What to Cook With Turkey and Mashed Potatoes
By SupperScout Editorial Team · Updated November 5, 2026
Of everything in the post-Thanksgiving fridge, turkey and mashed potatoes are the two biggest containers — and the two that reheat the worst as a rerun plate. Together, though, they are one construction away from a different dinner entirely: the turkey goes underneath in a quick sauce, the potatoes go on top, and the oven does the rest. Start from the Thanksgiving leftovers finder if you are still deciding what you have.
Simple starting option
Leftover turkey pie — mashed potato top
If you just want tonight's answer: chopped turkey and vegetables simmered in broth or gravy, spread into a baking dish, covered with the mashed potatoes, and baked until the top goes golden at the peaks. About an hour from start to table, and it eats like a new dish, not a reheated one.
What the starting option actually takes
No two-ingredient magic — here is the honest split between what this guide assumes is already in your kitchen, what else the dish needs, and what is purely optional.
You have
- Leftover turkey, chopped (about 3 cups)
- Leftover mashed potatoes (about 3 to 4 cups)
You will need
- Chicken broth or leftover gravy, 1 cup
- All-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon
- An onion
- Frozen peas and carrots or leftover vegetables, 2 cups
Optional
- Cheddar, grated over the potato top
- A tablespoon of butter, dotted on top before baking
- Leftover green beans, chopped into the filling
Decide by which container is fuller
- Plenty of both → the pie. The recipe below. It is the highest-value use of the pair: the filling reheats the turkey gently in liquid, which is exactly what leftover turkey needs, and the potato top crisps at the peaks instead of going gummy in a microwave.
- Mostly mashed potatoes, a little turkey → potato cakes. Even half a cup of chopped turkey counts here; the cakes carry it. The full recipe is below, after the pie. One rule up front: use the mash cold — chilled mash is far easier to shape and holds a cake much better than warm. Full recipe below ↓
- Mostly turkey, a scoop of mash → soup, with the mash as the thickener. Make the turkey soup from the leftover turkey guide and whisk the mashed potatoes into the hot stock a spoonful at a time. The soup turns creamy-bodied with no cream and no flour — the mash disappears into it completely.
- Day three or four → freeze the plan, not the plate. The pie freezes well assembled and unbaked; a reheated rerun plate does not improve with time. Whatever you do not bake by day four should already be in the freezer in meal-size portions.
The recipe: Leftover Turkey Pie With a Mashed Potato Top
Prep
10 minutes
Cook
About 40–45 minutes, plus 10 minutes resting
Total
About 60–65 minutes
Servings
Serves 6
Ingredients
- 3 cups chopped leftover turkey
- 3 to 4 cups leftover mashed potatoes
- 1 cup chicken broth or leftover gravy (gravy is the richer option; loosen it with a splash of broth if the filling becomes too thick)
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 cups frozen peas and carrots, or chopped leftover vegetables
- 1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
- Salt and black pepper
- Grated cheddar, a small handful (optional, for the top)
Steps
- Heat the oven to 375°F. Warm the butter or oil in a large skillet over medium heat and cook the onion until soft, about 5 minutes.
- Sprinkle the flour over the onion and stir constantly for 1 minute. Pour in the broth or gravy slowly, stirring as you pour, then add the peas and carrots. Simmer until the vegetables are tender and the sauce has thickened enough to coat a spoon, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in the chopped turkey and heat it through in the sauce, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then scrape everything into a 9-inch pie dish or an 8-inch square baking dish.
- Spoon the mashed potatoes over the filling and spread them to the edges — sealing the top keeps the filling steaming underneath. Rough the surface up with a fork so there are peaks to brown, and scatter the cheddar over if using.
- Bake until the filling is bubbling at the edges, the top is golden at the peaks, and the center reads 165°F, about 25 to 30 minutes. Rest 10 minutes before serving so the filling sets.
Storage: Refrigerate the pie within 2 hours of baking and eat it within 3 to 4 days of the day the turkey was cooked — baking it does not restart the clock. Reheat portions to an internal 165°F (74°C), verified with a food thermometer in the center. The assembled, unbaked pie freezes well; for best quality use it within about 2 to 3 months, and thaw it in the fridge overnight before baking.
SupperScout consistency check: this recipe's quantities, step order, times, and food-safety notes were checked for consistency against SupperScout's cooking and safety rules before this guide was published.
The recipe: Mashed Potato Cakes With Turkey
Prep
10 minutes, plus chilling if you have it
Cook
About 10 minutes
Total
About 20 minutes
Servings
Serves 4 (8 cakes)
Ingredients
- 2 cups leftover mashed potatoes, cold from the fridge
- ½ to 1 cup chopped leftover turkey (whatever you have)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 2 tablespoons flour, plus a little more if the mash is loose
- 2 tablespoons oil or butter, for the pan
- Salt and black pepper
- Leftover gravy or cranberry sauce (optional, for serving)
Steps
- Stir the beaten egg and flour into the cold mashed potatoes until evenly mixed, then fold in the chopped turkey. The mixture should hold a soft mound on a spoon; if it slumps flat, stir in another tablespoon of flour. Season with salt and pepper — leftover mash is already seasoned, so taste before adding much.
- Divide into 8 portions and press each into a flat cake about 3 inches across and ½ inch thick. Ten minutes in the fridge firms them up and makes the frying easier, but it is a help, not a requirement.
- Heat the oil or butter in a large skillet over medium heat until it shimmers. Add the cakes without crowding — work in two batches if the pan is small, because touching cakes steam instead of crisping.
- Fry undisturbed until the first side is deeply golden, about 4 minutes. Flip once and fry the second side about 3 to 4 minutes. The cakes are leftovers, so bring them back to an internal 165°F in the center, checked with a food thermometer — a browned crust alone does not prove the center got there.
- Serve two cakes per plate with warm gravy poured over, or a spoonful of cranberry sauce alongside.
Flavored mash — garlic, cheddar, sour-cream — is a head start, not a problem; the cakes take whatever the mash already is. Just go easier on added salt until you have tasted a fried edge.
Storage: Refrigerate leftover cakes within 2 hours and eat them within 3 to 4 days of the day the potatoes and turkey were cooked — frying does not restart either clock. Reheat in a hot skillet or oven until crisp again and at an internal 165°F (74°C) in the center, checked with a food thermometer; the microwave undoes the crust.
SupperScout consistency check: this recipe's quantities, step order, times, and food-safety notes were checked for consistency against SupperScout's cooking and safety rules before this guide was published.
Swaps
These are the swaps from SupperScout's own substitution table — the same ones the recipe checker accepts. If a swap is not listed here, the honest answer is that there is not one.
- No chicken broth → vegetable broth, 1 to 1. Lighter, and it disappears into the filling the same way. Leftover gravy needs no swap at all — it is already the sauce.
- No butter → olive oil, a little less. The table's ratio is 0.8 to 1; use it for softening the onion. The flavor shifts slightly fruitier, the method does not change.
- No cheddar → pepper jack, 1 to 1. Melts the same way and adds mild heat to the potato top.
- No swap for the mashed potatoes themselves. Fresh potatoes are a different starting point — mash has the butter, milk, and seasoning already in it, which is why this guide exists. Out of mash but holding turkey and raw potatoes? That is the turkey and potatoes situation, not this one. And as on the turkey guide, the substitution table has no swap for turkey itself.
The safety clock
Baking leftovers into a pie does not reset their clock. Cooked turkey and mashed potatoes keep 3 to 4 days in the fridge at 40°F or below, counted from Thanksgiving Day, and both should have been refrigerated within 2 hours of the meal. So a pie baked on day three is a day-three pie: eat it promptly, reheat portions to an internal 165°F (74°C), verified with a food thermometer, and do not plan a day-five serving of it. The one real extension is the freezer — an assembled unbaked pie, or the turkey and mash frozen separately in meal-size portions.
Common mistakes
- Spreading cold, stiff mash straight from the fridge and tearing the filling apart. Let it sit at room temperature for 20 minutes, or warm it gently with a splash of milk first.
- Skipping the fork-raked peaks. A flat-smooth top steams; a rough top browns. The texture contrast is the dish.
- Making the filling soupy. The broth should coat, not pool — simmer it down before the turkey goes in, because the oven will not dry a wet filling under a sealed potato lid.
Have the pair but want a fresh-ingredient starting point based on the same base foods? The general finder starts with turkey and potato already loaded — add the peas, the cheddar, or whatever else is sitting next to them. Try it with your ingredients → It treats those foods as fresh ingredients, not as the cooked leftovers in your fridge, so adapt its recipe rather than treating it as automatically suitable: reheat cooked leftovers to an internal 165°F, and never follow raw-turkey cooking steps for turkey that is already cooked.
Related: Thanksgiving leftovers hub · Thanksgiving leftovers finder · turkey and stuffing · leftover stuffing · leftover turkey dinners