How to Make a Turkey Pasta Dish Using Your Leftover Turkey After Thanksgiving

One of the best things about a Thanksgiving meal is all of the leftovers. Sure, you'll have leftover meat from the turkey, itself, but most just throw away the carcass. Don't! That's a needed ingredient for making one of my family's favorite dishes.

I don't have a name for it. I usually call it 'that turkey noodle pasta thingy I make after Thanksgiving' so maybe I need a snazzier name. Turkey Noodle Pasta will suffice. Here's how I make it. It's super-super easy.

Take that carcass from the leftover turkey, after you scrape off as much meat already, and put it in a large pot of boiling water. Actually leaving a little meat still on the bones is perfectly fine. Boil it for a long time because the water will reduce and leave an awesome turkey broth. Drain it using a collendar and, after the turkey bones cool off enough, scrape off more meat from the bones.

After you've done this, now you can throw the carcass away.

Put the turkey reduction broth back on the stove and toss in any kind of pasta noodle. We seem to always have spaghetti noodles so that worked great, but really anything will work fine.

Season with whatever spices you like. I use salt, black pepper, white pepper and thyme.

The noodles will absorb the turkey reduction. Boil it lightly for a while and keep tossing (or stirring) so the noodles don't stick to the bottom of the pot. Once it has absorbed enough to a texture you like, you can add more turkey meat if you'd like and serve. Super easy, it feeds a family of 5 is one extra tasty thing to make before you throw away the turkey.