Thanksgiving Leftovers Recipes – One Green Planet

Meal prep is a great way to have all of your food ready for the week, enabling you to make healthy choices, and save money while you’re at it! Not only does it keep you on track with your fitness goals, but it saves a lot of time. Imagine coming home after a long day of work, your meal already planned and ready to assemble in mere minutes. Does it sound too good to be true? Don’t worry, that’s why we’re here to send you Weekly Meal Prep inspo every week to get you in the kitchen!

We’ll give you a set of ingredients to work with every week and include seasonal recommendations, when possible. The primary goal with our weekly meal prep guide below is to help you focus your meals predominately around a new set of ingredients or theme every week. We’ll give you a plethora of creative ways to prep these ingredients to create healthy, quick, easy and tasty recipes, so you’ll never be bored.

This week we’re using Thanksgiving leftovers for your meal prep, specifically potatoes, cranberries, roasted veggies and lentils!

1. Potatoes

Image Source: Simple Mashed Potato Waffles

Mashed potatoes are undeniably a Thanksgiving favorite, and they may all get eaten right at the dinner table. However, if you’re like us and always make a ton, you’re going to need some ways to use them up so that you don’t waste any potato goodness! They’ve already been prepped, so now you just need to find creative ways to use them – like the following ideas! Firstly, make use of your potatoes right away by whipping up some potato-based breakfast the morning after the holiday with Crazy Vegan Kitchen‘s Simple Mashed Potato Waffles. That’s two of the best foods combined! If you’re still too full for breakfast but need some potatoes later in the day, we’ve got you covered with that too. Use your mashed potatoes for Alison Edmund‘s Samosa Potato and Chickpea Patties with Cilantro Chutney.

You could even use your mashed potatoes to make pasta! If you’ve never made homemade gnocchi, you’ll be shocked at how simple it is. Josephine Watmore can show you how with her recipe for Potato Gnocchi. Or, maybe you made roasted potatoes instead of mashed – no problem! Put your leftovers into these Two Potato Bean Burritos with Vegan Cheese Sauce from Larice Feuerstein.

2. Cranberries

Image Source: Cranberry and Mint Cream Scones

Whether you’re using them in desserts or cranberry sauce, putting them into bakes or casseroles or even putting them into drinks, cranberries are a distinctive Thanksgiving flavor that you’re sure to have left over after the festivities are done. Instead of wasting them, use your pre-prepped cranberries for a delicious post-thanksgiving breakfast with these Cranberry and Mint Cream Scones from Kathleen Henry, or combine them with leftover sweet potatoes to make these Sweet Potato Cranberry Pancakes from Amy Lyons.

Cranberries are also a great filling and topping due to their combination of sweetness and tartness. See for yourself with these Thanksgiving Leftovers Tacos With Cranberry Salsa from Cruelty Free Family. You could use them in combination with that signature pumpkin spice flavor that is everywhere this season in Larice Feuerstein‘s Pumpkin Spice Empanadas with Apple Cinnamon Cranberry Filling.

3. Lentils

Image Source: BBQ Lentil Meatballs

If you follow a plant-based diet, lentils are a popular choice for Thanksgiving entrees – they bring the heartiness, savory flavor, and protein that is associated with traditional Thanksgiving entrees. If you end up with leftovers, there are a ton of things that you can do with this awesome ingredient. Since they’ll already be cooked, that takes off a lot of your prep time! Use them to make veggie meatballs in this recipe for BBQ Lentil Meatballs from Gina Hoskins!

Lentils always make a great base for a pasta sauce. Try something a little lighter after all the heavy holiday foods with veggie noodles in this Zucchini Pasta with Spicy Tomato and Lentil Sauce from Deniz Kilic. Of course, soups are one of the best things to eat in the fall and winter, since they are pretty much comfort in a bowl. If you have leftover uncooked lentils, cook them up into a Curried Lentil Soup from Marly McMillen: Blogger, NamelyMarly, or use your leftover cooked lentils and just add them at the end!

4. Roasted Vegetables

Image Source: Roasted Vegetable Rainbow Hummus

Roasted vegetables are the side dish of champions when it comes to holiday menus. We can’t imagine how you could have any of those fantastic sides left over and not have eaten them all, but in case you do, let’s put them to good use. The time consuming roasting part has already been done, so just whip up one of these ideas for unforgettable leftover dishes! You can get creative and colorful, as well as making a variety of different options, with this Roasted Vegetable Rainbow Hummus from Adam Merrin and Ryan Alvarez. Or, jump back on the soup train and make this Creamy Roasted Butternut Squash Soup from Heather Nicholds.

If you have roasted eggplant to spare, you can easily make this Baigan Bharta: Indian Char-Roasted Eggplant Dip from Rinku Bhattacharya! Combine roasted veggies with virtually any other leftover ingredients that you want to use up in this Holiday Leftover Tart from Shea Cope!

Gratitude: Plant-Based Thanksgiving Cookbook

No other holiday captures the spirit of home cooking the way Thanksgiving does. This is why you need the ultimate Thanksgiving cookbook, One Green Planet’s Gratitude: Plant-Based Recipes to Create your own Thanksgiving Tradition! In the cookbook, you’ll find our 100 most popular plant-based Thanksgiving recipes like Soft Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts, Spiced Apple Cake with Cashew Frosting, Sweet Potato Chocolate Pudding with Nut Crumble Topping, Cinnamon Apple Hand Pies, and hearty entrees like Roast Root Vegetable Stack With Dukkah, Vegducken: Butternut Squash Stuffed With Eggplant, Zucchini, and a Mushroom Lentil Stuffing, and Seitan Roast With Sausage and Pear Stuffing and Apple Cider Gravy and so much more!