What to Cook With Turkey and Stuffing
By SupperScout Editorial Team · Updated November 5, 2026
Turkey and stuffing are the two leftovers that were literally served together — so the rerun plate is the trap, and the way out is construction, not reheating. Put the turkey underneath in a quick broth sauce where it stays moist, and the stuffing on top where the oven crisps it back to life. One dish, both leftovers, and it tastes like a casserole that was always the plan. Sorting the whole fridge first? The Thanksgiving leftovers finder routes every combination.
Simple starting option
Turkey and stuffing bake
Tonight's answer, up front: chopped turkey simmered for three minutes in broth or gravy with vegetables, tipped into a baking dish, covered with crumbled stuffing, and baked until the filling bubbles and the top crisps. About 40 minutes, most of it hands-off.
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 stuffing (about 4 cups)
You will need
- Chicken broth or leftover gravy, 1½ cups
- An onion
- Frozen peas and carrots or leftover vegetables, 2 cups
Optional
- Celery, diced with the onion
- Grated cheddar, scattered over the stuffing top
- Leftover green beans or corn, folded into the filling
Decide by time and texture
- The standard move → the bake. The recipe below. It fixes both leftovers' weaknesses at once: the turkey reheats gently in liquid instead of drying out, and the stuffing gets dry oven heat on top instead of steaming in a microwave.
- No oven time → the skillet version. Build the filling in a large oven-safe skillet, crumble the stuffing over it, cover, and cook on low for about 10 minutes — then uncover for the last 5 so the top dries and firms. The top will be firm rather than truly crisp; that is the honest trade for the faster route.
- Soup people → stuffing dumplings are a myth, stuffing croutons are not. Stuffing stirred into soup dissolves into seasoned mush, so do not. Instead: cube or crumble the stuffing, crisp it in a skillet, and float it on the turkey soup from the leftover turkey guide at serving time, like croutons.
- Only a little of each → the stuffed peppers. Small amounts, full dinner — the full recipe is below, after the bake. Full recipe below ↓
The recipe: Turkey and Stuffing Bake
Prep
10 minutes
Cook
About 30 minutes
Total
About 40 minutes
Servings
Serves 6
Ingredients
- 3 cups chopped leftover turkey
- 4 cups leftover stuffing, crumbled
- 1½ cups chicken broth or leftover gravy
- 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 (and celery, if using) until soft, about 5 minutes.
- Pour in the broth or gravy, add the peas and carrots, and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes. The liquid should be plentiful but not soupy — this is the sauce that keeps the turkey moist.
- 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 2-quart baking dish (about 9×9 inches).
- Crumble the stuffing evenly over the top, covering the filling completely. Scatter the cheddar over if using.
- Bake until the filling is bubbling at the edges, the stuffing top is crisp and browned in spots, and the center reads 165°F, about 25 to 30 minutes. Rest 10 minutes before serving.
Storage: Refrigerate the bake within 2 hours of cooking and eat it within 3 to 4 days of the day the turkey and stuffing were cooked — assembling it does not restart either clock. Reheat portions, covered, to an internal 165°F (74°C), verified with a food thermometer in the center; a few uncovered minutes at the end brings the top back.
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: Turkey and Stuffing Stuffed Peppers
Prep
10 minutes
Cook
About 25 minutes
Total
About 35 minutes
Servings
Serves 4 (4 pepper halves, or 8 as a side)
Ingredients
- 2 cups chopped leftover turkey
- 2½ cups leftover stuffing
- ½ cup chicken broth or leftover gravy, plus a little more if the stuffing is dry
- 2 large bell peppers, halved lengthwise and seeded (or 4 small ones)
- ¼ cup grated cheddar or pepper jack (optional, for the top)
- Salt and black pepper
Steps
- Heat the oven to 375°F. Set the pepper halves cut-side up in a baking dish, with a spoonful of water in the bottom of the dish — covered, they steam-soften as the filling heats, so no separate pre-cooking is needed. Expect tender-crisp peppers from the standard timing; for softer peppers, cover and pre-bake the empty halves for 5 to 10 minutes before filling them.
- Stir the turkey and stuffing together in a bowl and loosen the mixture with the broth or gravy a splash at a time. It should hold together when pressed, the way stuffing does in a spoon — moist, not wet. If the stuffing started out dry, the full ½ cup may not be enough; add a little more.
- Pack the filling into the pepper halves, mounding it slightly. Cover the dish loosely with foil.
- Bake covered for 20 minutes, then uncover, scatter the cheese over if using, and bake about 5 minutes more, until the peppers are tender-crisp, the filling reads an internal 165°F in the center on a food thermometer, and the top has firmed. The filling's 165°F reading governs doneness — not the peppers' softness.
- Rest 5 minutes before serving — the filling sets as it stands, and the peppers are easier to lift.
This is the small-amounts recipe of the cluster: a cup or two of each leftover, which would look lost in the big bake, fills four pepper halves exactly. Red and yellow peppers are sweeter; green peppers hold their shape best.
Storage: Refrigerate within 2 hours of baking and eat within 3 to 4 days of the day the turkey and stuffing were cooked. Reheat, covered, to an internal 165°F (74°C) in the center of the filling, checked with a food thermometer.
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 come from SupperScout's own substitution table — the same swaps the recipe checker accepts. Where the table is silent, this page is too.
- No chicken broth → vegetable broth, 1 to 1. A lighter sauce; the stuffing on top carries plenty of seasoning either way. Leftover gravy, if you have it, beats both and needs no swap.
- No butter → olive oil, a little less (the table's ratio is 0.8 to 1), for softening the onion. Method unchanged.
- No cheddar → pepper jack, 1 to 1, if you are using the cheese top. Melts the same, adds mild heat.
- No swap for the stuffing. It is not an ingredient in this dish, it is the structure — the crisp top is the whole point. Breadcrumbs crisped in butter make a fine topping for a turkey bake, but that is a different recipe wearing this one's clothes, and the checker will not call it a swap. And as everywhere in this cluster, there is no swap for the turkey itself: it is the leftover this page exists to use.
The safety clock
Two leftovers, two clocks, and the dish runs on the shorter one. Turkey and stuffing each keep 3 to 4 days in the fridge at 40°F or below, counted from the day they were cooked, and each should have been refrigerated within 2 hours of the meal — stuffing scooped out of the bird and stored separately, not left inside the carcass, and the stuffing should have reached 165°F when it was first cooked. Because this bake is a reheating of already-cooked food, it has to come back to an internal 165°F in the center, verified with a food thermometer, which the recipe's timing is built to reach. Bake it by day three if you can; day four is the last stop, not the start of a new plan.
Common mistakes
- Packing the stuffing down flat. Pressed stuffing steams; loose crumbles crisp. Spoon it on and leave it rough.
- A dry filling. The broth is not optional moisture — it is the difference between turkey that reheats juicy and turkey that reheats stringy.
- Serving straight from the oven. Ten minutes of rest lets the filling thicken so the first scoop holds together.
Want a fresh-ingredient starting point based on the pair's base foods and whatever else is in the fridge? The general finder starts with turkey and bread — stuffing's base — already loaded. Try it with your ingredients → It treats turkey and bread as fresh ingredients, not as cooked turkey and stuffing, 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 mashed potatoes · leftover stuffing · leftover turkey dinners