whole chicken in the slow cooker instead of a turkey, but I also tuck in a few extra chicken breasts so I’ll have plenty of chicken leftovers to freeze and use in other recipes. This should work very well with chicken too — thanks!
Alea says
I think it would taste great with chicken. Good idea to cook extra so that you can enjoy the leftovers. Have a lovely Thanksgiving!
Sandy @ yesiamcheap says
That’s kind of like a curried turkey Waldorf salad. My coworker is Indian and celebrated his first Thanksgiving last year. His wife makes a mean Turkey Jalfrezi (sp?). And what about turkey enchiladas? I guess borrowing from other ethnic groups to reinvent turkey is a decent idea.
Alea says
Sandy, you read my thoughts exactly! Turkey Jalfrezi and Turkey Enchiladas both sound wonderful!