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Have a little too much turkey leftover from Thanksgiving? It’s time for a Turkey Casserole! Stir diced turkey together with white rice, broccoli, cheese and a savory sauce. Top with more cheese and french fried onions and bake until hot and bubbly. If you have ALL of the Thanksgiving side dishes left over as well, be sure to check out my Thanksgiving Leftovers Casserole recipe that will make sure NOTHING goes to waste!
Leftover Turkey Casserole | Post Thanksgiving Blues
You, me and all the neighbors have leftover turkey from our big Thanksgiving meals and we want to use it but might be a little sick of it. What should we make? Turkey Casserole!
Casseroles are such a Mom move, but for good reason! Casseroles are one dish wonders that come together in a cinch. It’s easy enough to throw together any weeknight but different enough from a big turkey dinner that we will welcome it with open arms to our dinner table. Serve with a simple Asian Cabbage Salad or leftover rolls and you’ve got yourself a pretty great meal.
Main Ingredients Needed for This Turkey Casserole
I love this recipe for a number of reasons, but the number one reason is this ingredients list. It’s SHORT. But everything is used for a reason and comes together in no time.
- White Rice– you will want to cook 2 cups of long grain white rice to give lots of substance to this turkey casserole.
- Leftover Turkey– you should probably have lots of this in your fridge! You can use white or dark meat; doesn’t really matter. Just be sure to remove any excess fat, skin or cartilage.
- Steamed Broccoli– my kids LOVE broccoli, so I use it a lot in my recipes, but any veggie will work fine as long as you and your family like it. Leftover maple glazed carrots work well, too!
- Cream of Chicken Soup + water– yes, I use condensed soup. It’s what makes this recipe so darn fail-proof and easy. You can use cream of celery or mushroom if you prefer the taste better. The condensed soup gets thinned out with a little water for this casserole ‘sauce’.
- Grated Cheddar Cheese– half gets stirred into the casserole and the other half is used on top.
- French Fried Onions– do you have these leftover from Green Bean Casserole? We always have some of these leftover. If you don’t have any of these lying around, see my list below of alternate crunchy toppings.
How to Make Leftover Turkey Casserole
If you have the rice cooked, the actual assembly should take 10 minutes or less. For more specific increments and directions, scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.
- Cook rice and steam broccoli. (Frozen or fresh!)
- Whisk cream of chicken soup together with water and salt and pepper until smooth. Set aside.
- Stir cooked rice, broccoli, turkey, sauce and half the cheese together in a large bowl.
- Pour casserole mixture into a greased casserole dish.
- Top Turkey Casserole with remaining cheese and french fried onions.
- Bake for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees until it’s hot and bubbly.
- Serve hot.
Don’t Have French Fried Onions? Try These Other Crunchy Toppings
If you don’t like or don’t happen to have french fried onions for your Leftover Turkey Casserole, feel free to substitute them for some other crunchy and delicious options:
- crushed potato chips (original ruffles are my favorite!)
- corn flakes
- crushed Ritz crackers
- seasoned bread crumbs tossed with melted butter
- extra cheese
- crumbled bacon
- cheese AND bacon 😉
Love Turkey? Here Are More Turkey Dinner Ideas:
Enjoy this delicious post-Thanksgiving Turkey meal! I hope you like it as much as my family did. Be sure to share/pin/bookmark/save/print this recipe because it’s a good, fail-proof, crowd-pleasing option to add to your dinner arsenal. Have a great day, friends!
Turkey Casserole
Ingredients
- 3 cups precooked turkey cubed (about 1 large breast, skin removed)
- 4 cups broccoli florets steamed
- 2 cups long grain white rice uncooked
- 2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup
- 3/4 cup cold water
- salt & pepper to taste
- 2 cups grated cheddar cheese divided
- 1 cup french fried onions
Instructions
- Cook 2 cups rice according to packaged directions. Steam broccoli by arranging florets on a microwave-safe plate, pouring 1/4 cup of water over the top of the broccoli, covering with plastic wrap, cutting a small hole in the top to vent and microwaving until tender, about 4 minutes. Drain if necessary.
- While broccoli is steaming, whisk together cream of chicken soup with water. Add in salt and pepper to your liking.
- In a large bowl, stir cooked rice, turkey, broccoli, 1 cup of cheddar cheese and cream of chicken soup mixture all together.
- Mixture should be evenly mixed and coated with sauce.
- Pour mixture into a greased casserole dish.
- Cover the top of your rice filling with remaining cheese and french fried onions.
- Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until heated completely through. Serve warm.
This is sooooo good! We made it twice in one week. Will feed an army, OR a family with 3 teens! I doubled the onions, because we love them. And just for fun, added a little Swiss cheese in the body…3 slices snipped up. Taking one to a pot luck tonight, and expecting to be famous, lol.
Famous Ame, Pam, adding cheese is NEVER a bad idea. Thank you for your 5-star rating. 🙂
This was absolutely delicious!! We all loved it. It will be one of our family favourites for sure. The only modification I made was to use leftover dressing from our turkey instead of the french onions. Not only did it smell delicious cooking but the dressing gave so much flavour.
Pam, love that idea! Sounds amazing. Thank you for your 5-star rating. 🙂
Delicious! Even my husband, who doesn’t prefer Turkey, said that it was good. I used 1 can cream of chicken and the same amount of nacho cheese sauce, while omitting the water and shredded cheese. Used frozen broccoli, without steaming it. Thanks for a great recipe!!!!
What can I sub for cream of soup please?
K, you can make your own sauce by making a roux (flour and butter) and then adding chicken broth.
Pretty darn good meal. Simple to make and tastes very good. Almost didn’t fit in the recommended cooking vessel. LoL
Very good. I made a few tweaks: Mixed the cooked turkey breast with leftover green bean casserole instead of broccoli. Added some crumbled cooked bacon I happened to have in the freezer. Instead of mixing everything together I layered: First the rice, then poured over 1/2 the soup (added garlic powder), then 1/2 the cheese, then the meat/green bean/bacon mixture. Poured over the rest of the soup. Topped with the rest of the cheese. Then the crisp onions. After baking, sprinkled with chopped green onions for a little freshness. Great way to use leftovers.
This is so good! I added pineapple instead of broccoli because broccoli is gross. So delicious!.
Wow. This was so good and simple. Such a great comfort meal when it’s cold out. I didn’t have leftover turkey, so I boiled chicken and cubed it. Other than that I followed the recipe as is.
Will make this again.
So delicious!! My family absolutely loves it!!
I will let you know in a few days
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